As I no longer have to travel to work each day and deal with the stresses of the daily commute you would think I would be doing well to avoid the annoyances that everyone else has to put up with. On reading about the Metro chaos yesterday, I empathised but sat back smugly thinking ‘rather you than me’. But my week hasn’t been without mishaps. In the first of a probably never to be repeated series, here are my top ten annoyances of the week.
10. Argos. Tempting me in by telling me that the earphones I’ve been looking at buying for ages are now half price. Telling me that there is a Fast Track service where my goods will be available in as little as 60 seconds. Discovering that Fast Track is no quicker than going to China and employing a small child to make the earphones for me and getting home to find out that the earphones are nothing like the ones described on the website. One crucial feature is missing. I’m going to have to return them but the thought of standing in a queue in Argos is not a pleasant one.
9. Tesco click & collect. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Don’t have to wait in for delivery, only ten minutes from my house. The sign for click & collect pointed to the floor in front of the shelf with hot chicken on. Nobody was there. Customer Services seemed confused. Four people got involved in the transaction, none of them particularly interested. Whilst waiting I got to witness the type of people who use the customer service/cigarette counter in Tesco. Who knew that little old ladies had laminated cards with their ‘lucky numbers’ for the lottery that get scanned every time they go in?
8. Amazon. Their usual exemplary levels of service dipped this week when I waited in all day for a Prime Next Day delivery to receive an email to say it wasn’t coming and to wait a couple of days to see if it turned up. The item did turn up the next day but needed a battery (not their fault but an annoyance none the less.)
7. Sainsburys. In need of a battery I nipped into Sainsburys after my run carrying my ‘emergency’ tenner that I always have on me when running. I was sweating profusely, dressed ridiculously in bright orange clothing and a woolly hat and probably looked like I should be on a register somewhere. I double checked that I had the right batteries in the two for £7 deal and went to the till with them and a loaf of bread only to find the batteries were £5 each. Deciding that it probably wasn’t wise to draw attention to myself due to the clip I looked I put one of the batteries back explaining that I only had my emergency tenner as I’d been for a run. Why she asked if I had a Nectar Card isn’t entirely clear.
6. Car battery. One of the casualties of not using the car much and when I do use it, using every electrical gadget possible is that the battery is going to run down. I’ve had this car for nearly four years without incident but it’s decided to start playing up. A full charge last night and the battery light is still showing. Torn between buying a new battery or paying to get the alternator/wiring etc checked properly.
5. Me. Being the idiot that I am, when replacing the battery this morning, I dropped the socket off the wrench into the engine bay. I had to remove half the bloody engine to get at it adding time and risk to a fairly straightforward procedure.
4. Sky email. They did warn me that Yahoo had been hacked but I foolishly delayed in changing my password. I now seem to have been hacked and am responsible for thousands of phising emails that I am recieving out of office replies from.
3. Mice. I believe I have dealt with the menace by blocking up the hole I think they were using to get into the house. Unfortunately signs of their previous excursions still exist. In a little used cupboard in the kitchen including unused appliances and assorted other junk, I had dumped a few sachets of protein powder I got free when buying energy gels and bars for running. I’m not a fan of protein shakes so would probably never use them but to see that the mice have gone through two 50g packets of protein powder has me slightly worried that I’m going to encounter some ripped super mouse when visiting the toilet in the middle of the night.
2. Me again. Allowing myself to get annoyed at such trivial things. It’s just a minor inconvenience and there’s much worse happening in the world. Which leads me nicely onto number one.
1. The Daily Mail. Not even an annoyance but genuine outrage. I don’t think I’ve been so angry with a newspaper since the Sun’s reporting of Hillsborough. Their reporting of the Jo Cox murder was reprehensible and what a complete and utter shower of bastards they must have working for them. I usually just shrug my shoulders at their clickbait headlines but for once I allowed them to actually get to me. Probably not appropriate for a light hearted blog about petty annoyances but I’ve got it off my chest.
Thanks for reading, I’m off to watch a happy film.
Alan Parkinson 