Written on Sunday, on the fourth attempt
I’m Sorry
I am not going to be funny on this page. Being funny is the entire reason we are here, and I have finally noticed. Four days on Thursday night, four attempts at writing it down, and this is the one that survived.
The actual thing, with none of the softening
What I did, and then the worse thing I did after.
At Priya’s leaving dinner I told the table the printer story. Your first week, you in the corridor in tears because the thing had eaten the same forty pages four times, me doing the voice, nine of your colleagues laughing — one of whom hired you.
You waited until the car. You said it once, quietly, somewhere near the roundabout by the retail park.
And I argued. For eleven minutes. I said it was affectionate. I said you tell it yourself. I did all of this while driving, which at least meant you could not leave.
The joke was bad. Making you argue for your own feelings on a dual carriageway was considerably worse.
The bit I entirely failed to consider
You got two seconds. I took eleven minutes.
The bit I failed to consider, being fully occupied with being funny: you had about two seconds at that table. Two seconds to work out whether to say something and become the woman who cannot take a joke at a leaving dinner, or laugh and be fine. You laughed. That is the option that costs you everything and me nothing, which is presumably why I keep leaving it lying about for you to pick up.
Then you carried it through pudding and the goodbyes and into a car with the man responsible, and waited until we were alone so that I would not be embarrassed in front of your colleagues.
You protected me from what I had done to you. And I spent eleven minutes arguing with you about it.
Specific, checkable, unimpressive.
Deliberately dull, so you can hold me to every one.
- 01No story about you at any table where you work. Not the printer, not the interview, not even the ones you like. There is nothing at that table I need.
- 02When you tell me something hurt, I say nothing for a count of ten. If I still disagree the next day, that is when you hear about it.
- 03I have already written to Priya and to Dan, without you asking, saying the story was mine to stop telling and that I did not stop.
- 04Nothing gets argued in the car. If it starts in the car, it waits until we are parked and the engine is off.
- 05You can say “that one” about any story I tell, at any point, and I will never once ask you to justify it.
The printer story, told properly for once
- Your first week
The night the printer actually jammed
You were still in the corridor at half nine because the thing had eaten the same forty pages four times and you would not go home until the pack was printed. You were not crying about a printer. You were crying because it was day four and you badly wanted it to go well. I have been telling that as a joke for two years. It was never a joke. It was you caring more than the job had asked you to.
Three envelopes. No obligation to open any.
They keep. There is no deadline anywhere on this page.
Stay angry for as long as it takes. I am not going to start counting the days, and I am not going to leave hopeful little openings in conversation to see how it is going. Nothing on this page expires, including the five things, which are happening whether or not you are speaking to me.
Say when, and I will turn up without a case prepared. No context, no what I actually meant, no eleven minutes. You talk, I listen, and if I disagree with any of it you will hear about that tomorrow or not at all.
That is allowed. This does not need a reply to have been worth writing down, and I am not going to ask you at the weekend whether you read it.
You had two seconds
and spent them protecting me.
I had eleven minutes
and spent them arguing.
I am not asking you
to call that even.
One more. Then I stop.
There is nothing under here asking you for anything. I wanted the five things written down somewhere you can go back to, so they are checkable and not just something I said in a kitchen.
What I should have said instead of the eleven minutes
I have written this four times and deleted the same paragraph each time — the one where I explain the joke. You have already had the explanation, at fifty miles an hour, unrequested, for eleven minutes.
What I worked out on about the third attempt: I have been telling the printer story for two years because it reliably gets a laugh, and at some point I stopped checking what it costs the person it is about. That is the whole thing. You became material. Not deliberately, which sounds like a defence and is actually the confession.
The joke was one evening and could have ended at the roundabout. It did not end at the roundabout, because I would rather have been right than have been listening.
So: no more explaining. No asking where we stand. No cheerful text on Wednesday to see whether the weather has changed. The five things start now, because they ought to have been true before Priya’s leaving dinner and they were not.
You said it once, quietly. I am roughly two years late hearing it.
— sorry, and out of material
No explanation.
No eleven minutes.
No cheerful text on Wednesday
to test the weather.
Five things.
Starting tonight.
Answer, or don’t.
Nothing is required of you here.
The five things are already running. You can leave this unanswered for as long as you like and they carry on regardless. I will not mention it, which is the part I will find difficult.
four drafts, no jokes, one printer