Madness

One of my assignments for a creative writing class was to write down ten things that made me angry this week – not in a short few words, but a little more descriptive. Here are mine:

• A paper aeroplane lightly tossed from the back of the room, retrieved and unfolded revealed itself to be the last page of someone’s workbook. The single passenger on the plane, seated in economy class was a well chewed blob of chewing gum.

• No one asks to borrow a pencil anymore. It has to be a “writing implement”. And they have to ask for it in French. And they stick it in their pocket afterwards and walk away with it.

• The car (why doesn’t someone just steal it?) is booked in for major surgery and an MOT tomorrow. There was almost a confession box feel to the encounter with the mechanic. “Forgive me, Mr Mechanic, for I have sinned…It has been almost one year since my last MOT…I confess that I have neglected to check the tyres regularly or top up the oil. There may be little or no anti freeze in the water and the last time the car got a decent wash was some time in the summer…”

• By the time I had meticulously untied all the knots between the plastic carrier bags of the Chinese takeaway order, everything had gone cold! And the diet coke was missing!

• No one seems to be reading anything that I write!

• A curious flashing green light on the new telephone ignited in me a sense of panic that refused to be ignored. The instruction book to tell me what to do was nowhere to be found.

• I haven’t won the lottery. I never win the lottery. The winning numbers edge up close to my numbers, touching sometimes, but they are never my numbers. The advert that says “It could be you!” should tell the truth and confess “It’s statistically unlikely to be you.”

• Those individual portions of tomato ketchup, brown sauce, mayonnaise or mustard should be replaced with the bottle version. This morning, while trying to wrestle open a tomato ketchup one, the sachet split open, spitting sauce bullet-speed not on to anyone’s chips, but across the table and into my hair!

• The weight machine at Tesco not only got my weight WRONG – two pound heavier despite being mostly good - but it also managed to knock of an inch from my height. Apparently I am shrinking, but not where I want to be! The scales are NOT my friend.

• Ross County pounded Sterling Albion with a 9-0 victory. I support neither team but feel rather like Sterling Albion these days. There may be no own goals, but a lots of the enemy’s shots are on target and hitting the back of the net.

• Silence angers me. That you never told me…that I never asked…that I never told you…that you never asked…that we never spoke at all…and all the time I had the answer to your needs…and you had the answer to mine…but we struggled on alone.

The things that maade me happy, the second part of the assignment, are on their way....