Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Yesterday, when I parked the car in Town, Paul and I realised that there really were very few people around at this time on New Year’s, not least because I was literally the only car parked for a good mile on this stretch of unlimited parking road. Of course, had any potential car thieves gone for the only available choice, they would have found themselves unable to get very far, because, as ever, the petrol stations had all closed stupidly early leaving me damn near fuelless. I question the wisdom of Tescos installing automated, card-operated pumps and then closing them off because they’re unsupervised, but I guess it’s not my place to judge how idiots run their supermarket. It’s not like between registration number and card details there isn’ta double redundancy for catching crooks, I mean, sure, some people might buy petrol for a stolen car with a stolen card, but in other cases it shouldn’t be too hard to track down any thieves. Or at least, employ a lonely weirdo at double time to sit in the petrol station at new year, instead of home. I’m a big believer that society should be 24 hour, and this specifically includes petrol, one of the few resources demanded all day round.

So anyway, pakring in town and going to be pub. That’s how I came to spend some of the closing hours of 2003 in a most unusul way, speaking to the boyfriend (I say boy, he was 33) of one of my friend’s old schoolfriends. I forget the guy’s name, but it was probably John. Let me tell you folk, if you ever thought you didn’t care about the process of box printing, just wait until you actually make the mistake of talking to someone in the industry.

Things began to go downhill when, having introduced himself and inquired after what Paul and I did, he announced how he left school when he was 16, in easter, before GCSEs (or maybe, O-Levels?) and ain’t never seen a teacher since. That made him pretty hard to talk to as it was, despite his suit. Anyway, it was when he started talking about his job that things got really difficult. “I’m a printer,” he announced, (which made me think of HP and Epson, adding to confusion) “I print things onto boxes.” Now, I don’t know who else has seen the episode of the Simpsons where they visit the box factory, but the rest of that conversation was spent with me trying excessively hard not to quote the Simpsons at him. “Do you actually get to see an assembled Box?” I was going to ask, mere moments before he told us how they’re shipped out flat and that’s the last he sees of them.

I did manage to suggest, when he told us how it costs £4-£18 per box to print a design onto a box and that when most people just chuck the box away they don’t realise how much money they’re putting in the bin, that next time I bought a VCR I might request that the box be retained and the cost be removed from the total price. I was sure I was heading towards the wrong side of the patronising/jocund line with that comment, so I reeled it in a bit there and did the laughing when he was long gone.

Jayrton smoked some of his pipe for us, which was amusing, though I was much more interested when he got out his pipe cleaners and cleaned the pipe with them. I’m sure very few people in the world have been privvy to that sight, a pipe cleaner being used for its intended purpose. Later, Paul and I went ’round to Nikki’s and spent New Year doing the normal stuff, watching TV and talking.

Now, that covered, I’m going to make a point about New Year’s resolutions, and I’m only making it because this is the first new year I’ve had a place to make this point in writing - I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions. If I want to change something about myself, it happens as it needs to, not because of some change in solar alignment. I’m sure changes will occur in 2004, but when they do it’ll not be because I decided on a big list for arbitrary reasons. I understand maybe some people like an excuse of denomination to break habits, but I don’t see the point. Why stop smoking tomorrow when you can stop today?

In addition to that, I’m often quite pleased with how I am, thanks. If I think changes need to be made, I’m usually already making them, so it’s hard to make a list. I already shun most of the really bad habits anyway, though I admit I’m a terrible procrastinator. But I can start changing that tomorrow.

So, a new year stretched out before us. This one’s longer than usual, too. Nothing like a leap year to make you wonder which damn idiot thought up the calendar anyway. I know it’s been tried and met with only limited success, put perhaps a decimalisation process needs to effect a new Calendar. And let me remind you all of Swatch Internet Time which should surely feature in such a rethink.

Anyway, that’s 2004 started as I mean to go on, with pointless mundanity and the rejection of dogmatic tradition.