Happy Friday 13th!

A lot of people dislike Friday 13th, but as my birthday is the 13th November, it’s been inevitable that some of those have been Fridays - and they’ve always been splendid. In fact, every Friday 13th has been good for me…except Friday 13th January 1995, which shall forever haunt my nightmares…

Thursday 12th was good; my brother and I boarded the sleeper train in India after a deliciously spicy curry in Hampi. We were enroute to take up our Bollywood acting roles twenty hours away in Bombay.

At 6 a.m. on Friday 13th, I awoke on my top-berth sleeper to find us half an hour away from Bombay, with that rumbling feeling in my stomach that travellers in India know and dread. In the half-light of the carriage I charged towards the single toilet, knocking sleepy fellow travellers out of the way in my mad dash for the stinking cubicle. Which was occupied. ARRGGGH!!

Disaster struck. As Charlotte Brontë would have said, Reader: I shat myself.

And then, the humilating climb to the top bunk to find a clean set of clothes from my backpack. The soiled clothing went through the hole-in-the-floor-toilet and onto the track, where for all I know it still lies, a pungent little monument to a bad Friday 13th and Bombay bowel belligerence.

What’s your best Friday 13th disaster?

5 Responses to “Happy Friday 13th!”

  1. Comment by Catherine

    Hope your Friday the 13th was ok. C x

  2. Comment by Tim

    Hope your 4th, 15th,21st, 26th, 32nd birthdays were good ‘uns. I have a vague recollection of your 15th (birthday that is) Good luck for your 43rd (!!!!!)

  3. Comment by Alessandro Ansa

    Bruce, you wouldn’t be related somehow to Okhil Babu who had a similar experience in the 1900s and wrote this graphic letter which, legend would have it, led to the introduction of toilets on Indian trains? Apparently the letter is on display in New Dehli’s railway museum.

  4. Comment by Clare Haines

    It is 12pm on Friday 13th and to be honest, I really dont know why I bothered getting out of bed. I feel I real weight in the atmosphere.

    This morning so far-Irun a magazine

    I have had complaint after complaint and we never get them
    A collegue who I work with and have been for the last 6 months shouted at me cause he is having a bad day

    To top it off I received a court summonds from British Gas of something I have paid but now am unable to prove

    Shall Igo back to bed and not come out until tomorrow

  5. Comment by shyam

    hiiiiiiiiiiii i want to work with u piz call me this my no-09956803600 i m live kanpur [U.P]india

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