Steamrollered

I was half disappointed when the steamroller arrived this morning – as predicted by the chap in the high vis’ jacket – Nathan they call him. 

I have to say they’re making a nice job of the road and they’re quick – I assumed the cones were going to be out for a good fortnight before work started but, I hold my hands up. Don’t you be thinking it’s been plain sailing - the disruption has been horrendous over the last three weeks, Maureen says the café takings have dropped right off.

What started out as an emergency arrangement, after Chrissie left leaving me in the biggest lurch anyone could imagine, ended up with Maureen running the show. I’m not really sure how that happened. I should point out, she’s quite a lot older than me and she has a huge amount of management experience. Oh yes, apparently she was a Senior executive with National responsibilities - until mobile telephones put paid to the market for leather-bound personal organisers. That’s when she took over the farm shop. I find it hard to see the link between diaries and organic carrots but I have to say moving into the café world hasn’t troubled her one bit. 

 Maureen, or Ms Smith as she prefers to be addressed during working hours, is looking after the finances. I’ve no idea what’s going on. She counts the takings, orders the stock and following the January statement, she now deals with the bank. Last week she gave me a pay cut, said times were hard and trotted out the old one about cutting cloth. Whose café does she think it is?

The flowchart for producing a full English with a pot of tea was the last straw. But there was no talking to her. She was on a mission, completely power crazed and I was just there to do her bidding. I had to do something; she’d pushed me too far. 

Nathan, the road worker I mentioned, can talk for England. He’s a keen metal detector and often arrives on site half an hour before his boss so he can give the latest excavations a good sweep. Apparently, his collection of vintage bottle tops is legendary in the metal detector community. It was sometime last week that Nathan was telling me how they had to dig down twelve feet in some places to replace the gas pipes. He said that once the trench is filled in, they’re contracted to resurface the whole road. At least the tarmac won’t look as though it’s been smoothed off with the back of a spoon. Nathan was really looking forward to Thursday - filling-in the hole and then steamrollering. 

So I hatched a plan. 

After we’d closed up on Wednesday, the day before the steamroller was due, I’d wait behind the door of the walk-in pantry. I knew Maureen would come looking for me because she always did whenever I disappeared for more than two minutes. I’d use the heaviest pan I could find, one of my best cast iron skillets. I had a plastic bag stashed down the side of the freezer. Once she was completely unconscious I’d slip the bag over her head and hold it tight. Ten minutes would probably be overkill, if you know what I mean, but better to be sure.  

When it was dark, I’d go over to the road works. Gordon, the night watchman, is a creature of habit. I’ve noticed that after finishing his rounds he settles back into his caravan at about quarter to ten - he has a portable telly in there. I’ll bet you’re thinking it’s the kind of caravan you’d find by the seaside but believe you me, there’s nothing seaside about that caravan. I peeped through the window one afternoon. There are some things that you can never un-see.

Gordon never misses the ten o’clock news, he has a keen interest in current affairs – not to mention the weather – he’s says that even a small change in the barometric pressure can make or break his overtime pay. So ten o’clock, that’s when I would swing into action.

Maureen can’t be as heavy as she looks and builders’ wheelbarrows are quite sturdy. I reckoned two or three bin bags would be enough to wrap her up completely and I have plenty of duck tape – I had visions of a wayward limb and that would have been a disaster.  I have quite a sweat on just thinking about it, but then I’m not a risk taker. 

On the Wednesday morning it looked as though we might have a spot of rain and I got a bit panicky, imagining the soil being washed away in the night to reveal a body-shaped bin bag in the bottom of the hole. 

Things didn’t go well from the off. I saw Maureen going around the tables refilling the ketchup dispensers – now that’s my job and it threw me completely. I had a quick rethink, picked up the skillet, rushed into the pantry and shouted, 

‘Maureen, have you seen the...’

She was stood right in front of me before I was ready.

‘What are you doing in here with that pan in your hand?’ she said, pointing at me with a plastic tomato. ‘Have you nothing better to do? What about changing the chip fat? It’s been in that fryer longer than I’ve been on solids.’ She walked off. I was flabbergasted. All I could do was put the skillet down and reach for the ten-litre tin of vegetable oil. 

So there you are, now you know why I was half disappointed to see the steamroller this morning. I’ve completely missed my chance.

Tomorrow, I’m going to put my foot down.

and the password you have set up.