I was stopped in a late-morning traffic jam on a dreary midweek trek to college in my twelve-year-old 1979 Fiesta when I chanced upon a curious sight: A grown man, probably around the forty-mark, hanging balloons on the pillars outside his house. He had already taped or tied three onto one pillar and had begun work on another set of three balloons on the second. I was dismayed. When I witnessed him taping up an A4 sheet with the words “PARTY ON HERE” I was totally perplexed. “He must be the saddest man in the world,” I thought to myself as I shook my head with a sympathetic guffaw and edged another three feet toward my destination. “How could a grown man spend time hanging balloons for his child’s birthday (and be seen to be doing so, without shame, on a busy road)?” It was beyond me.
Category Archives: A Digression
These are mostly little pleasant rambles. Something to amuse, to think about, to enjoy. Often not about anything you can put a finger on, but there’s something there nonetheless.
The God of Queues
It’s December 23rd 2008 and I’m back from a harrowing shop. I realise now I never knew before today what a harrowing shop was. Now I am older, wiser and beaten to a pulp. I’ve never seen so much harrow in one shop.
It was like pushing a milk-float through molasses in a high-street Patricks Day riot. Don’t stop or you’ll turn around to find the trolley bashed & overturned 3 aisles down under a mountain of knock-down, knocked-down tins of beans. Bend to pick up a sliced pan and chances are you have just avoided being slapped in the face by a flying duck as litle Johnny relieves the boredom of shopping by helping his mother in creative ways. Duck! If you insist on standing still for more than 10 seconds to source a decent sausage, take care to curl your toes and tighten your buttocks. It’s Christmas out there and the hordes (which, admittedly, I added to) mean to stock up for it. If that means cutting you off or cutting you up so be it. You’ll have deserved your just desserts if you get in the way of the business of festive good-kill.
The Whole Tooth
With head bowed in heartfelt sorrow I can at last come clean about something:
Before today I hadn’t been to a dentist for over 10 years!
I know this to be true because we moved into our current home eight years ago. It was around two years before then that I visited the dentist. After the move, my ‘regular’ dentist was now around fifteen miles from my house -through heavy traffic most of the time. My teeth felt fine.
So I put off the visit. I know I could’ve gone elsewhere, but …y’know…
[Theory] To Ply or Not To Ply
…That is the question!
Have you noticed how 2-ply toilet paper these days seems to be pretending it is 3-ply?
I’ve tried a few (but not a lot), and each brand seems to do the same. It is virtually impossible to begin unravelling just two plies (is that the correct plural?).
Instead, one ply is slightly longer and stuck to the end of the double-ply at the ‘beginning point’.
Therefore, one always begins by unravelling three plies instead of two.
.
THING -Gas Queries
A couple of years ago I went for a gastroscopy. Or was that a gastrectomy? …The one where they place a camera up yer bum, looking for the scenic route to Uranus. That one. I won’t go in to details, but I’ll just say that thankfully I got the all-clear afterwards. Anyway, I thought I’d share a little non-medical moment from that day…
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