My Life According to James

Flat mates are brilliant and I am so fortunate to be blessed with five of them. There are few days which go by that my inbox does not receive a witty or satirical email from no other than the James (the Black Dart) which inevitably is some creative form of mocking my life. For example the time James wrote a story depicting me as a sorceress amidst a world of ogres and fairies, or the epic poem about how I was beaten in a game of Catan. (both will be posted in due time). Today’s story, like the others, is loosely based on an actual occurrence in my recent life…


Wow... that nap came out of nowhere
by James M.

So I was sitting around last Friday when my phone starts ringing. I glance down at the caller ID and recognize the number instantly. It’s Norman! Truth be told, I’m a little surprised to be getting a call from Norman. Our friendship had taken a bit of a nose-dive as of late. I met Norman a few months ago through a mutual acquaintance, and we really hit it off. Before I left we had gotten pretty close. When I first got to London, Norman and I talked every day through Skype or Instant Messenger. As the weeks progressed, however, the conversations became less and less frequent. Eventually our communication lapsed into simply instant messaging and eventually, to emails. Over the past month or so Norman has become increasingly distant. My long letters to him have gone largely unanswered and once when I attempted to call him he pretended to be his African roommate Brigamutu; and to only speak Swahili.

So it was with an air of incredulity that I answered my phone. “Hey Joe, what’s up?” (I call him Joe, it’s an inside joke).

I heard that deep baritone voice respond, “hey Becky, not much. Just seeing what you were up to.”

“Oh,” I reply, “not much.”

“Cool. Listen. I’m going to be in England pretty soon. Around New Years. You have anything exciting going on that week?”

“No, actually, work is closed down that whole week for New Years and I’m the only person in my office who didn’t know. Turns out I’m coming back pretty early, earlier than my flatmates, actually. I don’t have anything going on that week at all.”

“Oh cool… cool. Listen, my buddy and I were going to be flying into London, renting a car, and heading up to see a football game in Manchester. The thing is, we were planning on having four people come with us, you know, to divide the gas fare, so we bought four tickets, but we can’t get anyone else to go.”

“Oh yeah,” I ask nonchalantly. I’m not the biggest Manchester fan, but it would be nice to see Norman.

“Yeah. So anyways, we are pretty desperate to get someone to go with us. We wouldn’t even make them pay for the tickets, just the gas fair. So… yeah… I was thinking I’d probably ask these two French exchange students that are studying here for the semester if they wanted to come along.”

For the moment I am too surprised to speak. I manage to utter a chocked, “urgggh?”

“Yeah. They are pretty cool guys. Hopefully they will want to come. It’s a bit of a pain for them to get to London though, so who knows. Anyways, what have you been up to?”

“Ummm… I’m doing well,” I manage to respond. Then, getting a second wind I continue, “I actually had the most amazing…”

I hear a bellowing yawn echo from across the phone. “Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnn… Oh man… wow; this nap just came out of nowhere. Listen Becky, I’ve got to go. Nice talking to you.” There is a momentary click, and then the phone goes silent.

-James