08. Bob’s new studio apartment

Exiting news made Bob’s self esteem rise a few meters high. Mr Robert Ford Focus, bob for his family and friends got his own studio apartment. Bob heard it early in the morning while carrying his mistress downtown for work.

She was actually talking to him, telling him how cool the place is, just round the corner from the parking lot. Red walls and everything traditional. A real automobile gentleman’s studio. Place for the winter wheels and oils a stand for tools. If Bob wasn’t white he would have gone red from pride.

The heights of his retirement years and something he always deserved. A studio, away from cold and rain. No more frozen roof no more piles of snow, no more ice on the front and back. He couldn’t wait for his return to the parking lot to tell everybody. Even though there was a catch.
Damn, there is always a catch!

No more evening talks with Philip, no more gossip with Anne, no more Ms Bonjour.
at least there was also something good about this. No more creepy slop.

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

07. A macho brawl for a cheater

For a real gentleman and honourable public servant retired, Bob had fallen into a very peculiar situation and obviously first for him. His oil pump was drumming and pushing like a locomotive in uphill climbing. Things like that shouldn’t happen to him.

He was in the middle of a macho brawl for a French girl who was a little too …French for Robert Ford Focus taste and experience. She was attractive, he admitted that and he would do it even loud if necessary, she was constantly happy and smiling but she was also a …cheater.

Besides the three gentlemen …well two gentlemen and something, in the parking lot of the cul-de-sac, she seemed to have other interest parts playing with.

Not that there was anything serious going on with any of the two gentlemen and the other in the parking lot, still… their interest was more than obvious. They nearly ended in an embarrassing brawl the other day and she was …she was with somebody else? That’s why she came back all tipsy and tired?

This was new and very difficult for Bob. Bob had been all his life a gentleman, always tender with the ladies, always soft and thoughtful. He never had been in love before though. Perhaps once when he was very young. Before join the public services. One of these foolishnesses of the youth. But never with a French girl. He didn’t even know what a French kiss is.

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

06. Cherchez la Cactus

Good old Bob was in love but nothing really happened for the next couple few days. Literally.  Along weekend for some reason but the weather cold, cloudy with rain locking everybody inside. Philip was there, Anne was there and even slimy trump was parked and quiet. Ms Bonjour nowhere to be seen.

“Cherchez la Cactus,” Anne said with a smile when Bob tried to ask about Ms Bonjour and it somehow looked like he wasn’t the first one to ask. Philip was looking pretty moody and Mr Slimy on the other side looked definitely gloomy.

“Oh please, all of you Don Juans of Växjö, she will come…” Anne said loud making bob and Philip look down in embarrassment.”

And she did.
Late in the evening, all lights on and brightening the sunset she was back. Full of life, a little tipsy and singing one of those …amour songs. Bob felt a bit uncomfortable with the sight, Philip was quiet and Joe slob had a naughty smile.

“What’s up girl?” Joe slob asked.
“Me? Very happy…” Ms le Cactus said.
“Me too, shall we be more happy together?” Joe slob winked with his fog lights.
“Oh la la, monsieur! You make me flash!”
“My intention exactly little lady…”

Bob was getting frustrated with the situation with Philip obviously and visually sharing his motions. But before either of them could do or say something they all heard a soft snore coming from le Cactus side.
Princess had fallen asleep!

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

05. Ms Bonjour and other goodmornings

The next few days gone fast, cars come and go. Some of them were permanent residences, others just visitors; a few nurses and some civil servants indeed. Bob felt really proud of them. He didn’t know any of them, too young most of them and in a different field but they were of the same breed; carrying the same dignified attitude and feeling of mission.

Philip was quiet most of the time, watching all this coming and going with not much to say and Anne always smiling, ready for goodmornings and goodbyes with everybody. The bully kept to his corner, Philips appearance seem to weigh heavily on him. Bob started thinking that perhaps retirement was not so bad after all.

“Bonjour,” a lightly accented voice hit him somewhere between the side lights and the carbonator leaving him shaking. “Good morning, dear,” Bob heard Anne answering to somebody in the far right side just next to Philip. “And how is our gentlemen Philip this morning?” The tone on ‘gentlemen’ on the last ‘e’. Philip answered with his usual “eh, good morning to you too,” and Bob was still trying to see the face behind the voice. “And who’s the new charming gentleman in our lot?” She asked again.
“Oh, this is Bob,” Anne started the introduction. “Bob just arrived, a retired public servant entering private sector.”

Bob was in love!

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

04. Ms Anne Dacia Sandero

Bob kept quiet but pretty alarmed that night. He didn’t like bullies and there he was in the company of one. Phil seemed nice though, even a bit more serious and authoritarian than bob would like but Bob was a public servant, used to the authoritarian and especially serious types.

