Lost phone!

I can't believe this - after everything else with the shop and Tarek I've now gone and lost my phone - AGAIN! This time I don't know what happened to it. Definitely had it last night cos I was texting Tarek. Did I leave it somewhere? Was it nicked? I have no clue and its really doing my head in.

I've not reported it missing yet. Instead, I got Tarek to send a text to it, saying that I really need it back and giving his number for a contact. Fingers crossed someone will see it.

Why do these things keep happening to me?

Maybe something good, maybe something bad

Sorry for the delay in posting any new entries, but it was a well weird weekend.

Starting with Friday evening. I was working at Food Etc and these girls came in. They were taking pictures of stuff with a mobile, not just like stuff on shelves but the walls, the tills and everything. I didn't really pay a lot of attention – cos like, y’know, Friday evening, you get a lot of freaks - but you'll find out why it’s worth a mention.

Saturday, Agent X got me sitting down with Tareq and having it out about stuff, see if we can link up again - be friends and all that. So like the short, no-psychobabble answer is: yes, but it took six hours, mega-loads of coffee and a whole cake. And really I still totally don’t understand why he's gone with some of the decisions he has made in the last month, and like I disagree quite hard with a couple of them, I do totally respect that they're his decisions and his view’s not my view, and - whoah, getting a bit psycho-talky there. But he's still totally Tareq, my best mate, and that's what matters. And we finished the day with some major Gears of War action - wicked.

Sunday, late, I get a call. The Food Etc where I work has been done over.. No one knows who did it, and like the police are all over it so I can't say too much, but there were six or seven of them and they made a serious mess of the place. So I reckon the girls I clocked on Friday were going over the place, checking out where the CCTV cameras were, and the stuff worth nicking. So if you were one of them, then I've told the police everything, and they've got Friday's video tape as well as Sunday's.

It freaked me out a bit, I tell you.

(I bet it was the gang off the Eastburgh Estate. Bet you anything.)

I am having a seriously ravin weekend.

That is all for today.

Old faces

Life is being totally off again.

I was having a quiet one at work, stacking shelves and doing texts with Julie, and then this real quiet voice says, "Ahmed?" And of all the people I so wasn't expecting to see in the Food Etc. on Manor Street, it was her.

No, not Aishwarya Rai. But close. It was Agent X.

I was all like ‘what are you doing so close to the Eastburgh?’ and she - well, she made me swear I would keep what she told me tight between us. But we totally did talk, a whole load, until Santosh got the boss thing going and told me to do some actual work before I went home. And yeah, of course Agent X asked about Tareq, so like I told her what was going on with him and what I knew, and she went quiet. It must have been a bit of a shock. I know it was for me.

Good to see you again, Agent X.

Wage slave

This work stuff isn't too bad. I mean I can’t say for definite till I've been at it for, like, thirty years or something, but right now I'm having a wicked time. The others down at Food Etc. are a right laugh, and like loads of people I know come into the shop so it’s dead social, and there's all the past-its-sell-by-date nosh I can eat.

Mind you, it doesn't leave me much time for important things like blogging, or less cool stuff like homework. At least it beats monging out in front of the telly every night. Though it's totally going to mess with my plans for this weekend. I've got to do something about that.

Parents: officially not so bad.

I start my first job in an hour. The first step on a young man's path to adult responsibility and stuff. I wouldn't mind but there's this whole uniform thing, and it's orange.

But I have to give it up for my folks... I overheard Dad on the phone earlier, talking about me and the job, and he sounded totally proud. It was cool actually. Plus he said something about the money, the half of my pay they said was going into household expenses. Well, it's not, it's going into a 'university fund'.

Guess I better make sure I blitz the exams in a major way then.

All about the Benjamins

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

I was giving it out on the phone to Dinesh about my seriously low cash situation, and how my parents are way tight with the pocket money. Which is all totally true, by the way: they’re always telling me to ‘save and watch the pennies’, but don't hardly give me enough to buy the stuff I need for school! So I'm moaning, and my mum sticks her head round the door and is all like, "If it's more money you're after, why don't you get a job? Grown boy like you, sixteen and everything."

I thought that was the end of it, but at dinner she and Dad were sat there with smug faces on, and he starts in on how a sixteen-year-old should be helping to support his parents not the other way round, and it's time I paid something towards the household bills, and how I should get a job. And I'm ready with the whole “I have exams coming up and you want me to spend more time at the mosque anyway” bit when Dad says, "And we've found one for you."

So I'm the newest employee at the Food Etc. on Manor Street, right by the Eastburgh Estate. Great, right? Working for Tareq's uncle Manoj, evenings and weekends – oh and like my homework had better not suffer because of it because we will take no slacking from a son of ours or it's off to Bangladesh with you, state of emergency or no state of emergency. Guess when I start? Tomorrow. And half the dosh is going to my parents!