Why I Hate Fridays

Today's really not a good day at work, even though Greg is highly-impressed with my achievements. First I manage to lose an arsonist in the lift and then I collect a bomber on the stairs.

It all starts when I go downstairs to collect the arsonist for his surgery appointment, only to find him in a wheelchair, apparently due to a recent arson attack that went wrong.

He has a posse of carers with him, which leaves no room for me in the lift, so I give strict instructions that the group should go up to the third floor and wait for me there.

Then I run like a lunatic up the six half-flights of stairs. (Note to self: reconsider recent decision not to give up smoking. Anti-Nanny State rebellion is all very well, but being unable to breathe isn't.)

I get to the top (eventually) and wait for the lift to arrive. The light shows that it is on the second floor - oh, and going down. So where are they? I run around the third floor seeking the wheeled arsonist, but there's no sign of him. so it's back to the lift. Oh, hell - now the basement light is on.

I run back down six flights of stairs - God, my breathing's getting worse - but there's still no sign of the twisted fire-starter anywhere, or of his posse. There's nothing for it but to start running back upstairs again, but then I'm stopped on the second-floor landing by man brandishing a Tesco carrier bag and demanding to know where the MP's office is.

"Why?" I ask. Such stunning presence of mind.

"Because I've got a bomb here for the lying bastard," comes the reply.

The bomber is at least eighty and seems pretty shaky, so I direct him politely in the wrong direction, (towards the ground floor and the security doors that some f*ckwit obviously let him through earlier), then run up the remaining three flights and back into the office.

"Phone the Police!" I gasp at Greg. "Arsonist in the basement and bomber on the stairs."

To his credit, Greg merely raises his eyebrows before picking up the phone and dialling. I collapse in a chair, while The Boss continues to talk to someone on his mobile about his reasons for deciding not to stand for the Labour Party leadership. I don't think he listens to a word I say.

Half an hour later, a Police Constable brings me a very irritated arsonist and team, all of whom have apparently been lost in the underground car park for the last forty-five minutes. The Boss agrees to write to the manager of the arsonist's bail hostel to query the decision to refuse to allow smoking in the bedrooms.

Having been captured by the same Police Constable a short while later - he wasn't really built for speed - the ageing bomber accepts a cup of tea and sympathy, and is finally escorted off the premises, being allowed to keep his Tesco bag into the bargain. (Six tins of catfood and a packet of custard creams.)

Then The Boss says, "Nice to be back to normal, eh, Molly?" and goes off for his newly-arranged working lunch with the political editor of The Northwick Press, who doubles as the paper's restaurant critic. Does Andrew ever notice anything?

I try to tell Max all about it when I get home but, although he makes noises in all the right places and waits for me to finish, he then says what a bad day he's had with an enormously fat customer and a collapsing sofa.

It occurs to me that there are people in the world who are having intelligent conversations about philosophy, or semiotics, or feminism  - right this minute. Why is it that I'm not one of them? I'm sure I was intended to be.