Biorhythms are supposedly hypothetical alterations of physiology, emotion, and/or intellect. Or so it says on Wikipedia. Ordinarily, these life rhythms are meant to skip along in slightly fluctuating circles. Sometimes they flatline and things just don't work as you expected.

7:55 is the absolute latest that I can walk out of my front door, dragging behind all that I will and won't need that day, and still make it to the office a minute or two either side of nine.

At 8:20 this morning I was standing in my living room texting a colleague - my arrival would be some twenty minutes later than anticipated.

It had started with my shoes – which were eventually located under the desk in my study, the other under the bed. Then it was the passcard for the office. Gleefully discarded Friday night, now nowhere to be seen - eventually found in the clothes bin. Then there were the car keys, down the back of the sofa. And then my phone, which I had put down at some random spot in the house after texting the colleague. Miraculously the wallet was right where I left it.

Finally the apartment door was locked and I clambered down the stairs with an assortment of bags in tow, snagging each on every protruding surface and bannister. Once the front door had been negotiated and bags juggled to facilitate entry to car, I settled into the comfortable sports seat of my Coupe (my guilty pleasure) and proceeded to ready myself for the 63.2 mile journey to destination office.

Being drawn somewhat to components of the electrical variety, getting ready starts with plugging the iPod into the FM transmitter, which is in-turn plugged into the cigarette lighter. Usually I then fiddle with the iPod controls and select some educational lecture. If I need to fill the blanks of an embryonic story or item of prose – I turn to Moby, Mogwai or a number of orchestral movie soundtracks. Today is Moby but I leave it on pause for the time being, simply turning on the FM transmitter and tuning in the radio. Next we pull out the TomTom, which for the less informed is a satellite navigation system. I of course do this journey most days so actually know where I am going, but this TomTom allows me to talk handsfree as well, which is cool. And it also tells me how much further I have to go till the next junction. This last can be very helpful when I am suddenly stirred from my Moby induced writing reverie fifty minutes down the line and have no idea where the hell I am. Next we go through the 30 second process of connecting my phone to TomTom. This should not ordinarily take so long but I just renewed my mobile subscription and got the sleek looking Samsung U600 for almost nothing. The only problem is that it won't let my TomTom connect unless I go through each process manually.

With all connected now though, the coupe roles backwards in a slow arc under my guidance and then we crawl forwards to the communal car park exit. I select Priddeesh's mobile on TomTom, there is apologising to be done. In the heat of locating shoes, phones and passcards, I had indirectly accused her of tidying said objects to remote female logic driven tidy places. With the TomTom ringing I wait to become part of the busy procession of vehicles. Soon there is an audible click and Priddeesh answers. My apologies are on the tip of my tongue when someone knocks on the passenger window.

I look across and am confronted with a rather pretty female face framed by carefully nurtured curly auburn locks. She is probably about eighteen, maybe nineteen and by now has opened the door and is leaning in.

“Hello. Are you going into town?”

I tell Priddeesh to hang on a second and respond: “Well no actually, I am heading to the M4.”

“But you're going that way?”

“Well ... yes I suppose so.”

“Don't s'pose you could give me a lift, fucking hammered last night and can't face the walk!”

“Oh ... !” I turn back to TomTom and tell Priddeesh I will ring her back, disconnecting.

I am a sucker. This is widely acknowledged and in the past has got me into all sorts of scrapes. Generally, if I can do something for someone that isn't going to change the long term course of my life, I probably will.

“Sure get in.”

She half staggers, half drops her slight frame into the passenger seat and flashes a mega-watt smile in my direction. In the meantime I concentrate on pulling into the ebb and flow without hitting any oncoming cars.

“You're a star. You businessmen are quality.”

Admittedly I am driving a flash car, but I am wearing Chino's and a Tesco's long sleeved shirt. So the tag 'businessman' feels slightly odd, especially as I am a geek come software engineer. I get the impression I am not her virgin businessman experience.

“So you off to work then?” I ask her.

“Urmmnn No. I got sacked on Friday. Am off to sign on with all the other bums!”

“Oh. Where did you work?”

“JJB, it was sweet. They was all lovely ...”

Skipping over the 'why' element of the conversation I continued. Of course being old enough to have a twenty something daughter I struggle with contemporary conversation.

“So how come you're still hammered, what time did you go to bed last night?”

“I didn't.”

“Oh ... do you live round here?”

“Yeah, right where you picked me up, in the YMCA.” I decided not to correct her on the semantics of precisely who picked up who and decided to go with the literal understanding.

“Really. Those buildings are the YMCA?”

Sure, it's fucking ace. Everyone there's my babes. Especially my little Danny! He's my man!”

“Cool. Everyone needs someone, right!”

“Sure. He's got the biggest cock ever!”

“oh.”

“Like it's this huge .. “ with this she shaped her slender fingers in front of her face as if readying to eat a giant Baguette and then started miming how precisely difficult it was to eat said baguette.

“Like it's so big I can't get it all in my mouth ...” Still vigorously gnawing on the end of imaginary baguette, hair tumbling backwards and forwards.”

I was admittedly a little shocked at being confronted with such graphic detail, sixty seconds into our first meeting. But being sat next to a pretty nineteen year old miming the finer points of fellatio on a giant baguette, will never rank as the most tortuous experience of this life. But that life has taught me all good things must come to an end.

“So where do you need dropping off?”

“Urrmmn .. the clock tower would be good!” Hands still poised in-front of her face.

The clock tower is an extra half mile but by now it seemed pointless. Apart from the fact I was starting to warm to her, I was already very late, so an extra five minutes was going to make no difference whatsoever.

“How about I drop you off by Waitrose?”

“Oh mate that would be ace!” With that she repeated the businessmen were all stars mantra and then stroked my shoulder in a friendly non-salacious manner.

“I like your shirt.”

“Cheers, cost me a tenner in Tesco's.”

“Wow!” She seemed genuinely impressed.

“But I prefer Asda, I like their t-shirts.”

“Yeah me to, clothes that is. They do good hair stuff, but it's hard to get to one here with no car!”

“You're not kidding, I can't find one with a car!” She laughed.

Two roundabouts later I pulled over outside Waitrose.

“Here you go.”

“Cheers mate. I really am grateful!”

With that there was an awkward pause, she was so pleased she wanted to show her gratitude – my mind merrily skipped through several scenarios while smiling benignly back at her. In a few years time I guess she would have leaned across and pecked me on the cheek. But at nineteen her understanding of how to pay gratitude seemed tarnished by man's salacious expectations. I bade her farewell.

She beamed back and then half climbed, half stumbled onto the pavement, pushing the door almost closed before trotting off.

Having leaned over to close the door properly, I pushed the vanity mirror back into the sun-visor and popped the visor back into place. I then tapped redial on TomTom and waited several rings, pulling back into the rush hour traffic. Priddeesh answered: “Hello!”

“Hello you. You're never going to believe the morning I am having!”