Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

f the Queen were alive today, I’d probably call and ask how she managed to navigate “annus horribilis”. Her horrible year.

Remember 1992 – the marriages of three of her four children crashed and burned, as did her beloved Windsor Castle. Literally.

Then there were the ‘Squidgygate Tapes’ – deliciously risqué stuff. “Kiss me Squidgy,” friend James Gilbey was recorded saying to the married Princess Diana. And then all the Camillagate hanky-panky. There was a collective “tut-tutting” around the Dominion.

And the Queen was also left feeling unloved and undervalued because taxpayers were questioning the cost of this rumpy-pumpy, scandal-ridden royal family. It put the Queen off her tiny, tailored, round jam sandwiches – a daily fave since she was aged 5.

Had I had the chance, I would have told HRH that I share her pain. Because I will not be looking back “with undiluted pleasure” on my “septimana horribilis” either – my week from hell.

Unlike the Queen, my septimana horribilis won’t be splashed in the tabloids because none of it involves bedsheets, disrobing, intimate eavesdropping, flash houses burning down, or antsy taxpayers.

However, it might serve as a benchmark for the unwashed, the proletariat, that you can measure your crappy week against, and possibly feel better about yourself. And life.

Now, here’s how my septimana horribilis unfolded, my litany of screw-ups. Because you will note, that like a hangover, most of it’s self-inflicted.

Screw-up No.1 

I slam the front door behind me thinking the garage door is open and there is a way back in. Huh-huh! It isn’t open, I have no key and I am locked out. The neighbours are treated to a vast repertoire of expletives. There is a spare key hidden in a safe place outside. But it’s so safe I can’t remember where ... And it will take the cunning of a burglar to find it! “Oh dear, never mind,” says the locksmith sympathetically, while unsympathetically swiping my card for $150 – which is the cost of housebreaking my own house. Key-ching! Plus $26 for two more spare keys to be put in unforgettable safe places. Note to self – sort your home security.

Screw-up No.2 

I forget to adjust my weekly automatic payment to cover the 13 per cent increase in my rates bill. Staff at Tauranga City Council’s Devonport Rd office gently break it that I still owe $970.72. Ouch! And no, sadly for me, I am just over the threshold for a government rates rebate. Pay the lot Charlie! They offer me a chocolate bar to ease the pain. It doesn’t.

Screw-up No.3 

That $970.72 suddenly becomes $2370.72 because the $1400 hybrid 10-speed bike I rode into town to pay the bill gets nicked from the TCC building’s foyer while my back’s turned for five minutes. Mea culpa – my fault. I thought a library would be full of swatty, ready types and a safe place, and I didn’t lock it. The thief chose well – I had just spent $180 on new tyres, new gear cable and new brake discs recently, so they should get some long reliable riding out of it. But if anyone spots a homeless guy in lycra on a 10-speed, can you ask him to drop my bike into the cop shop because they’re looking for him too. Why am I feeling violated?

Screw-up No.4 

Can’t put a dollar value on this, just damaged pride. It’s the middle of the afternoon, I’m in my car and suddenly the alarms go off. I promised myself last time I would figure how to turn it off. But I didn’t … Now suddenly I’m on the brink of an acute myocardial infarction, or panic attack, or both. Locals glare from behind curtains, an old fella walking his dog nods incredulously, a passerby is mouthing advice at me through the window, but I can’t hear above the racket and I can’t open the door. She gives up. I give up.

Screw-up No.5 

This is more of a screw-over than a screw-up but one last sad chapter in my week of woe, my “septimana horribilis”. You will weep with me. I take my thinning pate into the barber shop for a haircut. Ell, a haircut is overstating it perhaps – more a two-minute number two tidy-up – round the sides, over the top, eyebrows and ears. As you get older there are festoons from the unlikeliest places. Anyhow what cost me $10 two weeks ago now costs me $15 – a 50 per cent increase. Unexplained, unexpected and, I wonder, uncalled for? What’s changed in two weeks to justify that?

A lovely Buddhist I once knew would rabbit on about Bodhicitta which is a state of mind wishing to free all humans, including the guy who stole my bike, from suffering and bring them to a state of enlightenment and luck. I might get myself some burgundy red robes and some Bodhicitta …watch this space! How’s your week been? Email: hunter.wells@nzme.co.nz