Well, it's such a nice day today. 21c today. Manageable. Bit of rain later. Manageable. So I'm not in a complaining mood today. What I do want to ramble about is just that weird stuff we do. Starting with this greeting which became almost a norm since my school days...
- The seeing a friend on the street enigma and saying "Hi you alright?"
This one you can just see in one syllable. "Hiyoualrigh" funny thing is, you never really give a shit whether they are "alright" or not. Nah. You couldn't give a fuck. Neither could they either. Since about 90% of the time they don't actually respond by asking YOU if you are alright.
Oh look, John is approaching me. Hmm...it's raining and he doesn't have a coat on...bet he'll moan about that in the next shop he goes in to. Ok we are now about 50 feet away from each other and we've made the dreaded eye contact. This is a controversial time of an almost panicky think on your feet time of not knowing what the fuck to do until you are about a foot from each other. You can either:-
- PRETEND you didn't make the eye contact at all. Start looking around you at anything you can lay your eyes on. Just for the love of God DON'T make eye contact with the person you are playing this little game with.
- Get out your mobile and pretend to text. The mobile phone pays for itself in these situations. My phone doesn't even have a sim card in it. I just use it as a distraction.
- Walk into a shop. Now this one is a little ignorant as you are basically depending on the fact that your friend hasn't seen you. This little maneuver reminds me of that bit on Raiders when Indy dives out of the way of that boulder at the very last minute. All I'm saying is God help you if your friend follows you into the shop and a live action game of Pacman is initiated.
Now, you've done one of or if you are a Woman who can multitask done all three. Those painful 49 feet have been crossed and now you come to that pivotal moment where you both look up and BANG! HOLY FUCK! HI JOHN! DIDN'T SEE YOU THERE! You both engage in the most fake element of surprise ever and now one of THESE three things happen:-
- You stop and ask each other "hiyoualrigh" and have a normal yet probably awkward conversation as you've just spent the last 49 feet trying to avoid them
- You make the eye contact and give it the "hiyoualrigh" but if you are a John Mclean hard fuck you CARRY ON walking. BUT still engage with the eye contact. The worst part is when the other person STOPS and you carry on. John wanted to have a conversation with you and you could not be arsed in the slightest. Fuck John. JOHN never responds to my posts on his wall so why the fuck should I stop and talk to him just because we made eye contact.
- Classic "hiyoualrigh"...you both say it, neither of you respond and you just carry on. The rhetorical fact that if either one of you are indeed "alright" is never established and you just carry on with your day.
One particularly awkward transgression is when all of the above happens with someone you met through a friend. You may have had a very small conversation with them on a night out. You don't even know this persons name. But you see them all the time on the street. The first couple of times it's step 3 from above. But it's after that it gets awkward. After that you have to see if they make the first "hiyoualrigh". If they don't you feel that you have to. If they do you think "maybe I am, why do you care".
I might bring back the top hat. All you gotta do then is give it a quick tip in the direction of John who'll do the same back to you. No problem.
- Waiting for a man to stop peeing
Okay ladies, I apologise but since I have no idea what goes in the Area 51 that is your toilets I cannot describe what happens there. So this one is just for us guys.
Now, it is quite rare to find a Men's toilet to be full. But there comes a time when it is. So I'm stood there, the urinals are full and the cubicles are full. Quite an awkward moment. You don't know where to look. Also, HOLY SHIT how big are these guys bladders? Why does this one guy seem to take about 5 minutes to take a piss? It takes me at the max 15 seconds. Has this guy not had a wee for the past week? HURRY UP CAMEL!! I mean I could understand it if he was wearing cream chinos because that deathly urine spot doesn't exactly hide itself well on those. But no this guy is wearing thick jeans. Hurry the fuck up and let me piss. You ever waited at a checkout with one item and the kind person lets you in front because he has a weekly shop? Well, why can't the same apply here? "Excuse me Mr Camelbladder, I predict that your urination will last about five minutes whereas mine takes about 15 seconds. For the good of efficiency can I go in front of you?" I wouldn't recommend this but damn it would make my toilet trips easier.
- Complain in normal conversation deliberately louder so other people can hear
Now I get this a lot where I work. You see a couple of people having a conversation then one of them wants to complain about something and for this time they suddenly go up a few decibles. Pretty much something like this
"oh yes I had ever such a nice holiday in Benedorm, you see I'm the only person who has ever been there. BUT NO I REFUSE TO PAY FOR A CARRIER BAG IT IS AGAINST MY BELIEFS"
Yes sweetheart I heard you. I heard that you don't pay for carrier bags. You fucking steel-hearted, strong, mandela-esque powerful piece of wonderful humanity. Those few decibels really raised yourself higher on the ladder of importance. Shit, you should run for Prime Minister. Don't bother buying a microphone. Dumb bitch.
- Announce on Facebook "we are in A+E" but don't explain why
This really confuses me. I don't know why we do it. We see a status saying "Just in A+E" then under it we see about five genuinely concerned people asking "Why?" "Omg why?" but we NEVER hear from them why the hell they are there.
So if you are going to announce your sudden residency in A+E. I want a picture of your damaged body part. I wanna see the compound fracture. I wanna see your ankle twisted. I wanna know why you are there, what got you there, how long you have been waiting and what the nurse said. I wanna know the time you arrived and the the time you left. I wanna know every loud complaint that other inpatients made about their waiting time. I wanna see your bandages, your splints. I wanna see your x-ray scan. I wanna know how long off work you are gonna be. I wanna see the injuries of other people in the waiting room. I wanna see how well stocked the vending machines are in there.
What I DON'T wanna just see is "Just in A+E". If you do that, you deserve to be there. Good. If you're not going to explain why you are there then fuck you. If you are going to leave us on that cliffhanger then I don't care in fact I have no reason to believe you.
Well I'm gonna leave it there folks. I'll no doubt come across some other frivolities of human behaviour and I'll add them to this. Take care folks.
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