I had a dream.
Not a grand, Martin Luther King Jr. kind of dream – more of a “lie in bed with a face mask on and eat biscuits that don’t have fingerprints in them” sort of dream. A dream of a peaceful, child-free day where I could reclaim a tiny part of myself, ideally the part that remembers how to drink tea before it goes cold.
So I declared it. My Me Day. I marked it in the calendar with a pink highlighter and everything.
And then the school rang.
“Could you possibly help out with the Year 5 science trip?” they asked. “A couple of parents have dropped out, and we’re a bit desperate.”
Now, if they’d said chocolate factory or puppy sanctuary, I might have perked up. But no – it was the local sewage treatment plant. Apparently, nothing screams ‘science curriculum’ like a three-hour tour of industrial-scale excrement management.
So instead of sinking into a bubble bath and sipping tea while watching a documentary about penguins or serial killers (two moods, one woman), I found myself in a high-vis vest, trying to stop nine-year-olds from licking handrails.
Dave, our tour guide – a man who was very into effluent – explained the delicate dance of wastewater filtration with all the enthusiasm of someone describing their firstborn. The kids, of course, loved it. One of them actually clapped when we saw a “fatberg” the size of a Mini Cooper.
Me? I was trying not to gag.
Later that night, still haunted by the smell of “processed solids,” I decided to write it all down. You know, therapeutic journaling and all that. But I may have accidentally lifted some of Dave’s more technical explanations. Look, I’d just heard the word “biosolids” used with genuine affection – I wasn’t in my right mind.
Just to be on the safe side, I ran the piece through an AI detector. Not because I thought Dave was ChatGPT in disguise, but because these days, the second someone reads something vaguely articulate, they scream “BOT!”
Happily, I passed. The AI detector said I was 99% human. The 1%? I reckon it’s Dave’s sludge tank monologue embedded in my brain.
So much for self-care.
In the end, I got home smelling faintly of methane, covered in hand sanitiser, and with a new respect for the people who literally deal with our crap. I didn’t get my Me Day – but I did get a good story and a child who now refers to our toilet as “the first stage of water recycling.”
Which, frankly, feels like a win.