I sit down on the tram seat and a month’s worth of stresses and strains lifts itself from my mind. I have precisely two minutes to enjoy this before I have to get up and get off the tram and head to work.
I drift off into my happy place.
The sun is beating down on my back and Lancashire is beating down on Yorkshire.
The serenity is rudely interrupted as a pretty young lady with her hair tied back and a big beaming smile taps me on the shoulder.
I have been warned about this.
My Canadian Girlfriend constantly cautions me that I have to be on the look out for young women attempting to rape me in broad daylight. Every week she has me spend an hour practising self defence and running away very fast. She indoctrinates into me, like a mother tells her kids to be wary of Traffic, the Boogie Man and Matthew Kelly, that I have to be careful around blondes, brunettes and red heads. I am not allowed to make eye contact with them for if I do they will rape me.
Apparently, she says, this is because I am so irresistibly gorgeous and have the body of a Greek Statue.
The woman on the tram bends down and kneels in front of me placing her head at the same level as big Jim. I panic and begin to search for my Mace.
“You’ve got my scarf caught around your foot!” she says.
I lift my foot and dial the first two 9s on my mobile.
She turns around and walks away. I can only think that this has been a failed attempt to lasso me, hog tie me and drag me back to her lair. This has to be the case – Why else would she be dragging her scarf along the floor of the tram?
Secondly, doesn’t she know that it’s now summer time? Who wears a scarf in the Summer Time? I know it’s not technically Summer Time for a fortnight but the official changing over from the winter to summer jackets took place last weekend. Plus the domestic Cricket season starts in a month, so we better enjoy the weather while we can because there’s only a month left till it starts raining again.
This makes me wary of her motives.
I have had a lucky escape this time.