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A case of mistaken identity

In the past two days I’ve covered a fair few miles on my scooter, overtaken a few buses and won a few traffic light grand prixs. I’ve been riding the bike now for over 5 years, been in and out of a few buildings and have never had the misfortune of being mistaken for someone else.

Let me explain…

Yesterday I had an appt to keep after work. I rode up to the visitors car park, parked the scooter and went into this nondescript office block for my meeting, helmet under my arm. The first reaction of the guy at the desk was to ask me who I was delivering to. He quickly changed his mind and asked me who I was there to see. This might have been something to do with the look of utter confusion on my face. I politely let it pass, especially as he offered to let me park in their basement car park.

Today I had a shoot with work at the National Portrait Gallery in London. I was instructed to go to the reception and get my pass which I did. I’d just travelled from East London in the pouring rain wearing my waterproof trousers, which are rather fetching if I say so myself, and I even had the decency to take them off before I went in to the gallery. So I go up to the lady at the desk and introduce myself and tell her ‘I’m here to collect my pass’, to which she replies, ‘We don’t accept parcels at this desk, you’ll need to go to dispatch’, ‘Pass’ I repeated, ‘not parcel’, trying not to embarass her.

The moral of this story is, just because I carry a helmet into your establishment and my bike jacket is a little bit ‘worn’, doesn’t make me a motorcycle courier, not that I have anything against motorcycle couriers. Maybe I need to get a new helmet and a jacket that looks more like a parka and less like I want to get you to sign for something!