Well it has come to that time of year where one has to spend several minutes upon arrival anywhere, divesting oneself of gloves, coats scarves and hats only to have the whole process repeated in reverse before exiting the building again.
Working as I do across quite a number of different sites I
find myself having to repeat this little performance multiple times a day in
front of various staff teams.
Many of our NHS offices are massively in need of modern
heating and the ancient boilers and pipes that we are stuck with heat the
offices up to near blast furnace levels
of warmth. This necessitates my having to also remove my jumper more often than
not which leads me to a quandary .
Very often my shirt will ‘ride up’ as I remove said jumper,
revealing a few inches of pale untoned midriff to all and sundry. I am
afterwards forced to swiftly tuck my shirt back into my trousers in what I
mentally refer to as ‘the Gasson manoeuvre’. Sometimes it is possible to untuck the shirt
and sit hard upon it prior to removal of the jumper but this is still very
uncomfortable.
Now I am quite embarrassed about showing my tummy to work colleagues
& so I have taken to a new practice of always changing out of my jumper in
the gentleman’s toilet where I can take the precaution of locking the door
before I wrestle myself away from the clutches of my jumper. This also affords
me the opportunity to quickly check (what remains of) my hair to ensure that
the static generated by the removal of the garment has not caused the hair to balloon
out like some crazy Einstein.
Although the toilet visit does minimise the embarrassment from
crazy hair and belly flashing, it brings with it another problem which is that
I become paranoid that people will wonder why I am going to the bathroom and
returning with no jumper on. Do people understand my concerns or do that draw
the conclusion that I am locking myself in there in order to experiment with
different clothing choices like some kind of cut price Mr Benn. Do they
visualise me parading up and down in front of the washbasin mirror in different
variations of dress and undress. Trousers on my head, shirt fully unbuttoned or
whatever outlandish style takes my fancy.
Probably not, but it does mean that I usually try and time
my divestment toilet visits to coincide with my frequency of urination in order
to allay suspicion.
Roll on the spring.
