Often on these nights out I secretly wished I was at homehaving a cup of tea and watching Coronation Street on catch-up. I triedto brush these thoughts off, reminding myself that I was enjoying the last gaspof what little youth I had left and I should be making the most of it becausesoon it would be gone.
I hadn’t known then that I was wrong about that – how couldI? I knew nothing about the life-changing event which was soon to restore myyouth to me. But I was about to find out because it was on this particularmorning that my peculiar new back-to-front existence began.
I didn’t realise right away that anything was wrong – I waswhere I woke up every day, after all, but then I realised that I couldn’tremember anything about going to bed the previous day. I remembered all thatweird stuff from the hospital room but still thought that had been a dream atthis point, despite its continuing presence in my mind. I cast my mind back,trying to figure it all out.
I recalled being at work but nothing afterwards – certainlynothing about finishing work and going home. I felt rough and incredibly groggyas I sat up in the room, trying to get my head together. Was this a hangover?
There had been more than one occasion I had woken up in my lifeso hung-over that I couldn’t recall the details of what had gone on the nightbefore. Unfortunately cameras often caught the sordid evidence for all to seeand there were frequent occasions when I would open up my social media dreadingwhat I was going to find.
Often it didn’t make for pleasant viewing – some bleary-eyedphotos of myself with random people, half of whom I didn’t even know, or somedrunken, ridiculous comments on a Facebook status that I recall neither readingnor writing.
Was today one such occasion? It was hard to see how it couldbe. I had been working nights, and unlike some of my colleagues who considereda pint in Wetherspoons to be an acceptable end to a night’s work, I preferredto go straight home and go to bed.
The only other possibility was that I’d had a total blackoutand somehow lost an entire day but I’d never been that drunk before, even inthe wildest days of my youth. If that was the reason why I was in this state,then my flatmates were bound to have been involved. They liked to party and itwasn’t inconceivable that they had got me so paralytic on my birthday that Icouldn’t remember what I’d done.
There was only one thing to do – I would have to go outthere and face the two of them. If I had done something embarrassingly awful,they would know about it. But to prepare myself, I would first check socialmedia for clues about any possible indiscretions. That meant I needed my phone.I had been lying on my back for about five minutes pondering all this, but nowI sat up, ready to face the music.
The curtains were drawn but they were pale lemon in colourwhich let through a small amount of daylight. It was just enough light for meto locate my phone on the bedside table, plugged into its charger. Like a lotof people, I ignored the advice not to have electronic gadgets in the bedroom,unable to bear being more than a few feet away from my phone at any one time.
I managed to get hold of it, but couldn’t get past thescreen lock. It usually operated on a thumbprint, but that wasn’t working forsome reason. It was asking for a PIN. I tried the one I had used on my oldphone, 0101, and it let me in.
Yes, I know 0101 is my birthday and I shouldn’t use itbecause it’s the first thing hackers try, but I’ve tried using other numbers andI just end up forgetting them. It’s the same reason I use the same password forall my internet stuff which is the name of my first cat plus the year of mybirth. I’d never keep track of it all otherwise.
Using the name of one’s pet isn’t necessarily a good ideaeither, but I gave that cat a pretty unusual name which I doubt many would beable to guess. So I don’t have to worry about anyone guessing it. It’s beengood enough up until now because I’ve not been defrauded of anything, at leastnot that I know of.
Having managed to get past my own security, I realised quitequickly that it wasn’t just the missing thumbprint scan that was up with myphone. The background picture was also wrong. I’d changed it to a picture of meand the girls on a night out before Christmas a couple of weeks ago. Now it hadchanged back to a picture of my old cat, Tommy.
I know what you’re thinking – that’s not an unusual name fora cat, but before anyone starts trying to empty my bank account, I should pointout I am not talking about the same cat. Tommy was my most recent pet whom Imiss terribly.
I had to have him rehomed because the new flats don’t allowpets and my selfish ex-fiancé didn’t want him. The only pussy he was interestedin was the one belonging to Emma next door. That’s a lame pun, I know, and itmakes me sound bitter, but somehow making light of it crudely like this seemsto help.
I hadn’t used this picture of Tommy for ages, not since I’dchanged phones. It had been the wallpaper on my old phone. Come to think of it,now I looked more closely, this was my old phone.
This was a Samsung S12, not an S13. Why did I have this oldphone? I’d upgraded a couple
