Distraction

I lost my ergonomic backrest today in a scenario reminiscent of Raising Arizona (those of you who are not familiar with this movie would be well advised to acquaint yourselves with this cult classic from the Coen brothers).

My office chair is of the 'large male executive' variety - completely unsuitable for working on a computer at a desk or for someone who is too short to either sit right back or touch the floor, and so I use an additional backrest for support. I need to work over the weekend, so I took it home when I left the office.

A further part of the saga involves a R50 note and a small cappuccino, of which the short version is that I had a handbag full of loose change with which to effect an exit from the parking garage. I placed the backrest on the roof of the car, and was scrabbling for the coins with my bag on the bonnet. Of course, they were in the furthest depths of the bag and in different divisions. A large Merc had evidently decided that my parking spot was where it should be parked and, as it was idling impatiently, I swept everything back into the bag, climbed in and reversed out. He didn't indicate that anything was amiss.

At the booth, I forked out handfuls of coins to the lady, who failed to say, "You have something on your roof" - she must have thought it a white, middle-aged lady idiosyncracy - nor did the driver of the car waiting behind me, although a simple hoot might have done the trick.

Soon I was out in the traffic and, at the first robot, I looked in my mirror and noticed a funny thing lying in the middle of the road about 50 metres back. Of course, there was no way of doing a U-turn and leaning out of the open door to snatch back my backrest, and so I drove on, naturally pretending it had nothing to do with me.

Perhaps a bergie will pick it up and find it useful. At least I know I must have caused a few laughs on a late Friday afternoon!