This is Why I Hate Surprises….

Any of you who read my post from yesterday will have realised that  I have teeny problem with thought separation inasmuch as I can’t stop the little buggers taking sides and beating the crap out of each other. One the one hand we have Captain Positive and his little band of perky cheerleaders and on the other Captain Doubt who is constantly throw a spanner in the works or, failing that, beating cheerleaders over the head with it.

Anyway,  I was promised a big surprise last week which led to an inevitable 3 day battle between the two Captains who have set up opposing camps somewhere in my cerebral spaghetti. The surprise giver was my best friend who is the kindest and most well intentioned person in the world. Unfortunately, he seems to think that I am far more well-adjusted than I actually am and dismissed all my pitiful whimperings about hating surprises as well as my increasingly hysterical demands to know what we would be doing, where we would be going, who with etc etc. All he would reveal was that we were going on his motorbike, it would be a new experience and I would have a great time……

Yesterday duly arrived and my friend arrived with his bike and a very large rucksack.

“So I’m carrying the rucksack then?” I was eyeing it suspiciously and it was glaring back.

I tried to pick it up with one hand and then put it back down.

“What the bloody hell have you got in here?????” I was convinced that it was full of rocks.

We argued for a while about the weight of the thing (I thought at least 30kg while he insisted no more than 10!)

“So how far is this place” I asked to try and smother the temptation to find a set of scales

“Just under 200km……..here I’ll help you with the bag”

My first thought was ‘just hand the bag back, say thank you very politely and go back indoors’ but then I thought ‘no! stop being such a wussy, your best friend has arranged a lovely surprise for you so suck it up’.

I handed over my sunglasses to be put in the rucksack (fortunately they don’t weight very much) and spotted two things which looked very much like cycling helmets or the helmets you wear to climb mountains…….or jump off bridges attached to giant elastic bands…….

Captains Positive and Doubt were barged out of the way by Sergeant Panic who was  screaming at the top of his lungs and banging frantically on the back of my eyeballs trying to get my attention. The Team Positive cheerleaders pushed him over, sat on him and jammed a pom pom in his mouth…..

I put my foot on the foot peg which is roughly the size of bourbon biscuit and hoisted myself up. The rucksack ensured that my first attempt failed and my second, although successful was anything but elegant.

“By the way [person he knows I don’t like] is coming with us…….” my friend said casually

Sergeant Panic had poked cheerleader 1 in the eye, spat out the pom pom and now had Captain Doubt by the lapels, was shaking him violently and demanding to know why he wasn’t doing anything…….

An hour into the journey and the good Captain and his Sergeant had stuffed all members of Team Positive into the broom cupboard and were sitting down with a number of distant cousins including Paranoia and Anxiety. There is not much to do on the back of a motorbike other than look at the view and listen to the voices in your head; as it was motorway for almost the whole damn journey it was standing room only for negative thoughts after….well, not very long at all really.

I swear I did my best. Captain Positive made a bid for freedom when I saw a sign for an Outdoor Activity Park but he was rugby tackled by Disappointment when I realised where we were actually going.

A race track. To watch a race. With thousands of other bikers.

This was not a new experience at all, there would be no adrenaline rush (which I was desperately praying for by this point as, in my experience, an adrenaline rush can kick the arse of pretty much any negative emotion) and I had worried myself sick for 3 days, for what? Captain Positive chose this moment to point out that that’s exactly why worrying is a waste of time but Corporal Anger kicked him in the crotch and he shut up.

Don’t get me wrong, I love motorbikes, I especially love watching my friends race as it’s exciting watching someone you know hurtle round a track at breakneck speeds but it’s something I’d done many times before. Why give me all this nervous anticipation for an Endurance Race I’d never heard of full of riders I didn’t know??

I’d like to say that I took all this in my stride, thanked my very kind friend and had a lovely day. I’d like to be able to say that but I can’t because it didn’t happen. Team negative seemed to have taken control of my facial muscles (forcing them into a frown) and my vocal cords (which they’d somehow manipulated so that all I was capable of was hhhmphhh).

Captain Positive, no doubt holed up somewhere with an ice pack on his balls, refused to take part in anything all day so it was party time for Team Negative. All I could focus on was the pain in my back (from the rucksack which would still be heavy on the return 200km journey), the guilt I felt for not appreciating the surprise day out, the unbearable, unrelenting noise, the heat and the masses and masses of people. I tried, I honestly did, not least because I was feeling bad about the way I was treating my best friend but the day just went from bad to worse….

Somehow Team Negative grabbed Granny Agoraphobia from the Sunnydale Retirement Home for Old Neuroses and I started to really panic. I tried to explain to my friend but he was justifiably pissed off with me, because I ‘d been a miserable git all day, and wasn’t really in an understanding mood. In the end, I was in floods of tears and insisted that we go home; I just couldn’t cope any longer. The day had been ruined, Team Negative had won and, as a result, I think I may have lost my best friend……

Lisa

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