Keep Under Cover.


You don’t expect your self-esteem to get a knock when renewing your contents insurance. This happened to me this morning; about five minutes into running through the various questions relating to my policy over the phone, when the subject of the nature of my employment came up.

“What do you do for a living?” asked Mark (the man with the power to protect my belongings.)
“I’m an actor”, I replied.

The line went dead for a moment.

"What sort of actor?”, he probed.
“How do you mean?”.
“Do you do film, TV or theatre?”.
“Well, all of the above”, I replied, “but mostly theatre.”

(For some reason, my previous policy had me listed as just a teacher; presumably, to avoid this kind of interrogation.)

“This is a slightly awkward question to ask”, Mark continued, shakily, “but it will affect the nature of your policy. Are you famous?”.

I mulled over my twelve years in the business. The high points, the low points; the near-constant middle ground.

“No,” I admitted. “No, I’m not famous; infamous, perhaps.”

Mark ignored my joke.

“Do any famous people ever visit your house?”, he continued. I was starting to go off Mark.

I briefly pondered whether the time when the actress who plays Emmerdale’s Charity Dingle popped over would count.

“No, not really.”

The line went silent whilst Mark totted up the figures, working out what type of cover I’d be eligible for; completely unaware of how he’d summed up my career in just a few seconds and found it to be lacking in the process.

I wonder if I could claim for compensation for loss of earnings due to ego damage? I’ll let you know how things pan out.

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