Patriot Realm

The oxygen thieves of life—your life!

I’m a positive and tolerant person, so I tell myself—although many would argue. 

Until that is, I have to deal with any institution, corporation, government department, shop assistant and the vast army of wastrels that yearn to wield power and make what should be simple things impossible.

A railway toilet cleaner, for example, who spies you urgently running for the loo, so they stick a “closed for cleaning” sign just as you get there. 

And those mean sods on the road that deliberately speed up when you try to overtake—they want you to have a head-on. Come to think about it, I am more than poised for the caustic if I have to deal with anyone at all these days.

“Bloody old curmudgeon”, I hear you saying; “should get a life and stop whinging.” But this is not about whinging; it’s about my life and your life being stolen by an incompetent system top-heavy with insufferable people who don’t know how, or don’t want to do their jobs. 

This mediocrity becomes more apparent with the passing of every year, especially as the finish line becomes apparent to many of us—so much to do, so little time, as they say. That’s another peeve, I’ve always wondered who “they” are?

To get on board my theory, go right now and call Telstra—go on! Tell them your telephone handset (if you still have one) became very soft during the recent heatwave—see how far you get! Silence, is what you’ll get. Tell them it wilted over the cradle like an old cabbage leaf. 

Tell them that your internet is down. Tell them that you can't do online banking.

Even if the person can speak more than three words of English, you will get nowhere.

Now calculate how much time you wasted. After waiting, and waiting, several hours of your life has disappeared down the gurgler for no positive result. It would be the same or worse for a genuine query.

 I once calculated roughly how much time I have spent waiting at the supermarket checkout. I should mention that I do food shop more than the average because being a contrarian I have no idea what I might want for dinner tomorrow or the days following that.

As the curtains are closed about me maybe I’ll hear someone whispering, “the old bastard’s going.” They say hearing is the last sense to quit. Will I regret spending about 70 days of my life standing at a supermarket checkout and can I have them back now? 

Imagine the grim reaper roaring with laughter.

I used to think bed was great. But, as I now can see the whatever it is at the end of the tunnel coming at me, I find bed an interruption to all the things I have to do and want to do. That’s why I’m out of the sack about 4:30am. There’s nobody around at that hour to stuff up my day. 

Those that have jobs don’t normally create problems until about nine. That’s when the sourpusses who really hate their jobs, and everything else, begin a daily routine of company and social sabotage.

By 9:15am that genre are still yawning their way through one of those McCoffees, or what ever they call it these days, while they boast about how buggered they are from a heavy night on the town. I’d send them all home; tell them to come back when they’re ready to put in a fair day’s work.

Last week, on the stroke of nine I breasted the doors of a major chain. That was, of course, on the heels of an early rise, daily ablutions, steak, eggs and baked beans for breakfast, checked for emails and drove 35 kilometres to town while counting the bloated wombats and mangled kangaroos along the wayside. Being—“ahem”—a deep thinker—I wondered what wombat might taste like, which reminded me of when I saw a bloke with an axe, chopping the tail off a dead roo—he said it was for the dog—I dunno about that! They sanitise the name with “roadkill.”

Meanwhile, back at the shop, I waste no time getting what I want—the essentials of life—straight to beer supplies department I hurried. Cooper’s Dark Ale and their number 2 enhancer (a brewing sugar).

That’s pretty much all I buy these days since I bought a sewing machine to shorten a pair of strides that were under my armpits. Chinese clothing makers should visit Australia sometime and see we are not three metres tall with long legs and short arms. But that’s a story for another time regarding ill-fitting clothes designed for twisted bodies.

Now I’m in the beer-gear department staring with disbelief. That shelf which I know so well, where the Cooper’s number 2 enhancer always sits and has done for years—bugger, there was none. Ever tried to find a sales person in one of those big shops?

To the front counter I had to go and ask for help upon which they announced over the PA system—loudly. “Attention! Customer service! There’s a cranky old bastard in the brewing section who can’t find the Coopers number 2 enhancer.”

Nevertheless, I scuttled back to the grog section and waited, and waited. Nobody came! There are two things going on here; the beer section is about a hundred metres from the front desk. I’ve now done three laps and my doctor says I should exercise more. I guess he doesn’t go shopping!

Anyway, my life on this planet has now been shortened by 37 minutes for no good reason at all. Enough. I said and set off on another 100-metre dash, weaving through a maze of aisles to the customer “service” desk and that darned woman on the PA had gone.

“Where’s the lady who was here before?” I asked a bloke at the desk.

“What lady, when?” He said. “Oh, you must mean Doris?”

“Mate.” I don’t know if her name is Doris, or Boris, or bloody Maurice,” I barked. “All I want to do is get a box of Cooper’s number 2 enhancer and get out of here before I cark it in the aisle from old age.”

“Did you ask an assistant in that department about the Coopers’s number 2 enhancer?”

“There was nobody in that bloody department—nobody came when Doris, or whatever her name was paged. “Maybe you’ve got some number 2 enhancer out back in the storeroom somewhere—eh?”

“No way mate, there’s none out back!”

“How do you know, you haven’t even looked?” I retorted.

“I know because I brew me own and I bought the last two yesterday.”

Stuff Cooper’s enhancer, I used raw sugar instead.

Two hours and 56 minutes of my life was stolen by a highwayman of life—on just one errand.

Keep a record and you’ll understand my peeve.

 Chaucer