Many years ago, I was a smoker.
Many years ago, I lived in a city where there was public transport.

These two facts *are* related, as you'll come to learn, gentle reader.

Waiting for buses can be a frustrating affair. Granted, it's less frustrating in large cities where they actually have several buses per day. Round these parts if you miss "the bus", then you may as well just go home, frankly, because that was the only one. This week.

So, you wait for the bus for what *seems* like hours. In reality, only a few minutes have passed since you arrived at the bus stop. But perception is important here, because it's all you have. As the minutes tick away, you curse yourself, because you know that you could have smoked a cigarette in that time. You ummm and ahhh about it, and fidget as fellow travellers light up, smoke and stub out as if to torture you. Finally, you succumb to your habit and raise a cigarette to your lips, keeping your eye on the road to see if there is a bus about to rumble into view. You commit to lighting the cigarette, taking that all-important first drag and, in the time it took to focus on the flame of the lighter, as if by magic, the bus has appeared.

You are faced with the option of discarding the cigarette (a terrible waste) or doing that pikey thing where you drop the lit end off and save the rest for later only to find that it smells and tastes rather funny. Even funnier than normal.

You may wonder where I'm going here (I certainly do, sometimes) but stay with me.

You see, the cigarette at the bus stop, I've decided, is like a pregnancy test.

You wait, in my case 10 days, before succumbing to buying one. Then, literally, within an hour of having secured the item, what should appear on the horizon?

I'll give you a clue. It's red.

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FOR SALE

Pregnancy test. Unused. Still in cellophane wrapping. Genuine reason for sale.