Heat Wave

The weather has been so hot recently that even I began to rethink my wardrobe.

Walking around in full biker leathers is normally not a problem as far as regulating my body temperature goes, but in the last few days it has been so warm that even air conditioning hasn't kept me from fainting. The worst part of that is that I happened to faint in front of and be caught by - yes, you've guessed it, the most insufferable man ever to don a uniform. I came to with the sight of his smug face before my eyes. 

Now I will admit there are times when Frederick J. Barlow can be a charming and delightful individual. Most of these times are when he is in trouble and begging for help, but nether-the-less they do exist. Needless to say this was not one of those times. 

You may think I am being overly harsh but when I came to, I wasn't on the street where I had passed out. No, I was in a jail cell, with my hands cuffed and Fred looking far too pleased with himself. Apparently there had been reports of a woman matching my description assaulting people at an ice rink with a pool cue.

Unfortunately it does sound like something I would do.

This has given me another reason to rethink my wardrobe. Clearly there are people out in the wider world that have started to impersonate me to take out their petty grievances against the world in my name so they won't get caught.

It took me four hours before I could prove that at the time of the incident, I was sat in Joe's Place explaining the finer points of whiskey to a man who had only ever drunk bourbon. 

What it comes down to is that changing my wardrobe, at least for the duration of this heat wave would mean I wouldn't pass out into the arms of annoying policemen but also wouldn't be constantly arrested for things I didn't do. The downside to this is that I would have to go shopping...

On second thoughts, passing out is quite refreshing really and me wearing different clothes really wouldn't stop Fred and Harry from arresting me every other day.

Laundry Day

There are certain things that most people don't expect me to do: paint my nails, cook a full Sunday roast, be nice; and on the whole they are right. However on this list of things that most souls would never imagine me doing is laundry.

I understand where this misconception has come from and Harry was punished accordingly, but even this stunningly boring chore does have it's upsides. No, I haven't met the love of my life in the launderette and haven't had the courage to speak to her, but it is the one quite place I have found where I can think.

There are no phones ringing with people wanting me to do things for them for a pittance, no annoying policemen circling about trying to save me from myself, no assassins lurking behind the fabric softener - in essence it is my haven.

There is no particular enjoyment in the actual act of cleaning clothes, but knowing that Fred's clothes are all sent out for cleaning and Harry's mum still does all his washing means that they will never frequent the place and never even think of looking for me near a washer or dryer. 

24 hour places are even better as between the hours of 1am and 2am there are only drunks and tramps trying to keep from freezing to death on the streets and for some strange reason they keep to themselves. I'm not sure what it is about a woman doing her laundry after the witching hour, heavily armed, that makes people feel so antisocial. I think it is rather rude actually.

In fact the amount of laundry I do is quite a good indication as to how bad my week has been. If it's been especially bad it's every Wednesday and Saturday though I skipped the weekend a few weeks back.

Though I feel I should be careful where I do my laundry as it is known for villains and wannabe villains to frequent launderettes - in fact I'm a little bit suspicious of a young blonde man who calls himself Billy...

Camping

There are many things in this world that I don't see the attraction of doing. Using sandpaper as toilet paper, being locked in a room with Kevin Metis, eating any form of invertebrates, I could go on. However camping had never really crossed my mind as needing to be on that list. Well that was until I woke up in a tent this morning.

It is a shock to the system when you wake up in a tent, especially as the night before you went to sleep in your own apartment. Fred and Harry felt it was a good idea to kidnap me during the night as a joke.

A joke!

I woke up under canvas with rain pelting down on it. Not only was I under canvas, but I was in the smallest space imaginable. Needless to say I was less than impressed. My normal reaction to this kind of behaviour would have been to chase them both down and shoot them in the knee caps. Unfortunately this was not an option at this particular time; not because I had any change in my character or had been flooded with a sudden sense of remorse you understand. Oh no, it was solely down to the fact that I didn't have my guns. In fact all I had on was my very thin, very see-through nightdress.

There are times when I can be a reasonable person, they might be very few and far between, but I can be reasonable. For example I have never, to date, shot Mayor Major Tyler despite him deserving at least two hospital stays for his incredible inability to do his job. I haven't spent my time consumed with plotting revenge against Richard Ellis even though he tried to put my favourite gunsmith out of business. Yes, I can be a very reasonable person. However when I am taken from my bed in the middle of the night in attire that is less than suitable for the great outdoors and shoved into a coffin comprised of poles and semi-waterproof material I am not really inclined towards being reasonable.

I could hear the two of them outside the tent trying to contain laughter, they have always found themselves far funnier than they actually are. So I decided, for the moment that restraint would be a good course of action...and when I say restraint, I mean I wouldn't bludgeon them both to death with rocks from the edge of the campfire.

Since my clothes didn't appear to be in this claustrophobiac's nightmare, I had to go out and face the two morons in something only slightly more discreet than my birthday suit. Upon emerging the first thing I noticed wasn't how breathtaking the scenery was, nor how peaceful the place seemed to be, no the first thing I noticed was how quickly Fred's laughter turned to blushing and looking away. Harry stared unashamedly and was given a damn good thrashing with a nearby fallen branch until Fred brought me my clothes.

Harry tried to talk his way out of trouble and when that didn't work the two of them took me out on the nearby lake to fish...as this was really going to improve my mood. As soon as we were in the middle of the lake, the two of them mysteriously ended up falling overboard and I rowed back to the shore before they could climb back aboard. Fifteen minutes later the two managed to crawl their way back on to dry land.

