The To-Do List (10 page)

Mike x

P.S. Happy New Year!

P.P.S. The only way is up!

PART FOUR

January–April

(During which a new year begins, I get stuck into the To-Do List and try my very best to make it to the first audit)

Selected Highlights from Mike’s To-Do-List Diary (Part 1)

Monday 1 January

5.15 a.m.
Woke up and headed downstairs to tackle my first To-Do-List item of the New Year. 943: ‘Find the instruction manuals for the video recorder and DVD player and work out how to put the correct time on the clocks because they’ve been telling the wrong time now for five and a half years.’

5.55 a.m.
Have turned the whole house upside down looking for the aforementioned manuals and although I have located instruction manuals for a bread maker (that we no longer own), the condenser boiler and two kettles (how stupid can you be that you need instructions to turn on a kettle?), no sign of the ones I want.

9.00 a.m.
Have finally located instruction manual for the DVD player inside a book called
Play bass guitar in three months! Video player instruction manual still nowhere to be seen.

9.23 a.m.
Have officially earned my first half tick! The ‘half’ is based on the fact that while the DVD player now displays the correct time the video player doesn’t as without the manual I still can’t work out how to programme the clock.

9.46 a.m.
Problem solved. Have given away our video player to John and Charlotte and decided to move on and attempt Item 254: ‘Try growing a beard because you will look good with one’.

Tuesday 2 January

3.21 p.m.
I am in the car on the way over to Arthur’s house (because Arthur owns every sci-fi/geeky TV series DVD in the world) in a bid to fulfil Item 1041: ‘Find out what happened at the end of the
X-Files
because it might actually have been interesting’.

3.49 p.m.
I am currently arguing with Arthur (who takes his TV sci-fi series about as seriously as the Pope takes Catholicism) because he claims I can’t just watch the last episode on its own because it won’t make any sense. In order to understand the ‘full narrative flow’ of the final episode, I need to watch all 23 episodes of the final series.

4.33 p.m.
After much heated ‘debate’, Arthur and I have reached a compromise: he will let me watch the final episode (which is actually in two parts!) without watching all the others if I allow him to verbally explain the ‘narrative thread’ running through all NINE series of the
X-Files
.

4.55 p.m.
Arthur has been talking now for a good twenty minutes and although I am trying my very best NOT TO LISTEN TO A SINGLE WORD HE IS SAYING occasionally a phrase like ‘The smoking man’, ‘The Lone Gunman’ or ‘Black oil’ manages to permeate my ear drums. This despite my attempt to block out the white noise of sci-fi fandom with internal choruses of ‘La, la, la, I’m not listening! La, la, la! You think I’m listening but I’m not!’

5.19 p.m.
Arthur puts the disc with the final episode into his DVD player. I settle down and prepare to be blown away.

6.00 p.m.
I am officially bored out of my skull. Nothing makes any sense even with Arthur pausing to explain EVERY SINGLE significant plot point.

7.00 p.m.
It is over and I am none the wiser. Are the aliens real? What did happen to Mulder’s sister? And okay, so they’ve tied up a few loose ends but none of it (at least to an outsider) makes any real sense. Still, it’s another tick in the box.

Wednesday 3 January

4.23 p.m.
I am sitting at my desk with a pen and paper in a bid to tick off Item 948: ‘Write a letter to the Chadwick family who have been sending Christmas cards to the Smiths who used to live at our address to tell them that the Smiths no longer live here.’ This is a hard letter to write. How do I begin to explain that while I’ve appreciated the last seven years’ worth of Christmas cards and round robins (I was especially pleased to hear that young Gilly had returned from Australia but was saddened to hear the news that Dixie the dog had passed away) the Smiths don’t even like the Chadwicks enough to let them know that they’ve moved house SEVEN YEARS after the event? I decide to go with the following: ‘Hi, I’m Mike Gayle the new owner of The Smiths’ former house. Sadly, the Smiths have moved away without leaving a forwarding address. However, feel free to carry on sending the cards because we’re really keeping our fingers crossed that Auntie Margaret pulls through. Cheers, Mike Gayle.’

Thursday 4 January

7.43 p.m.
I am on the phone with my friend Richard in a bid to get his address and postcode in order to fulfil Item 817: ‘Get yourself an address book and write down people’s addresses’. I used to have an address book with people’s addresses in it. It was great. If I wanted to write to someone I could open it up find their address and send them a letter. Fifteen years on not only do I not have an address book (I got sick of crossing stuff out whenever they moved rented accommodation) but I don’t actually have anyone’s addresses either. I have their mobile number or, if I’m really lucky, a land line number which means that come Christmas (or if they’re lucky their birthday) I have to call them up to find out their address thereby spoiling any surprise that they might have enjoyed on discovering a card from me.

9.43 p.m.
I am only halfway through this endeavour and I have learned several things:

1. No one can remember their postcode.

2. No one answers their phone any more.

3. This is a good way of catching up with people who, the second you hear their voice, you remember just how much you like them.

10.45 p.m.
Tick.

Friday 5 January

11.55 a.m.
I am down in the basement looking for my toolbox in a bid to tackle Item 550: ‘Try to open the rear bedroom window that hasn’t been opened in the three years since you painted it shut’. At the time it had occurred to me that it wasn’t exactly the wisest thing to do, but I told myself I would try moving it later so that it wouldn’t stick. Of course I never did move it later and of course it stuck.

