I was shopping again. I know, I know. I won’t keep going on about supermarkets, but let me relay this quickie…
I buy most of the shopping in this house -for 2 adults and 2 children. As I was finishing up, I passed by the drinks area and noticed some Polish beer I had bought previously. Knowing I had one bottle of same already at home I thought I might as well buy another. As Noah himself used to say, “Pair the beers”.
(Yes, I’m not sad enough to buy beer one bottle at a time thankyouverymuch. I do already have other types of beer in the house -not a vast selection or anything, but probably enough for a person or two to last a night if need be, if they didn’t mind mixing & matching & possibly swigging a can or two out of date towards the end of the evening. But this was a kind of ‘specialty beer’ and I only wanted one more).
The day began much like any other. Plans were afoot to make a video for The Eurovision Song Contest. My friend, John Poland, was calling round, along with another few friends (and their children) and together we were planning and preparing to shoot the video in a recently-cleared room in our house (as one does).
Especially now in this time of doom & gloom I do find myself questioning almost every purchase, even though in real terms, my own (already paltry) finances haven’t really changed in the last while.
Then today I discovered that there’s an “ABSOLUTE” version of the great graphic novel, Watchmen (yes, I now know it has been around for a while and you’re so much better than me for knowing it, happy?). This is a hardback ‘kingsize’ fancy release of the book, together with extras such as notes between the writer and artist as well as “lots lots more” -see!
Now look at that price. £56.49 (at time of writing). What makes it even worse is that you can only purchase in euros from play.com if it’s not going to the UK and the euro price for this is 73.49euros (at time of writing -remember sterling is almost 1:1 with the euro)… and I already own the book itself.
My 3 year old son was calling me earlier. “Daddy! Daddy!” he shouted.
I walked into the room and asked him if my name was daddy. He said yes.
“So you’re saying Daddy is my name?”
“Yes” he nodded.
“But what’s my name?” I demanded.
“You’re my daddy, so you’re daddy,” he reasoned.
“But is daddy my name?”
“Yes” he said.
“So when I was a little boy like you my mother called me daddy?” I asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“So what did she call me?”
He thought about it for two seconds before saying… “Son!”
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.
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.
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…
I quite like the African tea I’m getting in Tesco for the past year or so. They don’t seem to have it anywhere else (but they used to). “Taste of Africa” I think it’s called. I don’t know if they have it near you, but I recommend you try it if they do.
I get a consistent high-quality pot of tea with it every time, but Mrs. Kaptiongod seems unable to do so. Her’s (bags from the same box) tastes like boiled socks -and no I don’t know what boiled socks tastes like, but I do after tasting her tea.
Following a recent law here in Ireland, selling of alcohol was (slightly) restricted.
For many weeks/ months after, all around a certain supermarket there was a long, boring notice that ended with the words “This is in appliance with recent government regulations.”
.
I didn’t say anything the first time I was in. I’m not that pedantic, honestly, but a couple of weeks later I was in there again and the signs were still up all over the shop. I stood there in front of one sign, looking confused (I’ve been perfecting that look for a while now), when I saw a manager type guy approaching. He seemed concerned and asked if he could help me. Continue reading Appliance is a fridge→
Following our recent extension work, I was left with a 1.5-foot gap in the cork tiles where the wall was knocked through (ie. some of the floor around the old wall was removed with the wall, which meant the cork tiles now ‘ended’ 1.5ft from the wall, leaving an unsightly concrete gap next to a doorway.)
.
After the builder & co left I had some lino put down in the adjoining room and asked the person doing that to replace the cork tiles (using the spares I had) while he was at it. He pointed out the tiniest of gaps in the level of the floor (where the builder had removed an old levelling compound, making this ‘floor’ now lower than where the existing cork tiles were laid …got it?)
.
Anyway, he recommended this gap first be levelled with a skim of some floor levelling compound, otherwise the replacement tiles would be below the older ones by some millimeters.
“Right-ho” I agreed and left it at that.
