When it comes to lolly theft, only Bruce Lee will do.

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Somebody at work has been stealing my ice-pops, and I’m furious.

I’ve been working at a homeless hostel for a few years now, and for the past six months or so I’ve been on night shifts full-time. I enjoy the job, but working nights takes its toll, the consequent tiredness leaving me with little time or energy for reading and blogging. I might get a blog post scrabbled together every week or so, but I’m in a constant state of guilt at the mounting notifications of other people’s blogs left unread. How everybody else manages it, I do not know! I digress.

Not many things help to ward off the peculiarly lonely desolation of 2am in this cavernous Victorian building with its creaking pipes, so I eat ice-pops. A couple of cold candy-coloured wands of sweet loveliness instantly conjure Southend-on-sea circa 1976, banishing the Dickensian bleakness for another night.

I’m more than happy to share the love, however, one of my colleagues – identity unknown – has been crunching their way through my ice-pop stash at an alarming rate. The odd ice-pop here and there I have no issue with, but three entire boxes in a month and I’ve started to feel a bit miffed. What’s worse, I hate feeling like this. I’m annoyed that they’ve evoked such pettiness in me. I feel like their doing it on purpose to make me petty-minded. The whole world burns and I’m obsessed with the identity of an ice-pop thief!

As the slow silent hours creep by, I’ve swayed between leaving a sarcastic barb; a comedic but passive aggressive note or the epistolary equivalent of a full-on Paddington stare, but have resisted the urge as I couldn’t bear to be ‘that person’. In the end, Bruce Lee came to my rescue. After catching Enter The Dragon recently, I decided the only way to proceed was to walk the path of Kung Fu and tell it like it is. If you know the dramatic scene in a hall of mirrors at the end of the film, you might just recognise the words Bruce Lee says to his enemy before defeating him.

I think you’ll agree the situations are uncannily similar. Will the ice-pop thief get the message? Who cares! Every time I see this in the staff fridge freezer I chuckle to myself wondering what the other staff make of it. Still, I know I’d rather be amused than silently fuming. If only Bruce Lee was as good at solving my blogging/ time shortage problem!

In book-related news… I’m currently reading a fascinating book that arrived in the post from a midwinter Secret Santa I joined in. Listing Golden Age Crime as one of my interests (especially to curl up to during the winter months) this title could not have been improved upon. It’s based on a real murder that took place in a family home in 1860, that shook the public, turning them into a nation of armchair detectives. I’ve not quite finished it, but from what I’ve read so far it’s a must-read for any Golden Age Crime afficionados out there.

Category : Reading Rhubarb
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