I went to visit my old friend Howard at the bistro where he was working to see if would be getting off work early.
It turned out that he had just started his shift so I decided to hang around for a while.
While waiting, I noticed the bistro had a takeaway butcher counter so I decided to get something to take home for dinner.
The butcher, an attractive young blonde haired woman, suggested a good cut of beef and asked how many people would be eating.
I told her we were five, but I was planning on making beef stroganoff so I wouldn’t need a full pound, that a half a pound would do.
She told me she didn’t know what beef stroganoff was, so I showed her a photo that I googled and she suddenly remembered what it was. I explained that I use egg noodles even thicker than the ones in the photo.
The woman told me how sweet and considerate I was for making my family dinner and she didn’t know any other men who did that and said she would love to find a man like me.
As I was walking back to my car, the woman came running behind and called out to me.
She apologized for being so direct and asked me if I would like to see her some time.
She then broke down into tears saying she had never felt anything so strong for another person and thought it might be love at first sight.
I held her in my arms and told her to call me when she got off work, joking that by then she'll have come to her senses and change her mind.
I noticed there was a lot of traffic as it was rush hour, so I decided to wait around for a while and put the package of beef in my car.
Then, I took my roller skates out of the trunk and put them on; then I wrapped myself in some sort of colorful silk sari and began roller skating around, not at all concerned about how very ridiculous I most certainly looked.
By the time I had realized it, I had skated far from my car and wasn’t sure I remembered the way back, so I decided to roller skate home.
I skated through suburban streets and at one point had to skate momentarily on the motorway in order to continue my journey.
Exiting the motorway, I had to maneuver a steep up ramp where I noticed an old Hispanic woman and her young grandson who were also on roller skates and having a difficult time getting up the ramp.
Speaking in Spanish, I offered to help the old woman and her grandson but she thanked me and said she was fine that they would just take their time and go at their own pace.
I finally realized it was going to take much longer than I thought it would to get home, so I decided to take the underground the rest of the way.
Arriving at the underground station I realized I would have to roller skate down into the station using ramps, stairs and escalators and was a bit apprehensive doing that especially as I wasn’t sure if roller skates were even allowed in the station or on the trains.
Still wrapped in the colorful sari, I drew many looks from passersby as I maneuvered my way down into the bowels of the station.
I finally made it to the ticket counter and was told to approach the window by the young Asian man standing there.
Before I could even ask the price of a ticket, he said that will be 80p.
No sooner than I could open my coin purse, the man was sticking his fingers inside it and began pulling out coins in an inpatient hurry.
I told him I thought he was being quite rude and he responded that in fact I was the one who was being rude by holding up the line.
I took my ticket and hearing the approaching train I quickly skated off towards the platforms where I soon discovered the train that was pulling into the station wasn’t mine.
Then I woke up.
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