They were right though, going fishing really did make me feel so much better.

Hunting a Priest Killer - Day 7

Harry is the kind of person to hold a grudge. Though clearly grateful that I saved him from an awkward conversation with the Mayor about the twins in the hot tub, it had dawned on him that the hole in the side was not going to fix itself. In fact he seemed to think, for some ridiculous reason, that I should have to pay for the damage.

Me pointing out that it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't hung up on me clearly was not the best thing to do, though if Harry hadn't then tried to throw me off the balcony we wouldn't have ended up having a fist fight that broke his coffee table...and his brand new TV...

I don't get invited to his place much.

It took about an hour for us to broker a peace and to sit down and think about what we were going to do about Fred. Fred going after Sykes and the Snake Devils was understandable even though it is on his top ten list of 'stupidest things he's ever done'; though not quite good (or bad enough) to grab the top spot. That still belongs to the time he decided to go undercover to break a child pornography ring and didn't tell anyone he was doing it. It took a long time and a lot of awkward, searching questions to get him out of trouble that time. 

So with Harry on side, we had at least a small fighting chance of getting Fred out alive and making sure Sykes paid for what he did to Harry. 

The other thing we had going for us was how unpopular Sykes was as a leader and how many of his gang land pals felt it was him who had arranged the downfall of the Snake Devils former leader - Jarndice. 

Normally those kind of suspicions led to feelings of respect and fear, but this was a slightly more complicated situation.

Jarndice had been a scumbag, no morals, no conscience, but he was smart. He had managed to outwit and stop Derek Long on more than one occasion, granted not without the help of yours truly, but all the same impressive. Jarndice had held together the gang through many attempts by the other neighbouring gangs to destroy them and expand their territory without opposition from residents and other gangs. 

All in all, Jarndice had made the gang untouchable and so far Sykes really didn't measure up. Shooting Patrick was seemingly the start of his campaign to prove himself, but I wasn't about to let that happen.

Harry and I both agreed that if Sykes got hold of Fred, then Fred would end up being nailed to a perch to be kept from pushing up the daisies. We had to wait until nightfall before we could go into the gang territory to try and avoid detection.

The only problem with going in at night to a gang held area of the city - walking smack into a group of low level gang peons who had a more impressive arsenal than any 80s action hero.

Needless to say the Rescuers business was safe from being threatened by Harry and I.

Also if I get shot by Sykes - I am going to kill Fred.

Sunbathing

For those of you that aren't acquainted with my dressed habits - I don't tend to ever have more of my flesh exposed than necessary in public.

The reasoning for this is two-fold. Firstly, the amount of people who regularly try and kill me, attack me, throw me through windows, means that I really want to protect my skin and vital organs as much as possible and a reinforced armoured bikini really doesn't provide as much protection as I would like.

The second reason is much less understandable - I don't like exposing myself in public! This seems to be a rare point of view as it seems that as soon as the sun comes out not only do women start dressing in little more than handkerchiefs but the male population decides that everybody desperately wants to see them walking around topless...

One of the worst offenders of this crime is Harry Lee. Though I will grant his many hours at the gym have paid off by granting him striking abs, I really don't want to see them as long as the sun is out. I may have pointed this out in no uncertain terms which has led to my current predicament.

Worse than people walking around mostly naked for me is being dragged to a beach where people wear swimwear that is either two sizes too small, speedos, white so the moment it hits the water it becomes completely see through or they just don't bother altogether.

Fred and Hardy decided that after my small complaint to Harry about his state of dress that dragged me kicking and screaming (in this case quite literally) to the sandy shores of the sea was a good idea.

I have flatly refused to give up my guns and my trilby but am now sat in less than underwear on a towel in a sandy hell.

Next time Harry walks around shirtless, I'm just going to shoot him.

Pain

Top ten most painful things I have ever gone through: -

1. Being shot in the knee and the wound being stood on
2. Being shot in the back
3. Being shot in the shoulder
4. Being shot in the foot
5. Being stabbed in the hand
6. Being shot in the arm
7. Being caught in a car explosion
8. Being shot in the knee
9. Being shot in the leg
10. Losing my two fingers.

Top ten most painful things to happen to Fred: -

1. Being hit with a baseball bat
2. Being shot
3. Being hit by a car
4. Dropping a table on his foot
5. Being in a car accident
6. Punching through a window
7. Dropping an iron on his foot
8. Breaking his toe on the shower tray
9. Burning his hand on the stove
10. Trapping his hand in the door.

Fred's life seems so much more dangerous than mine...

Bored

I spend much of my life running from people trying to kill me, hiding from Fred, trying to earn a living without getting screwed over and annoying my neighbours.

Yet there are moments, snippets in time when none of the above is occurring...in short I have bouts of earth shattering boredom. 

These are rare mainly due to the frequency in which people try to kill me, but there are other things that keep me occupied during the quieter periods of my life. Such things as cleaning, field stripping and reassembling my entire weapon stock, including the weapons that are kept in my secret weapon store. I have also been known to follow Fred about and try to cause as many problems for him as possible. 

Unfortunately I have already cleaned, field stripped and reassembled my gun collection...twice and Fred has gone on a two week holiday to either Cancun, Madagascar, Belgium or Switzerland. He may have booked several holiday packages at the same time to stop me following him or he could just be the victim of credit card fraud...

Either way it has led to my current state of affairs...I am bored and when I am bored I do all manner of stupid things

When I'm bored I generally end up in jail.