Aiders Of The Lost Ark

You know that hilarious thing Dads do in car parks, wait until their daughter gets inches away from the car door, then move away? Then as the girl moves closer he moves away a bit more? And so on and so on until you loose the will the live? Well that happened last week. Only instead of driving forward a bit and stopping, the Dad managed run over the girls foot. Breaking it in the process.


None of us knew what to do. I get a bit queasy in situations like that. The idea of blood or broken bones. I remember when I broke my brother's finger playing rugby in the garden. As I saw his bent little digit I panicked and ran away. He ran after me shouting 'Pop it back in! Pop it back in!' Then I was sick all over him. Steve and Darren did nothing either. Steve is apparently first aid trained, but all he managed to do was get a manager, who then called for an ambulance. If that's first aid trained, we all fucking are!


Sharon arranged a First Aid course and made all the porters attend. Steve went mental, as Sharon arranged it on the one day Steve has off.

'This course is primerily for you, Steven.' Sharon said, in her thick, spiky Scottish voice. 'You are supposed to be the first aid rep outside and you didn'ae do anything.' She said, looking down at her papers. Sharon rarely looked at people, there was always other important things going on.
'What was I supposed to do with a broken foot?' Steve squealed. 'The hospital just put on a cast, I don't have casts lying about the place!'


Sharon looked at him, as if he should have casts lying about the place. Steve rolled his eyes and led Darren, Alex and Duncan and I into the Training Room. The chairs were all laid out facing the front of the narrow, pastel coloured room. The five of us sat down towards the back, which Sharon changed immediatly, making us all sit side by side at the front.


Simon was the first aid trainer. A slight blonde Welsh lad. He looked too young to train us anything, to be honest. He looked about eighteen.

'Hiya guys!'


There are many sayings and phrases that people use to refer to gay people. 'Bats for the other team' being a popular one, and the one about bread being buttered. But on seeing our First Aid trainer today, Steve came up with the quite confusing term 'a Coldplay listener.'


He didn't say it to his face, obviously. He whispered it to me, hoping i'd understand. I thought he'd met him at a concert or something. We know someone like that. Someone who's so into his own music that he shuts out anything else. You'd think that if they're so into music they open up a little bit. I guess we're all guilty of that. But Steve seems to shut out anything that was made after he left High School.

'Me at a Coldplay concert?'
'No? All right, then. Fine.'
'Naa, me.' Sitting up from his seat. 'I'm into the Zep, Crue, Topp and Queen. Stuff like that.'


It annoyed me, for some reason, that he shortened all the names. As if he'd memorised them all just to reel them off to anyone vaugely interested. Also, he didn't believe me when I told him Freddie Murcury was gay. So much irony lost, I thought. I wonder if Freddie listened to Coldplay if he was alive today?


'So, we all know why we're here.' Simon said in all his bouncy Welshness. These people always say 'we' don't they? There's no 'we' There's 'you' and 'us'.

'OK, let me introd...'
'Shouldn't you have your gear with you?' Steve interrupted.
'My what, sorry?'
'Your gear. Your kit. For the show, like.'


Steve managed to describe every job as if it was showing to a sold out o2 Arena. When we moved some tables in the canteen last week he called it a 'gig'.

'Oh, no. Funny story, actually.' Simon said, sitting down on the table. 'I'm a training Virgin, you see. You're my first job.'


Steve winced in his seat.


'And i'm in my little cinquecento at the moment so I couldn't get all my stuff in there this morning. Should have thought about that, really. Ha!'

'Hang on a minute.' Darren piped up. 'You're here to teach us first aid and you've no stuff to teach it to us with? No dummy? Not a powerpoint thing? Not even a flipchart?'

'Well...no!' Simon arched his shoulders up and wrinkled his nose. As if we're all going to give him a hug and say 'You silly sausage! What are you like!!' Steve stood up and headed for the door.

'Hang on a sec, big fella!'


Steve looked him up and down.


'Just because i've not stuff with me doesn't me we can't go through What It Means To Be First Aid Trained.'


Steve sighed and sat down. I'm sure if this was on a day he was clocked in he'd be loving this. A chance to do nothing for money. He'd have his feet up tucking into the Bourbon Creams. An hour or so later we'd covered quite a lot of stuff. He kicked it off with the broken foot scenario. Steve proclamined about his lack of casts and the moron twins sat in silience. I'm not entirily sure they knew what First Aid meant.



'Now, things happen out there on the car park that you need to be alert to.'
'Oh, Darren will help you there, mate!' Steve chuckled.
'Oh, leave it, Steve.' Darren said.
'What's this all about?'
'You're alert to all sorts, aren't you Daz? Like that fat girl last year!'
'For the last time, Steve. I thought she was pregnant!'


Apparently, one day last year Darren saw a woman hyperventilating in her car. He rushed over, ripped open the door and tried to take her pants off. He'd helped his sister deliever her baby a while ago in a bowling alley, so he thought he knew what he was doing. Turns out her Snickers had gone down the wrong way and she was choking.


'Well, lets forget about that, then shall we. And move onto something else. Let's see, oo, Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation'


We all looked at eachother, then around the room, then down to our feet.


'You've not brought your dummy. You dummy.'


Darren seemed pleased with the insult, but Simon egnored it.


'So? We've got eachother! Who wants to volunteer?!'


A few of us laughed. Steve swore at him. Alex offered to volunteer. Steve called him a 'Coldplay listener.'


I don't think we took any of the lesson in. Steve didn't look. Duncan filmed it on his phone and I thought 'what would someone think if someone walked into this room now? Four lads sat watching two blokes kissing on the floor. With no evidence of Training equipment around.' I was thinking all this when Sharon walked in.

'What The Hell Is Going On!' She bellowed.

Simon and Alex stopped. Simon wiped his mouth, which didn't help his case.

'Kiss of Life.'
'I bet it was.'
'No, Mouth to Mouth Resuscitation, Sharon.'
'Oh...' The she looked around the room. 'But shouldn't you have a Dummy or something? And where's your flipcharts? And you've not used the overhead projector I set up for you.'
'Exactly' Darren said smugly.
'I'm sorry, Simon, but where is all your equipment?'
'I'm in the cinquecento' Simon squeaked, as if she'd understand.
'Ciqui-what? Get out, this is an utter shambles.'
'I never meant to cause you trouble...'


Ohh, I never meant to do you wrong! I like that Coldplay song now. Simon was soon out the door and into his cinquewhatever. Sharon arranged another training day and we got ushered back down onto the car park. And Alex smiled for the rest of the day.