Medway Transmissions

When I was in my early twenties, I worked in a Citroen garage.  I got into working there because I could use a computer and answer the telephone, and it was owned by one of my best friends Dads.  After a while I started dismantling cars and doing minor repairs, amongst other things. I loved working there, and if I could have stayed, I would have, but there was no way he could ever pay me more than minimum wage.

On this particular day we had very little work, save for a clutch on a Xantia owned by the sweetest old man you could hope to meet.  His name was Cecil and he was Werther's Originals cute, like Fisher Price had made the perfect Grandad.  He was polite and well spoken, always smiling, and nicely turned out.  He even did that Grandad thing of sorting his hair with a wet comb.

He'd arrived a little early to pick up his car and the boys were still working on it. We talked in the office for a while, and then he asked if he could have a look around the workshop, as he'd been an engineer in his youth and missed the tools and the smells.  Of course I obliged, and showed him around, and then I left him to it.

Workshops are dangerous places.  In the 5 years I worked there, I was genuinely almost killed three times.  One time, we were fitting a new distributor cap to a TR7, and it exploded up past my head, brushing my hair as it passed, embedding itself in the roof which was 20 feet up. With this experience fairly fresh in my mind, I kept a watchful eye on Cecil in between my duties in the office.  I watched him fiddle with the bench vices and grinding wheels, rearrange the spanners and sockets into their correct places, and finally, take out his glasses and squint at the calendars.

Workshop calendars have come a long way.  When I was a little girl, I used to walk down to the truck fitting shop that my Uncle worked in to take him his lunch.  He'd let me "drive" big articulated lorries whilst he did the pedals and the gears, and I steered (sort of).  Back then at the dawn of the 1990s, calendars just showed boob.  You may get a girl in lacy knickers, but she'd be shot from behind and then you'd just get side-boob.

The calendars of 2007 were a world apart, and one particular calendar was the most prized in our workshop - that of Medway Transmissions.  I'm pretty sure we only used Medway Transmissions a few times a year so we could get a calendar.  It was serious.  Oiled up with no bras, no knickers (unless they were at ankle level), legs akimbo - and usually holding everything apart so you could get the best possible view.  Any girl from that calendar wouldn't need to visit her gynaecologist - she could just send them the picture.

I was really worried.  He was right in front of the Medway Transmissions calendar.  He leant forward, and actually took hold of the calendar.  I couldn't watch, and sat back down at the computer well away from the window.  I was pretty sure he'd never seen anything like that before.

I put this to the back of my mind, and after about 20 minutes Cecil returned to the office.  Shortly afterward his car was finished; I took payment, stamped his book, and told him that if he had any problems to bring it straight back.  He shook my hand and told me I was a delightful girl.  Cecil would have been a total charmer when he was young.

After he had left, I ventured into the workshop.  To my shame, I was curious as to what he had been looking at on the Medway Transmissions calendar.  I hoped against hope that it was a slightly tamer month, or that it had been moved to a different ramp station.  I was to be disappointed.

As I approached the calendar, something was wrong.  It looked different.  I took the calendar down from the hook and noticed something dreadful.

Cecil had ripped the vagina out of the picture.

I turned the page, no vagina.

All of the vaginas from this calendar had been harvested.  Crudely ripped holes were all that remained of the vaginas of the girls from Medway Transmissions.  I checked the bins, in case he'd been so disgusted at the calendar he'd done this in protest.  There were no vaginas in the bin.  The fitters were beside themselves, what monster had done this to their most prized calendar?

Somewhere, there is an unassuming old man driving a Citroen Xantia, with a pocketful of vaginas.

It's a hard life being an Arch Mage

Magic tip of the day

If your magical area has been desecrated by evil spirits or perhaps a parent looking for laundry, sprinkle magic salt in the four corners of the room to purify it once more.

My Grey Epiphany

I live in a small, nondescript house on an undesirable road in Maidstone.  The road isn't even exciting enough to be bad, it's just unremarkable. The bottom end of my road is more exciting, people get stabbed and there are raids by armed police, but I live in the top end.  All the houses except ours are rented by transient workers, Poles mostly, but there are a few Latvians and Lithuanians.  Since they raided and boarded up the crack house across the street, we're the only British people here, which is fine, but can make one feel fairly isolated. Although I lived in the Balkans for a good while, the Slavic languages differ enough that I can only understand when they're swearing at each other or asking where something is.  I live in this house with my mother, who is at best slightly kooky, and at worst, certifiably bat shit crazy.

I work in the most boring industry possible, so boring you couldn't imagine it if you tried.  You may be thinking something like "Concrete Sales", "Radiator Factory" or "Dust Analyst", and you'd be miles out.  But I love my job, I genuinely do, and wouldn't change it, I thrive on it. However, when I'm getting hit on by men (which is rarely), and they ask me what I do for a living, I just have to say the two words that name my industry and their eyes glaze over.  Instantly they look like they have been deprived of sleep for a week.  That is my world.

So, today I realised that my life consists of three things.

1.  Work.

2.  My Dog.

3.  Films starring Kurt Russell or young Charlie Sheen; watched alone at night. I often think I need a bigger television.

Upon realising all of the above, it became apparent that unless I add a few things to that list, it's only a matter of time before I get a few cats, start buying fleeces with airbrushed wolves on them, and give up on ever having real-life sex with a man again.

With this in mind, I have added to my list.

4.  Start doing Pilates again

5.  Start drawing properly again, and go to Sketchbook Club at my local pub (yeah, NO.)

6.  Stop buying unnecessary items such as food or clothing, save up for a Trans Am, fail at saving more then a few grand, then settle for a Toyota Celica.

7.  Make a blog.  That way, if I die anytime soon, I will have left some sort of mark on the world.

And so begins my attempt at Number 7.