TheBanyanTree: Minor irritants

[John Bailey]

Friday August 29, 2003

MINOR IRRITANTS

After a night of heavy rain we woke to a sunny world, washed clean and 
smelling sweet enough to raise the spirits of a Galpodian sludge-creature 
living at the bottom of a slime-pool on a minor moon of Krakis IV.

A sunny, rain washed morning on the cusp between summer and autumn is 
pretty close to heaven in my book, and a wonderful, crispy-clean way to 
start the day. It sustained me throughout, buoying up my spirits in spite 
of a few minor irritants:

      * Like the ill-mannered lout in the supermarket who tried to
      eject me from the check-out by placing his trolley against me and
      pushing before I'd finished packing. Far from unique, that's a
      form of behaviour that gives the rural Welsh a very bad name.
      It's a fact of life here in Wales.

      * Like the way delivery companies insist they can't give you an
      arrival time other than "between nine and six" and yet always,
      infallibly, turn up ten minutes before the expiry of that period.
      That's a fact of life, too, and I have a sneaky suspicion it is a
      procedure designed to prevent you phoning in to let them know
      there's a shortage before they shut up for the weekend.

      * Like the neighbour who stands by watching while his dog
      urinates on your front lawn and does nothing to stop the hapless
      creature. Day after day. That's another fact of life, arising
      from social ineptitude and general life-style incompetence.

There's nothing sensible you can do about any of it except perhaps run away 
to a tropical island. And I'll bet good money that even there the coconuts 
wait until the very last minute before they fall.


--
John Bailey   Carmarthenshire, Wales
journal of a writing man
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>