Be Careful What You Wish For...

So - as you all know I have had some 'issues' with the hall I use for my teaching.  Issues including fig-roll stealing-Orange Club raffling-line hopping-chain smoking ancients, a roof that leaks because some scumbag stole all the lead, a toilet a heavily pregnant lady got locked in, a man in a Stetson who subtly threatened me over my mis-use of dishwasher detergent and that's before we get to being serenaded by faulty fire alarms and an intruder alarm that seems to wait for me to relax before causing my near collapse.  And so it was with some joy that I found out that for one of my recent sessions a different hall had been booked! A much newer posher generally all round 'lovelier' venue.  Wooo hooo! Good bye ancients, good bye handwritten threats on Sarah Lee Gateaux, good bye local youths peering in the the windows while I hold up placards of vaginas.   From now on everything will go swimmingly.....

It all started well.   

I had to pick up the fob - yes FOB, electronic automatic device thing - from a highly ordered awfully polite lady called Margaret.  Nobody was smoking a roll up or wearing a Stetson or warning about local rituals.  All I had to be aware of was that the lights would come on automatically when I swiped my fob.  Imagine that!! From the darkest depths of a 1970s pub carpet and flickering strip lights to AUTOMATIC ILLUMINATION. 

WOW.  

And then I got there.  

And it was all incredibly well kept and incredibly clean and errr incredibly ordered.  Everywhere I looked there were signs and signs and well more signs. And orders and instructions.  I began to feel that I had been overtaken by some kind or higher order.  The Order of Margaret and her Kin.  

It started at the door......

And continued inside.....where we were helpfully shown just exactly where the light switch was (but sadly not  how to operate it - personally I think 'press here for illumination' is needed you know, just in case).  We were also shown just exactly what doors not to go out of, unless the place set ablaze (god forbid). 

And the feeling of being in quite another universe just grew and grew..... I mean I understand the dangers of over stacking chairs, many halls have a sign saying 'MAX 6 CHAIRS IN EACH STACK' but here we have quite a different level of order.  We have chairs segregated on grounds of whether or not they have arms.  We have numbers both as numerical symbols and as written words. We have a picture of a chair just in case you were previously unsure as to what one looked like.  And of course best of all we have an arrow showing you just exactly where the corner is.  Because corners of rooms, you know what? They can be illusive.

At this point I decided I needed a cup of tea but on entering the kitchen I was relieved I was not classified as a 'weekend user' (although I will confess that in past I have used many things to get through the weekend - particularly if it involves rain and small children) but was fascinated to find there was an entire drawer dedicated to 'teaspoons'.  That's a whole lotta teaspoons. 

On turning round in the kitchen I was alarmed to find that there are apparently mysterious people out there who go round adding random tubes of Savlon to other people's First Aid kits.  You have been warned.....

So with that in mind, I went to set up my refreshments on the tea trolley but then decided maybe not.... I did not want to risk anyone moving it... 

Groping for the kettle I kept clear of all other switches.... 

And then went looking for the mugs.  Ironically I could not find any mugs for quite some time, but I sure knew where everything else was.  Seriously this is just a SMALL selection of the labelling of the kitchen. I was worried I'd wear my phone battery out if I took the full portfolio. It was like someone's John Lewis wedding list got cut up and laminated.   Boy do they love sealing things up in wipe proof plastic sheaths.....

These aren't just platters - these are OVAL platters...

Woah! The photo below stopped me short mid-photoshoot......  Hmm so if it looks like a cupboard but it is NOT a cupboard what is it? And if it's not just a pretend cupboard that isn't a cupboard so doesn't open why can't you try to open it and merely fail and think 'oh it's one of those silly pretend cupboards they put in to make it look neater'??  Now clearly I could have answered this by disobeying the sign and just trying to open it. But I didn't.  I actually got scared by all the signs.  I felt a sort of creeping dread.  A dread that I would uncover something I really shouldn't.  That curiosity really could kill the cat (or in fact me).  I feared I might find the body parts of someone from the Bridge club or some kind of equipment that gets used when everyone else things it's the over 70's Short Mat Bowls.  Or maybe, just maybe, another really angry sign saying 'we told you not to open this cupboard and now the curse of a thousand years shall descend on your family'.  Actually I think maybe I already must have opened that cupboard.....Anyway - I started thinking about Ancient Egypt and tombs and those scary beetle things in that Mummy film and I left the cupboard that isn't a cupboard well alone but have annoyingly pondered on it ever since.....

You think I'd use your dishwasher?? No offence but on the evidence presented I think I'd like to speak to my Lawyer first and you know, get a kind of pre-nuptial drawn up before I enter into that kind of usage of your facilities.....

See I told you it would get complicated.....

Okay okay.....

Yeah probably while you scan my retinas and close down the CCTV file....

You know what I said about the dishwasher? Well it counts for the heating system too.  At the other place - the crazy hall - you just simply turn the radiator up.  Reach down. Grab a knob. Turn it.  End of story.  Unless you get too hot. Then you turn it back again.  Simple. 

Sorry? You want me to take a blue mop for a walk? Okay okay... Does it get a biscuit afterwards if it behaves? 

If only I was making this up.... 

By this point I had reached the stage of rash rebellion.   When I heaved those goddam heavy tables back into that cupboard do you know what? I let them fall in what ever direction they wanted to and there may - I say MAY have not been 8 to the left and 7 to the right.  It could have been 7 to the left and 8 to the right.  Am I bovvered? No.  I have risen from my oppression and am now rebelling. 

And thus it continued.  

The couples arrived and sat in a kind of frightened silence. Nobody even wanted to make a cup of tea.  It was then that I knew.  However insane things were back at the other hall, however weird and crazy and 'not like you might have hoped' do you know what? It was where I belonged. The chaos suited me. I was born to cope with it.  Born to catch drips in buckets or shout at Panto groups to shut up or confront old people about their smoking and biscuit theft.   So thank you Margaret and Co - you keep a truly lovely hall - you really do - but you are BLOWING MY MIND WITH YOUR SIGNS.  I'm outta here.

And so it was a week later I was back where I belonged..... standing next to a man in a Stetson who warned me about the Christening party coming in at 1pm and the left over food from the 'gone wrong wedding' the night before that was cluttering up the kitchen area and reminded me about the dishwasher fluid.... 

I never thought I'd say it but I was glad to be back.....

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