storytelling

Although I don’t have a car I have a number of petrol pump rituals. I always check to see how much the previous person spent. Not for the amount, but for the number: what happened in that year? Or if they’ve put a lot in, what will be happening in that year? Sometimes it’s a great relief to see the numbers get reset, back to zero. Sometimes that’s what I’d like for myself.

When the numbers start going round I continue thinking about history. Dates when things happened. From zero to about a hundred there are a few things: birth and death of Christ, Roman invasion of England, destruction of Pompeii etc. After that it gets a bit sparse. I ought to look some things up. Things kick in again at 1066. Eventually the numbers become more personal. Dates my grandparents were born or when my parents got married, when I had my first girlfriend, ….this year. Even on sluggish pumps it hardly takes any time at all to pass through those dates. Were it not for the fact that we are living around the twenty pound mark it would be pretty easy to go past our time un-noticed.