A mini-drama

This story is based on true events. That happened on Saturday. Any character that bears any resemblance to any person living or dead exists because it's about me. And I'm like totally a real person.

Katy got home and found an envelope on the bookcase. Just a little envelope. Plain and white and sitting there, minding its own business. It looked like your run-of-the-mill faceless printed nonsense belonging in the category of uninspiring credit card-related junkmail; perhaps at best some beseeching charity-related sales material. It took her a moment to focus her eyes on the tiny yet familiar logo on the single sheet of paper she found inside.

Look carefully, my keen-eyed cherubs. Can you tell what it is yet?

'Dude.' She cried. 'It's freaking WIMBLEDON tickets.'

Katy had assumed she would have no chance in the ticket ballot amongst the maelstrom of baying tennis hounds around the UK and indeed the world and had put it to the back of her mind but the sheet in front of her told no lies. The reality of the situation sank in.

'I'VE SCORED FREAKING WIMBLEDON TICKETS!!!!!!'

Katy cannot believe her luck. The OPENING DAY as well, that will be quite something. Think of the atmosphere! The frisson of excitement running through the veins of the thronging, strawberry-eating, Pimms-quaffing SW19 contingent; it's too mouth-watering to even contemplate! And Number 3 court! It may not be centre but it renders the chances of Katy seeing her favourite players HIGH, bearing in mind none of them rank higher than 10.

But suddenly, reality dawns. Monday 20th June. Oh god.

'That's Exam Board week!! Only the busiest and most important week of the year in my godforsaken job! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! There's no WAY work will let me take that day off.'

Quickly she rationalises... 'But - but - it's freakin' WIMBLEDON dude! I'll fake an exotic disease! I'll threaten to sue them for wrongful, er, wrongful not-letting-me-have-the-day-off-al! It's so UNFAIR!!

So. Not. Impressed. But there must be some way... The optimist within her fights and battles and...

All of a sudden her eyes zero in on a date printed towards the bottom of the letter. 07/04/11. 'When's that then?' She wonders in passing. 'That's like, next year or whatever, dude. And what does it mean, anyway? Could it be important in some way?'

The words before it read 'PAYMENT MUST BE MADE BY'.

Then it hits her.

Oh. Holy. Arsepotatoes.

That date was... Thursday. Just. Gone.

'I've missed. The cocking. Cut-off date.'

She wildly flails around for a target to slam with the full force of her blame and recrimination.

Is it because the letter arrived late, and therefore it's all Wimbledon's fault? Noooooo.

Is it because the postman somehow failed to deliver the letter, hence rendering the whole of the Royal Mail responsible, the blundering, incompetent fools? Noooooo.

Or could it be, perchance, because Katy left the envelope sitting on the bookshelf for a week because she thought it was just another tree-raping piece of pointless, needless, worthless, fetid, pollip-in-the-armpit-of-the-world junkmail?

Yes. Yes it could well be.

This tragedy was brought to you in the third person because the protagonist can't bear to inhale the filthy stench of her own putrid incompetence. Quite why she used her own name in the story she doesn't know. She really must be some kind of prize idiot.

I feel no further exposition is necessary, other than to state the clear moral of the story. I BLOODY LOVE TENNIS, ME!

Oh wait, that's not it. That's just an unfortunate fact I happen to be pretending is untrue at this present moment in order to salve the cheese-grating torment of my own gargantuan failure.

The moral of the story is in fact: OPEN YOUR ARSING MAIL, YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER IMBECILIC HALF-WIT!

This is me now:

Sorry about all the image stealery and adaptery. But thanks. That's totally correct referencing behaviour and shiz, right? Yeah, I thought so too.