A Day Called 'Frustration'!

You know those days in one's life when hardly anything goes the way you want and when you wonder why you bothered to get out of bed in the morning. They are not tragic days or days of great sadness, and in terms of serious setback they rank very low and I would not even pretend they come anywhere near, but they do end up with you trying to pull your hair out and fuming as you stomp around in less than righteous anger at the frustrations of that day. Well, I had one such day a little while back and this was it:

 

I decided after lunch on that day that I would take a break from my work to get a long-overdue haircut. I work for myself, so in theory I can do this anytime. I stress the 'in theory', as it's seldom that straightforward, but alright, it's nothing out of the ordinary.

 

As I was on the point of leaving the house the phone rings and, not wanting to lose a possible job, I answer it. However, the caller drones on and, though it is about a possible job, it does not result in anything and I put the receiver down, irritated at the needless delay it has caused me.

 

On checking my change, I find I don't have enough cash to pay the barber and there's nothing for it but to make a stop at a cash dispenser in the high street to withdraw a few readies.

 

So I drive off to the high street where all the cash machines are, but, as luck would have it, I cannot find a parking-place even after two passes down the length of the street and I am forced to use the local car park where I have of course to pay a parking charge and then walk all the way back to the nearest dispenser.

 

On arrival at the nearest dispenser I see a message on the screen informing me that it is out of service. As it's starting to get a bit late in the afternoon, I decide to phone my barber and find out what time he will be closing on that day, as he is in his late sixties, works alone and closes earlier than the normal business hours. However, as try to make a phone call, I find that my mobile phone is switching off at each attempt and I realise it's out of charge and that I cannot use it.

 

With little cash, no working phone, I decide to drive to the nearby supermarket where I can do a quick shop and get some cash-back at the till and then head for my barber's in the hope that he hasn't yet shut up shot.

 

At the supermarket, madness befalls me and I take a large trolley which requires a refundable fee before it will be released and, still gripped by some sort of lunacy, I make for the gardening section to load up with a bumper-size bag of compost, only to find there isn't any of the supermarket's usual, just smaller bags twice the price, and so as my blood begins to boil I drop that and content myself with a couple of items which I didn't really need anyway but which will enable me to get cash-back at the till.

 

I join the queue at a cash-desk - well, when I say queue, it's composed solely of one little old lady - and when the moment of payment arrives she asks for a cash-back of £50, the maximum. When my turn comes I too ask for cash-back but I am duly informed that that is the last bit of cash available for the day and that instead I can use the cash dispenser in the supermarket, which is what I do, realising at the same time that I could have done that in the first place and not bothered with the handful of groceries. But there you are, we are always wise after the event or at least we are not to know that at the time.

 

By now, of course, it's getting late and I realise it's too late to go for my haircut, as I will have to pay to park and the chances are that the shop will already be closed, so I decide to admit defeat and leave it for today. There can surely not be two days like this one in the same week, can there? My laughable ill-fortune is however not over for the day. There is more to come to crown it all and assure my complete frustration!

Before returning home, however, I drop by the petrol-station to fill up. On arrival there, all the pumps are busy and so I join the queue to await my turn. Eventually my turn comes and, having filled up, I go into the shop to pay and join another queue there. On coming back out, I see an uninhabited wilderness before me: not a single car to be seen on the forecourt and all the pumps available for use. It seems the congestion only occurred for my benefit and once I had been through the mill everything cleared up again. Nevertheless, to disprove this cockamamie theory of mine I decide to linger at the forecourt for a moment and see when the next car comes. After waiting in vain for some time, with the forecourt still deserted of all life and with my theory of my supernatural persecution confirmed, I start up the car and just as I am heading out I spot in my rear-view mirror one car and then another entering the forecourt. Theory empirically proven!

The final indignity comes when I get home and realise that I have forgotten to collect my anti-cholesterol pills from the self-same supermarket in which I had been earlier on in an attempt to get some cash for the barber's. As I'm too drained of energy by now and weakened by frustration, I decide it is best left for tomorrow when, hopefully, Sod's Law will have eased up and allow me to get something done. Today nothing can be done, at least not without maximum frustration and loss of the will to live!

This has been a day to forget. Over and out....

Into the New Year...

We're well into another year, 2013, and for the superstitious the 13 on the end may not be too welcome, but could it be worse than the last year, or, come to that, the last few years with all economic crisis and all the doom and gloom that accompanies it? We'll see, and we haven't long to wait. By all accounts, it's more of the same and so far doesn't look very different, but let's be fair and give it a chance, it may surprise us.

After the Christmas festivities and the emotions of New Year's Eve, the entry of the New Year can only be an anticlimax. I had hoped we might get some snow around Christmas, but it was not to be. Last year it came in February and was substantial and made up for none around Christmas. Weather patterns have changed quite a bit since I was a boy and the seasons seem to have shifted. But why should the weather not change over the years, everything else has!

The world today is a very different one from that just 2-3 decades ago, and if we go back a little further it's like being on another planet! Thanks to scientific discovery and technological invention our world is in constant rapid change, with computers and mobile phones and other electronic devices leading the way and transforming our lives for better or worse. Either way, we have no control over these developments and we strive to at least keep up with them, not always with success. But there seems to be no other way to go even if we wanted to.

As our world around us changes, we too change with the advancing years. Some of us change in tandem with the changes going on around us and some of us lag behind, the gap growing wider with each successive technological innovation and new way of functioning in an ever more complicated society. I know that as electronic gadgets and devices become ever more advanced and supposedly easier and more intuitive, instead of simplifying things for me they complicate my life. The phone and the computer which were so easy to use once upon a time now require a lot of concentration and effort from me, as they are so replete with functions and options that I hardly know what I'm doing anymore. Even what seems to be a straightforward list of options presented to me becomes an almost insurmountable barrier of proposed new changes that leaves me spoilt for choice but confused for the same reason, so I tick one box and hope it's the right one for me!

Well, we've had the snows, the cold frosty weather, the icy winds, the flooding rains, the gradual thaw, and now in mid-February things have warmed up a little, but there's no guarantee that the sudden onset of mild weather will take us into spring. Many times before we've had worse weather as we've gone into March and April, and there have been years where we did not get any consistent warm-to-hot temperatures till July! From this you will deduce that here in the United Kingdom the weather is highly changeable and unpredictable from day to day, hence the reason we Brits talk about it so much and have made it our number one topic of conversation calculated to bore the pants of any non-Briton! But there you have it - it is what it is and has made us what we are and this isn't likely to change for several millennia to come when there might occur a massive meteorological upheaval. 

And this is where I finally conclude this post which has gone on for rather longer than I had anticipated and has been revisited various times by me over several weeks in an attempt to complete it before the end of this year and the advent of a new year, namely 1914!