SCRIPT: Butterfingers [March 14, 2018]

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To have butterfingers is being a clumsy person, usually one who fails to hold on to something. John has butterfingers.

John Millen |
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John:    You know what a butterfingers I am?

Polly:    What?

John:    You know I’m not the most careful of people ...  I’m always dropping things!

Polly:    Oh, hahaha, yes!  You could never work in a posh restaurant. You’d drop food and drinks over all the customers.

John:    Exactly!

Polly:    If you get married, you'd have to drink champagne from a paper cup, not an expensive crystal glass. I'm not sure you would be trusted with a knife to cut the cake, either!

John:    OK! OK! I know! Yesterday I had a dreadful day! I was at my butterfingery best! Two disasters! Two disasters in one day.

Polly:    What happened?

John:    Once a week since I started my internship, usually on a Wednesday, I call in at a coffee shop near the MTR station before I head to the office. Well, I ordered my drink in a mug as I always do - I hate those paper cups that most coffee places serve drinks in. I won’t buy a coffee if I can’t have it in a mug.

Polly:    I hate those paper cups as well. So environmentally unfriendly!

John:   That's true, too. So I picked up my drink, was looking for a seat and suddenly - WHOOSH -  the mug slipped out of my hand and crashed onto the floor. The coffee shop was packed, and everyone looked up and stared at me. I was totally embarrassed. I felt like such a fool. I just stood there looking at the broken mug and mess on the floor.

Polly:    Wish I’d been there to see that!

John:    You would have pretended you weren’t with me. The staff were excellent, though. Quick as a flash they cleaned up the mess, and one of them led me to a seat as if I was a hundred years old and brought me another drink. I knew that everyone was looking at me, and laughing behind their hands. I drank my coffee as quickly as possible, and got out. What a great start to my day.

Polly:    And that wasn’t it?

John:    It most certainly wasn’t. Another calamity was waiting for me on the way home. I’d just got off the minibus and was walking towards my block of flats. I fumbled in my bag to get my keys, and then it happened: I dropped them. I’ve never done that before in the three years I’ve lived there.

Polly:    Surely that's not such a big deal. Even if they were in a puddle, you could just watch them.

John:    Oh no, luck was not on my side. The keys had dropped down a drain.

Polly:    Oh, noooo!

John:    Oh yes! I knelt down and could see the keys resting on a ledge about twenty centimetres under the drain cover.

Polly:    What did you do?    

John:    I went inside and told Mr Lee, our security guard. He got his toolbox, and used a metal lever and lifted the drain cover, then fished out the keys with a long pair of pliers! 

Polly:    You didn’t touch them, did you? They’d been down a drain.

John:    Of course not! I put them into a bowl of diluted bleach. The leather keyring you bought for me in Japan is ruined, but at least I didn't have to wait for my parents to get home, or call the locksmith to change the lock! I've got to be more careful!

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