12.08 p.m.
The window won’t budge for love or money. It’s as though it’s been superglued to the frame. I look in my toolbox for inspiration and spy a screwdriver.

12.31 p.m.
I am in B&Q looking for wood glue. Who knew that if you jabbed a screwdriver into a wooden pine frame and wiggled it about, a massive chunk would splinter off so easily?

Saturday 7 January

7.21 a.m.
I am by the tap in the kitchen looking at a pint of water because Item 483 is ‘Drink more water because it’s healthy’. I drink the water in one go and await feelings of intense inner healthiness.

9.45 a.m.
I am in the newsagents buying a two-litre bottle of Evian. I determine that I will polish one of these off every day.

10.00 a.m.
I am having a wee. Normally it looks a bit like Lucozade. Today it is straw coloured, just like so-called experts say it should be. I am pleased.

11.13 a.m.
I am having another wee (it is still straw coloured).

13.23 p.m.
I am having yet another wee (still straw coloured).

14.55 p.m.
I am talking to my wife about what colour her wee is. ‘Is it straw coloured?’ I ask. ‘I’m not telling you.’ ‘It should be straw coloured’ I tell her. ‘If it’s not your kidneys must be knackered.’

7.30 p.m.
Straw coloured or not, I am bored of weeing. I am also bored of drinking and thinking about drinking. In fact I’m actually fantasising about being thirsty. It is no fun at all being fully hydrated.

Sunday 8 January

8.21 a.m.
I am checking out my burgeoning beard in the bathroom mirror. I think it looks great in a sophisticated and mature kind of way as though I might be a captain of industry having a weekend off from being a captain of industry.

9.21 a.m.
I’ve just picked up Lydia to give her a kiss and she’s pulled a face, rolled her eyes just like her mum and asked Claire why Dad has got his ‘scratchy face’ on? ‘I don’t know,’ says my wife despondently. ‘I really don’t know.’

11.45 p.m.
Just in from a night out with the Sunday Night Pub Club. Beard has gone down very well indeed. Kaytee said I looked distinguished and Jo and Amanda said that I looked ‘handsome’. The boys loved the beard so much that they have all made a pact to grow beards too. ‘We’ll be the beard gang,’ said Steve. ‘And have a secret beard handshake and everything.’

Chapter 9: ‘Get rid of your AOL account because it’s just beyond ridiculous that you’ve been paying them £11.99 a month for a service that you don’t even use any more.’

I had been with the multinational internet service provider AOL ever since one of their CDs dropped out of a magazine I’d been reading back in the mid nineties. Back then people had been going on about this thing called ‘the internet’ and how it was going to change the future and in a short space of time I’d moved from being unconvinced (dismissing it to one friend at the time as ‘a bit like CB radio for computer geeks’) to a full-on convert as everyone I knew began to get email addresses. Within a few hours of my dial-up being installed I was surfing, sending emails
and
downloading a solitary four-minute Coldplay b-side in just under six hours. I was in love.

       
In spite of having pledged my troth to AOL with a monthly direct debit of £11.99, when the opportunity came along a few years later to get a faster broadband service through my cable provider for £15.99 a month I grabbed the opportunity with both hands. But rather than cutting all ties with AOL and moving on to a new life with Telewest, I carried on paying AOL.

       
For the first month or two my reasoning was that I couldn’t afford the time to mess about changing email addresses and exporting address books. As those months became two years I began to wonder whether I was suffering from some kind of mental illness which led me to confuse the act of cancelling my direct debit with dumping a particularly tear prone girlfriend. Fearful that my actions might result in tears and tantrums, like any good bloke I avoided any opportunity for conflict and decided that rather than come out with the truth (‘I’m just not that into you any more’) I’d go with the old ‘extrication two-step’: Step 1) present the person/multinational you wish to leave with an insurmountable problem that explains why you want to call it off. Step 2) cross your fingers and hope that they can’t come up with a solution.

       
For ages now email access via my computer had been very unreliable, and having set up an alternative email address in preparation, now was the time to let AOL know the situation was unacceptable. It was a no-brainer. Victory would be mine.

       
‘Hello, Mr Gayle,’ said the man from AOL, ‘you’re through to AOL and my name is “Steve”, how may I help you today?’

       
‘Hi, Steve,’ I replied even though it didn’t take a genius to work out that he was based in Bombay and wasn’t really called ‘Steve’ at all. ‘My email’s not working.’

       
‘I see,’ said Steve. ‘That is a problem. Mr Gayle, can I ask are you using an Apple Mac or a PC?’

       
‘A Mac.’

       
‘Ah,’ replied ‘Steve’. ‘I can only deal with problems related to PCs. I will have to put you on to my colleague.’

       
And before I could reply I was put on hold.

       
After what seemed like an age I was put through to ‘Jason’, their Apple Mac specialist who took me through a number of procedures which didn’t work before suggesting that I re-installed the software.

       
Even though all I wanted to do was leave I felt the very least I could do was go through with this suggestion and so I searched high and low for the AOL software disk, undertook a clean re-install and then attempted to check my email. It still didn’t work.

       
Punching the air with glee I called AOL straight back.

       
‘Hello, Mr Gayle, you’re through to AOL and my name is “Robert”, how can I help you?’