A jinxed evening

I’m sitting on the toilet reading a ‘What’s on in Birmingham’ that an out-of-it-looking guy pretending to be a Big-Issue vendor sold me. There’s an ad with pictures and the caption ‘Candy Shop; a Sweet Selection of High-Class Ladies; Catering for Individuals, Parties, Couples and Fetishes’. I wonder vaguely what it might be like to try. I’m waiting until I think everyone has gone to bed before I come out of the bathroom because I can’t bear to talk to anyone. This means I can’t risk going to the other bathroom for my toothbrush but I don’t care. Just before I started knocking tonight I rang a friend to hear ‘I’m in the middle of an Amazon order and my dinner’s on the table’. This set the tone for the evening. The woman who’d said ‘Call back on Thursday, we’re always in’ was not in or not answering. George at number 33 with whom I’d had a long friendly chat about his work with special-needs kids, and about our work seemed to have changed personality. ‘I’m busy and I’m not interested’, he snapped. I convinced myself that the evening was jinxed and it was all because of that phone-call. I mentally rehearse the cool tone I shall use the next time I talk to my friend. But the satisfaction that this brings is lukewarm and doesn’t last.