Failing to Keep Calm and Carry On

As I've noted before, like Peter Griffin, a lot of things really Grind My Gears. I think it’s a result of being an overly anxious sort that I get wound up easily, resulting in inarticulate rants against anyone unfortunate to be in the vicinity. A friend reckons I’ll come out of the other end of this at the age of 50 as a kind of Buddhist Guru type, permanently chilled out and prone to dishing out pearls of wisdom to my kid brother’s children/grandchildren that I imagine will be forthcoming now he’s just got engaged.

Not now, though. No, for now I remain a man permanently on the edge of an aneurysm brought on by things like:

1) If any one organisation has gone straight to the top of my shitlist, it’s GMPTE. That’s the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, for those outside the confines of the Best City in the World (Super Scientist and Stud Muffin Professor Brian Cox said so, which makes it true).

I could easily go off on one here about the lack of decent, affordable municipal transport provision in the city, but the main source of my ire is that on trooping to catch the bus one recent morn, I found myself waiting for 25 minutes longer than expected. Later that day, on checking online timetables, it was revealed that the schedule had been changed. Just a shame, then, that GMPTE had failed to change the timetables at the actual stops.

Now, I know what you’re saying. “My dear boy,” you sigh. “Why didn't you take another route when it was clear the one you wanted wasn't forthcoming?” But it’s never that simple, is it? You can be stood there, in the pouring rain at 7am and you will not be moved, because you just know that as soon as you’re round the corner, that sodding bus will chug along, merrily leaving you behind. So you will not be moved. You will wait as long as it takes, even as the water drips down your hair into your eyes and the feeling in your toes begins to fade. The timetable says the bus should be there, and that’s the bus you will take.

Incidentally, the changes that were made now mean the journey between home and work takes me an extra ten minutes. So that’s 20 minutes of my life gone every day I go to work. Thanks for that.

2) This post was inspired by buying some milk this morn. Now, this is an essential purchase on a Monday as I’m unable to function without a high level of caffeine in my bloodstream. I’m sure some of you know the horror as arriving at the workplace, pouring said drink and when adding milk, seeing the flakes of manky dairy product rise to the top. Despite the “use by” date saying March 10, it has gone off. Cue sigh, a brief moment of wondering whether to risk an upset stomach by drinking it anyways before pouring it down the sink and shifting my sorry arse back to the shop.

By my reckoning, this happens once every 50 cartons of milk I buy. But everytime never fails to bring about a deep sense of existential despair in my bones, as if the sight of what should have been a reassuring cup of coffee going down the plughole is instead my very soul washing away. Honestly, sometimes I could weep.

3) That the release date for Mass Effect 3 appears to have been put back from Tuesday to Friday. Now, anyone who knows me will know how excited I am by this game, to the degree I had put in a pre-order with a Certain High Street Game Store for the full-on package with lots of useless shit included, primarily to ensue I had the extra content promised. Additionally, I have booked Wednesday to Friday off work so that I could properly hammer it without causing my lady friend immense boredom.

However, fate has decreed otherwise. Not only do I apparently have to wait three more days, but said store have decided not to sell the game after all, rumour being because they’re too skint to pay EA for the copies up front. Bastards!

It’s all incredibly trivial, I know, but as Mozzer once noted, such a little thing makes a big difference.

On a final rant, something that seriously grinds my gears that isn't minor is when some old fart Cardinal says two fellas or two lasses getting married is an “aberration” that will cause moral decline across the nation. I've not got a boyfriend, and I don’t plan on getting married at all, but if two other people want to do so, then all the best to them. It doesn't destroy the “sanctity” of anything, it doesn't mean jack shit to anything except the happiness of two people. As I know by my tragically advancing age, we’re in the 21st century now, so let’s make an effort, eh? Cardinal Keith O’Brien, to use his own words, is a “grotesque subversion” of a man who probably wants people to be as miserable as possible so that they may take guidance from some old dude in Rome rather than seek fulfilment through concepts such as love and emotional peace with a partner they are able to be with free of stigma and prejudice.

He’s probably just jealous of all those happy campers having hot guy-sex anyways.