TheBanyanTree: A chip pannini

[John Bailey]

Friday May 28, 2004

A CHIP PANNINI

"I'm going to Skegness today," I announced at breakfast. "Would you like to 
come with me?"

"What for?" asked Graham.

"I have to take this pension form into the Social Security office along 
with my birth certificate to have them confirm sight of the thing."

"You won't like it."

"What won't I like?"

"The Social Security place."

"Why? It's just an office, isn't it?"

"You've led a sheltered life."

"I'm getting nervous now."

"Oh, you'll survive. But you won't like it."

He was right of course. All the way through my working life until today I 
haven't had to stand in line with the great unwashed, waiting for a clerk 
to stamp a form for me. The 'office' was a dour, airless place, with 
bulletproof glass screens protecting the two women who were processing the 
queue. I've seen this sort of thing in the movies, and in situation 
comedies and dull grey dramas on TV, but I'd taken it as 
over-dramatisation. I was wrong. The Social Security office in Skegness is 
probably the most dispiriting, life-sapping place I've ever visited. I 
thought I'd died and gone to some kind of State hell. The impression was 
reinforced because, while waiting, I was wedged between three exceedingly 
smelly blokes who were discussing their cases. Loudly. Over my head. And I 
don't think any of them flossed this morning.

It was horrid. The common advice for those who wish to survive such 
situations is to lay back and think of England. Problem is, this is England 
for a lot of people and, more to my own selfish point, it's the official 
face of the England that waits for those of us who survive long enough to 
collect our old age pensions. Not much of a reward for a decent working life.

Graham had been taking a turn around the town while I was engaged on State 
business.

"How was it?" he asked as I stepped out into the blessed sunshine and 
walked through the cloud of rancid smoke generated by smokers waiting for 
their turn at the Social Security office. Some people have appointments, so 
it seems.

"I didn't like it."

"Told you so."

"You were right. I think I'd like to go home and take a shower now."

"Bad as that?"

"Yup."

"Well, tell you what. As a reward for your endurance we can have a 
fish-and-chip lunch before we go home. How about that?"

"That'd be nice but to be honest I'd rather have a Starbucks."

"Starbucks doesn't seem to have reached Skegness yet."

"Shame," I said, my spirits reviving and my wickedness along with them. "I 
could just go a triple espresso and a chip pannini."


--

John Bailey   Lincolnshire, England

journal of a writing man:
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>