Above Bored

Above Bored
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday March 28, 2015

The ticketing machine coughed and spat a small paper chit into my hand. A64 it read. I surveyed the crowded foyer. A dozen bodies already occupied the grid of public seating.

I sighed, knowing the next half hour of my life would be confined here, waiting to renew my car registration. A woman’s sultry voice spoke through the intercom: “Ticket A51 to Counter three” I silently cursed her for making the Department of Transport sound seductive.

I sat down next to a well-upholstered woman playing Solitaire on her mobile, wishing I hadn’t left my smartphone in the glove box. Closing my eyes, I tuned into the drowsy hum of office machinery. A ceiling fan pattered lazily overhead. Even now and then, the rustling of documents was punctuated by the ka-chunk of a stapler. Sexy intercom-woman called her next customer: “Ticket A52 to Counter one.” I hadn’t been this bored in ages.

As a kid, boredom was my only-child milieu. With a single mum forced to work full-time, my routine was routine. After school, I amused myself by riding my bike on a continuous circuit of the block, accompanied by the tic-a-tic-a-tic of the bright plastic beads that slid up and down my spokes. The faster I pedalled, the noisier my wheels became. Dogs barked as I flew down the hill. I prayed Mrs Gillett’s terrier wouldn’t attack me just because biting was fun.

My job before bed was to climb behind our Thorn television and keep wiggling the rabbit ears until my Nan announced the picture had stopped rolling. She could then watch the rest of Bellbird uninterrupted.

Crouched amongst the cables, each hand gripping an antenna, I couldn’t see the screen. My view was of a blank wall, a standard lamp, and Nan in her Merry Widow armchair, a dinner tray on her lap.

I marked time by studying the two halves of Nan’s face: one side in shadow, the other aglow. When my eyes grew weary of inspections, I opened my ears and silently mimicked the tick-tock of the mantel clock shaped like Napoleon’s hat. Boredom was mine for the next ten minutes.

Saturday mornings stretched languorously before me as I sunned myself on the concrete steps outside Nan’s washhouse, stroking our cat Percy into slumber. That’s when I tugged my doll’s bonnet over his ears. As he jolted awake I fastened the strings under his chin. Then I bundled him into a cardboard box, shut the flaps and whisked Percy away to my room. The carton became a makeshift theatre, Percy exited stage left, a runaway thespian. I was a box office flop.

Boredom reached new lows in Year 10 chemistry. Our teacher, Mr Holden, was florid and nervy and wore squishy shoes. Our windowless chemistry lab had four rows of concrete workbenches. The humid air and the hiss of the Bunsen burners made me sleepy. Reciting the periodic table dulled my brain. I got my halogens and my noble gases confused. I would have dozed off were it not for Mr Holden’s nipples.

They were like nipples I’d never seen. Actually, they were the only men’s nipples I’d ever seen. Large and fleshy, they sat like two discs of polony under his shirt. I couldn’t decide if they were particularly pink or peculiarly protuberant. Or perhaps they showed through his pale shirts because the fabric was transparent from frequent laundering. Either way, my classmates Anita and Sue were equally mesmerized. Flustered by our giggles, Mr Holden’s face would creep crimson and he’d begin to stammer. His nipples became the two least boring elements in chemistry.

Lately I worry I’m not getting enough boredom. Watching taped episodes of Downton Abbey, I fast-forward the commercials. At the checkout I reply to emails on my phone or fire off a handful of texts. I can squeeze efficiency into every spare minute. With a stimulating gadget at arm’s length, I’ve almost eliminated boredom from my life.

And yet I’m beginning to miss the soothing emptiness of wasted time. Perhaps that’s it! Boredom represents the luxury of having nothing pressing to do; when time slumps to its slowest ebb.

On stage at a recent writer’s event, I noticed three silvery-haired women in the audience, front row. They were sitting together, smiling and nodding at me, handbags on laps. Halfway through my lovingly-crafted speech, I glanced at them again. The middle one had dozed off, chin to chest. Her companions’ heads were drooping and jerking, eyelids fluttering a useless fight against sleep. I gulped. Had my talk caressed them into a nap? I delivered a witty punchline and watched the trio startle as people began to clap.

“Most entertaining!” said the middle lady to me as we mingled afterwards.

“So glad you enjoyed it,” I said. “I was worried I might’ve been boring. Would you like a cup of tea?”