Woe is me

A few months back we had a visitor at work, a little old guy who came in for a meeting. About halfway through his time in the office my boss came in, strolled up to him, and said "hi, how are you?"

The little old guy then proceeded to ramble on in considerable detail about everything that was ailing him.

After about a minute my boss cut him off mid-sentence with the unforgettable line "oh well, could be worse. At least you're not dead, eh?" before strolling off to his desk.

About an hour later, shortly after the little old guy had left, my boss came over to me. "Bloody hell," he said. "I was only being polite. I didn't want to know his entire fucking life story."

The gist of this, then, is that while we all have the odd problem or two in our lives, essentially if you're still breathing something's going right for you, right?

I say this because quite frankly I don't know what deity I've upset, but I think I've done *something* wrong because ... Well, it seems like an awful lot is going wrong for me at the moment.

It all began last week with the chipped windscreen and the screwed tyre (literally). The tyre was, of course, sorted at great expense, while the chip in my windscreen was all set to be repaired on Tuesday by a man in a van who would come by Sparky Towers sometime between 8-11 in the morning. That being the case I arranged to work from home and was up bright and early.

The first sign that the day wasn't exactly going to go to plan came when I flicked the kettle on, flicked my computer on, and then stood there in startled silence as all the power went out. I went to my circuit box, flicked the breakers back on, then began to deduce what had been responsible for the outage. I did this by realising, after about two minutes, that while the light on the kettle was on, it wasn't actually boiling.

Bollocks.

Being a boy, I tapped it a couple of times, flicked the switch a few more times, then swore at it. No tea for me. I'm not a happy bunny if I don't get my early morning tea.

A short time later the windscreen repair man phoned to say that as it was raining - something that was readily apparent to me by the fact I could both see it and hear it - he might have to cancel the appointment and reschedule for another day. He promised to call me back in half an hour to let me know what he thought. Ten minutes after speaking to him the rain stopped, and the sun came out. Good times.

Unfortunately, by about one o'clock, the windscreen repair man hadn't called back, so I had to call his office to find out what the hell was going on. I had, after all, expected him sometime between 8-11, and had planned to go into work after he'd been. He eventually called me back at about half one and promised to be with me by half two.

At quarter to three the heavens opened again - quite literally as he drove down the road. "I can't do it in this weather," he moaned, before pulling out his phone and booking me in for another appointment on Friday.

"Do you not carry a little gazebo you could erect over the windscreen?" I pleaded. "Is that not too much to ask?"

In the hope that the rain might pass quickly, I began making small talk, trying anything to keep him from leaving. If I'd had a working kettle I would've made him a cup of tea. DAMN YOU, KETTLE!

Anyway, he left. Two minutes later it stopped raining. I sighed, and went to the local Tesco to buy a new kettle, where I swiftly discovered that most new kettles are either cheap looking white plastic things or vile reflective monstrosities. I bought my last one, a rounded matt-effect grey kettle, based on the fact that it looked like something used in the captain's dining room on Star Trek: Enterprise. The only one I was particularly nutty for here was a titanium effect one, but it cost 40 quid (rather more than I wanted to pay given the recent unexpected expenses I've had). Anyway/fortunately, it was out of stock.

I eventually plumped for a black one that looks a bit like Darth Vader's helmet and lights up like Voyager's war core when it's boiling water, so at least there's some kettle/Star Trek continuity there. Incidentally, the box says it's 'contemporary black,' which quite frankly is ridiculous. Black is black as far as I'm concerned. If you have light black it's just dark grey, surely? Go figure.

So with exploding kettle replaced in my affections by warp core kettle, and my anger against windscreen repair man's lack of gazebo subsiding somewhat, I came to realise that yes, essentially things could be worse. I could be a little old man with nothing better to do than list his grievances to a complete stranger in front of an office full of complete strangers.

The thing is ... bearing in mind the last two Tuesdays have each resulted in *nightmares* I'm actually beginning to dread next week.

If anyone wants me on the 15th, no doubt I'll be cowering behind a door leant up against the wall, checking to see if my home insurance covers me for Sparky Towers being annihilated by falling meteorites.