Writing Journal: Billy the ratchet strap winder

10 min writing journal prompt: 

"Your phone (or an appliance of some sort) magically comes to life somehow, goes on an adventure of some sort. Key point: it has a strong distinct personality"

Chosen appliance: A ratchet strap winder

[This is what one looks like... in case you were wondering]

- Please indulge this ex-trucker in the following bit of silliness - 

Billy: The ratchet strap winder

It had been a long, weary, mud splattered week. There had been pallets of turf, pallets of drinks, pallets stacked with empty bottles on the way to the factory to be filled. There were pallets of wood, huge heavy reels of recycled paper, you name it, the boss had strapped these to the trailer this week and with the help of Billy, had packed all those straps away, ready for the next load. 

But now they were back at the yard. Shift done. Tacho card out, time sheet finished. Time to go home.

As was normal at the end of any week, all the kit needed to be taken from the truck, and taken home. So, like everything else, Billy was packed back into the kit bag, as the boss sighed a deep sigh that it was finally the weekend. Worn, battered and in dire need of wd40, Billy lay there, knowing that he could at least rest his arms for the weekend before the shift started again early on Monday morning.

There was just one problem. As the boss grabbed his bag, heading out of the truck to go home, he had neglected to zip it up and poor Billy fell out. He tumbled down, missing the steps from the cab and landing with a dull thunk, next to the wheel arch. The truck door was shut, locked and the boss was walking away. There was no use hoping he would be seen, no way for Billy to call out because who ever heard of a ratchet strap winder that had a voice!? It suddenly went dark as the security light switched off. Billy began to realise that in a dusty and mucky truck yard, it was an easy place for a ratchet strap winder to go unnoticed, late on a chilly Friday night.

For hours Billy lay there, cold, wet and alone, thinking how he was likely to be broken by the next person to drive this truck, as he sat there under the wheel arch in a puddle of something that was sticky and wet. But as the hours passed by, Billy began to feel weird. What was this puddle he was lying in? It smelt of a mixture of AdBlue, engine oil and something that must have spilt from one of the deliveries. He wasn’t sure but he had a curious sense that he was growing. In realising he could, he sat up and saw he had legs! This was peculiar. Billy wiggled his arms and found that they didn’t feel stiff and old, but that he had also grown hands! He couldn’t believe his luck. He stood up carefully, balancing himself and then, first slowly but then faster, he ran over to the refill station and sprayed himself with water from the hose the drivers use to fill up their window wash containers.  

Then Billy asked himself the question that all ratchet strap winders would ask themselves, if they inexplicably sprouted hands and legs, and had the whole weekend to themselves: where first?

....................

[Want me to carry on this story? Let me know and I'll head down that rabbit hole and see where it goes]