“It’s the age, you know,” a slightly squealing voice said from his left side, just next to Phil. “Middle age crisis makes them go mental, you know,” The voice said again a bit louder trying to cover the chorus of the bully’s and Phil’s snoring.

Bob didn’t say anything trying to see who was talking to him in the dark of the early morning.
“I’m here, next to Phil. Anne the name. Nice to meet you and welcome to the open-air parking lot. A bit cold at the moment but no worries, it gets hotter soon.” She said everything in one breath.

“Hey, hi, good morning.” Bob answered still surprised from the odd introduction. “I’m Robert Ford Focus, but everybody calls me just Bob.
“Hi, Robert everybody calls Bob,” he could feel a shy smile in her voice. “My name is Anne Dacia Sandero and everybody calls me Anne.”
“Nic to meet you Anne.”
“Well, after meeting Joe, I bet meeting me is nice. Actually meeting anybody must be nice after talking with him!” and then with a quieter voice she added. “However, you met …Philip.”

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

03. New home, new mission

Three hours later Bob, the retired public servant, was left quiet in a parking lot with some mysterious types who seemed to avoid him treating him with absolute silence.

He couldn’t see much of his new neighbourhood thanks to the dark Swedish winter nights that never really help but there was a light in a group of houses behind him, where he had seen his new bosses going earlier and there was a big dark yellow wooden house in his front and on the right. There were also a few crows flying around. Clever birds, he had heard.

OK fine, he was no public servant anymore but he was obviously a …private contractor. He thought a bit about it and he almost liked it. There are opportunities in the private sector. He should see it as a promotion, he thought. He left the civil services for a better future as a privateer. Better living conditions, better payment, appreciation…

Damn, started raining. “Blimey,” Bob murmured. All his life in enclosed spaces for the night, Bob had forgotten how it is being outside with rain.
“Oh, my,” somebody said next to him. “We have a prince here, afraid of the rain.”

“Pardon?” Bob said surprised. “I bet mommy got you a nice little room, baby.” The voice on his right said again. A local bully. Bob new the type. Greasy mullet, sandals with long sports socks, lots of rust and pumps here and there. Bob sighed.

“What’s the matter snowflake, did the cat bite your tongue.”

“Oh shut up idiot.” A base hard voice came from the other side. “Don’t take him seriously, he is Joe the Seventy Volvo and the number ’70’ stands for his …IQ.”

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

02. The hall of ‘retiree’ sales

The white hall was cold and unfriendly, especially for a former public servant used to be frequently and actively socially involved and occasionally pampered. Bob was stuck between a German old gentleman and a young Asian lad.

“Dis is nix das right place for me,” the old German complained all the time. Bob said nothing while the Sian guy mumbled something nobody understood. Not from lack of foreign languages -especially Asian, but because Bob found out lately that his hearing wasn’t doing so well. The right side, precisely the side the young Asian was. Old age and all that.

Regretfully with the old German on his left side, he wished he were deaf on his left ear. “I was ze old man’s drive. Living in a great house wit private rom only for me.” And on and on the German was getting on Bob’s nerves but soon the old man left and a younger version of the German family appeared in his place. He lasted only two days. It seems that Germans are favoured in this country and a day after it was the Asian lad’s turn to departure this time replaced by a local guy all yellow and blue. “SAAB,” he said loudly and smugly making sure that everybody in the white hall heard him.

Bob ignored him just like he had ignored the German guy or that weird English man in the past. And “SAAB” went and then late one evening, just before closing time Bob went for test drive!

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!

01. A retired public servant

Bob, -full name, Robert Ford Focus, happened to be a retiree public servant. One among the many public servants who honourably served Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden for years.

Bob had a long and respectable career in the municipality’s fleet, providing the necessary mobility for the health and insurance department. Bob was short of a mechanical K9 without being a K9 or a …dog for that matter; even though Bob had -and thankfully still has, four fully working limps.

Been a public servant and especially being a public servant responsible for the safe and constant mobility of members of the services, also meant the occasional dealing with irresponsibility and negligence from co-servants, especially the human kind ones. Unfortunately, in public services you get those characters. In general Bob was well cared, with regular check-ups, engine services when necessary, oil changes, winter and summer shoe-adjustments and regular showers.

Bob paid back this good care with liability, loyalty and character stability even though the last two years of his service he got a weird hiccup often blamed to his electric fuses. Actually, it was these hiccups that flagged the first signs of a retirement. The election of a new Mayor didn’t help either. New Mayors are always about change, renovate and rarely about restore.

Therefore, Bob neglected even from his most loyal human co-workers, the mechanics, eventually found his place in the corner of an outside big parking lot.

He laid low and unused for over six months, slowly pushed out of his beloved public services and into a big white hall among tens of others, a lot of dust and a card on the front saying, “used, for sale”.

A devastating moment in Bob’s life who thought that he had so much more to offer.

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Read all the chapters in order, HERE!