Familiar

 

'Having a party?', probably the most un-amusing and 'wow, that's not funny.' comment that I get when buying a few bottles of wine in my local supermarket. What is it with people and the need to interject a little interaction into your life when you least require it. I now just turn around and carefully look at the contents of their conveyor belt and say 'No, with all that food are you?'. Admittedly you have to dodge a few punches now and again but hey, you started it.

Anyway, sigh, we had it again yesterday, only this time at the front door. Jayne's car was being picked up for a service, a quite simple procedure. As Jayne handed the keys over our car collector said 'I hate garlic'.

'Pardon?' said Jayne.

'I really hate garlic, I have hated it since I was small and I was forced fed garlic bread'

At this point I hasten to add Jayne just stood there in disbelief, I was sat at my desk just around the corner so could listen undetected.

'Right, so my car will be back when?' Jayne continued.

'You really smell of garlic, do you eat garlic?'

I was stifling a snigger, here we have stranger about to take our car for a service stood on our doorstep telling Jayne she smells.

He hurried on with the insults 'Garlic turns my stomach, do you always use garlic because its horrible, I never touch it, it stinks.'

I peeped around the corner to see Jayne's face, it was on the edge of Tourette's, a second longer and I think his ears would have bled from the swearathon tirade that was building up inside her. Stepping out from around the corner broke the garlic spell and as if nothing had been said at all he turned to me and said 'it'll be ready around 4pm' and with that he was gone.

'What the hell was that all about, do I smell?' exclaimed Jayne.

See what I mean, people say the weirdest things at the most inappropriate moment. It gets worse and this one has happened twice to us because the delivery driver forgot he had tried this ploy before. Picture the scene, a delivery driver turns up and knocks on our door, Jayne answers and just as she is about to sign for the parcel the delivery mans phone rings. I say ring, what it actually does is bays like a donkey then screams out three times 'I have a big dick', he then laughs and says 'I have you know' with a glint in his eye.

Stop the world I want to get off. Seriously, what is wrong with people, it's like the bit in your brain that says 'hang on, let me run that by you again it may be inappropriate' has changed to 'wow, that's a really good thing to do, do it now before you forget'.

It can get a little more disturbing than this though, recently we have witnessed two incidents that quite frankly are unbelievable that it was considered acceptable to do. The first involved a yoof, I only call him a yoof because that is what he looked like, a 18 year old yoof. He was walking along the pavement bouncing a football, approaching him was a middle aged man on a push bike. As the cyclist drew level with him our yoof picked up the ball and using both hands thrust it inches from his face with such speed that the cyclist fell off into the road. Our yoof laughed and walked away waving goodbye with two fingers like he had just performed the greatest gag in the world. Not once did it enter his mind that it was dangerous, that the cyclist could be seriously injured as he fell towards moving vehicles or quite simply that you just don't do it.

The second involved a small car driven by a middle aged lady. She was being followed by two quad bikes, both riders wearing full masks and partially obscured licence plates, we were following them. As we travelled along the quad bikers decided to do a bit of bullying and they started to harass the driver in front, firstly by getting as close as possible then overtaking and weaving around in front of her causing her to keep braking sharply. From our viewpoint she was getting visibly distressed but carried on driving. One of the quad bikers then dropped back only to overtake her on the inside performing a two wheel stunt, he finished this by returning to four wheels and pacing the car level with the drivers window. Slowly he held out his left hand and formed a gun using his fingers, pretending to click it a few times in intimidation he blew away pretend smoke and sped off. The lady swerved and pulled in sharply. Not nice.

Slowly the lines of acceptable behaviour are being erased and replaced, the only thing is in today's society nobody really knows what to replace it with.

I for one are just about to go out and shout at a few people, maybe I will kick or punch a couple for a laugh but if I really want to have fun I'll go out and find that yoof and the quad bikers and string them up by their testicles, tell that delivery driver that his cheap method to get a bonk is pathetic and find our car collector so I can fill his car heater with garlic.

I'm off for a drink, and no, I'm not having a party.

 

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