Unknown
The Cat Sitter
Finally I'd got my bit of paper, I'd graduated, now all I needed was a job. The phone rang would I like to be an angel and baby sit some old guy who had been sent an invitation to his great niece's wedding but had a fear of flying.
Well nothing else was happening and I still had my passport so yes OK. I met him he seemed fine but with all this publicity of terrorist attacks he was feeling a bit unsure. I sat down and planned out the trip. We'd fly an airline that was unlikely to be a target. He'd seen photographs of London airport with police carrying machine guns and just in case one pulled the trigger by mistake?
I have an arrangement that he sits my cat and I babysit his nieces from time to time. I think he just likes having my cat around for a while.
We flew Aer Lingus into Dublin, he'd thought about business class but I said he could have the isle seat if we flew in the back after he mentioned his budget. I looked at some sample train fares, it was cheaper to buy some sort of special train ticket that gave us unlimited first class travel that was only available to overseas tourists. Well you never knew if there was money left over we might even get to the theatre in London. We caught the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead along with every tractor trailer they could find. Still we had a cabin and a bed to catch forty winks on.
I searched the internet and found the right train to catch to the village where the wedding was being held. I must confess it was a very romantic looking and picturesque church.
I looked at the budget, and found if we stayed in smaller places we could get cheaper hotel rates. Guess who was interested in seeing dirty old steam engines. They seemed to run on small branch lines that had been closed by Dr. Beeching whoever he was. By the way never mention his name where ever two or three railway enthusiasts are gathered together. Attila the Hun was described as mild by comparison. Whilst he was busy getting his hands dirty and thoroughly enjoying himself I sort of did a few sketches of a gadget that would make it easier for people to pull off bits of locomotives since they seemed so keen to take them apart in the back pages of his notebook, just to fill in the time.
Still all good things must come to an end and finally after scrimping and saving the entire trip and staying outside London but travelling in First Class each day we managed to get to the London theatres for a dozen plays and he seemed to enjoy them as well. I don’t know how others got on but trying to work out the cheapest cost of travelling by London Transport was not easy. It varied according to the day you travelled, the time of day, which bus, boat, train or tram you caught. I swear a degree in maths was essential to work it all out but we did manage to travel on a boat on the River Thames for me and a tram for him. We returned home and I bid him farewell.
A month later a temporary job turned up, not the one of my dreams you understand but chasing up companies to pay the outstanding balance on the sales ledger. Well it was numbers and what did I expect with a degree in maths? Actually it wasn't too bad, one company was slow in paying so I dropped by and talked to them. They had a huge order come in and were dashing round trying to subcontract and chase things up themselves. I suggested to my boss we increase their credit limit and since it was quiet he let them borrow me to help sort them out. I worked the photocopier for them, I answered the phone, I sorted the fax stuff, I even packed things in boxes would you believe? Still they got their order out and I left them to go back to my own company. “I can't believe we did that.” “Well their an old customer we've had for years so if we can help them out now they'll return the favour sometime. Now did you notice anything that we sell that might help them whilst you were there?” Sneaky.
“It's a special Christmas lunch you must come.” My cat sitter didn't ask much of me and it was quiet again so I tagged along. I recalled a restaurant where we were going but thought it had closed some time ago. Obviously someone had opened it up again. “Hi guys I've brought her.” I looked round but there was only me. We were sat in the place of honour at the centre of the table. Why I asked myself. I turned to him “What gives?” “Oh all these guys work for you so I thought it would be nice to have a Christmas lunch together so you could meet everyone.” Work for me? “Remember the gadget?” “Yes?” “Well I put together the company and it's a sort of success.” There were nods down the table. “But how did we grow so large in such a short time frame?” “Oh that was easy, Kyle did the programming, Zachary the electrical engineer did the hardware stuff. Chen organised the manufacturing.” “But what about sales?” “Oh we used Massdrop for that to get started and then once we'd got a few sales it snowballed from there.” I sat back and enjoyed lunch. At the end I pulled out my credit card. “Put that away. You own the place.” “I own the restaurant?” “Well it's a pop up sort of one. One of the waitresses who worked here when it went under is my sister and she thought it would pay over Christmas if she could get the gang together. I called the Mall management company in our companies' name and set it up. I thought you could look at the books to see if we could keep it going after Christmas. The Mall company are very keen to have it occupied.” I bet they were.
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