The New TV Reality Show/Sitcom: "My Life"

Episode 1: 'Packdown From Hell'

It's 7:10pm on a sunday evening. You've been working hard all weekend in charge of a bookstall, at Merseyfest, a large Christian Festival/Event/Concert. So far the shop has been so busy you've hardly had time to eat or get a break, and you need to go for a wee badly. You've taken a couple of grand so far, and the day promises to get busier. Yesterday you worked from 11 in the morning till 10pm at night, and you were already beyond knackered when you started today. Serving approximately potentially 10,000 people does that to you........

You know the plan, it's already etched in your memory, since your Boss has just gone on holiday. You close up the shop at ten pm, then go home and cash up. On Monday, you will go and pack into boxes what you haven't sold, put them on a pallet, and wait for the Lorry that's picking them up to arrive at 10:30am. Simple!

Wrong.

It's not that easy, because what ACTUALLY happens is this:

You find out at precisely ten past seven pm, that the marquee in which your bookshop is located, is going to be slowly and methodically packed down by six oclock tommorrow morning. That means that you will have a bookstall in an open park in the middle of liverpool ready for anyone to come and nick. You pack the bookstall away as quickly as you can, and put it on to pallets. Satisfied that you've got it done in time, as they're taking the lights down as you put the final box on the pallet, you decide you can send all the staff home, except the person who's giving you a lift.

On a whim, you decide just to confirm that the security staff will be on all night, only to get an answer of "yes, but we're not gonna guarantee that your stock's gonna be there tommorrow mate". You then get presented with one of two options: 1. keep the stock on pallets in the middle of a park in liverpool, with very little secuity but under a dry tent thats coming down early in the morning; or: 2. move the stock via forklift to a temporary enclosure a short distance away with gates, but out in the open with no cover.

So, praying like mad, you go for option 2, only to be told that "the fork lift driver has other jobs to do and you'll have to wait".... You sit in the car and wait......

The fork lift magically appears 25 minutes later, but with a problem. The pallets you spent your energy on, packing up to perfection are not near enough to the entrance of the marquee for the fork lift to reach. So what do you do?

You unpack them. AGAIN.

(Each pallet has 20 boxes on each and there are three stock pallets, and an extra equipment pallet)

You drag the empty pallets to the entrance, and re-pack them. AGAIN.

With only two of you.

In the dark.

In the cold.

In the wet.

When you're tired.

FORTY minutes later, as it's getting really dark, you manage to finally get the fork lift driver to move your stock. You cover it with your own shop banners in the vain hope they will protect the stock from the very British noah-like weather that's forecast overnight.

Monday morning: you arrive, to find that some of the stock is water damamged, and to top it all off, the tent that was supposed to be taken down is STILL UP!!!!! Choking down your rage like a bitter tasting lemon poo porridge, you calmly wait for the lorry pickup at ten thirty....

Which NEVER arrives...

You ring the company who cannot find the booking you made WELL OVER a week ago, and wait for them to ring you back. TWENTY minutes later, you get a phonecall back saying "oh yes, silly us we've found it, he's on his way".

An hour later, the truck arrives, (THREE HOURS late) and you have to wait AGAIN for a fork lift to turn up to load the pallets on, (fork lift drivers are obviously like superman, immortal in character, they keep having to dash off to save the world) because the field has reached a state of swampness that is too treacherous for the sophisticated workings of a mechanised tailgate........

Needless to say, I have much less hair now....