the other side of the mountain

You know the old joke about relationships: “Men are never satisfied. When they are single, they wish they were with someone and when they are with someone, they wish they were dead”?

I’ve been a de facto bachelor for about six months now and while I am prone to episodes of industrial-strength dejection, I think it’s safe to say that I’m also a lot less stressed. Being alone certainly sucks, but it sure beats the alternative sometimes. When I’m not at the top of my game, the worst I might do is contemplate a goblet of hemlock as a pre-dinner cocktail – as opposed to some of my friends, who consider using chainsaws and ice-picks as hair accessories on their significant others.

And yet – and yet, despite all the dictates of good sense, people still end up living together. I can’t help wondering if we share a common ancestor with the moth.

Earlier this week I had to take a trip out to a place a couple of hours drive from the city. It was a reasonably pleasant journey, until my route took me directly through the seething megalopolis of Worcester*.

This place forms something of an agricultural hub and is reasonably big by small-town standards. This basically means that you might find a computer shop nestled next to tractor dealership. It also means that they have planted traffic lights absolutely everywhere, even though there are hardly enough cars to warrant even one of the stupid things. The timing control routine seems to have been devised by some local madman, because they have been cunningly programmed to ensure that you stop at every. damned. intersection. This has the effect of creating major congestion with only a pathetic dribble of traffic. I can just picture the city fathers gazing fondly upon this unholy mess and finding it good, because it makes a town half the size of Butthole, Montana look really, really busy. Bastards!

It was a struggle for me to relax my jaw and remember to breathe when I noticed an octogenarian with an equally decrepit hound outpacing me on the sidewalk.

* For non-locals, it’s pronounced WUSS-DUH. Coincidence? Hmm… I wonder.

You know what I hate? Well, lots of things – but today I’m thinking about something specific. Give up? Okay – I hate walking into a room only to discover that the previous occupant has left something of their – shall we say – essence behind. ‘Behind’ being the operative word here (if one means ‘operative’ in the literal sense, of course). This is particularly irksome when cabbage and onion featured somewhere on the long weekend menu.

This is only intermediate-level hate, though. The thing I really, really hate is when someone else walks into the same room shortly afterwards and gives me a disgusted, knowing look. How on earth do you defend yourself against that?

The truth will not necessarily set you free – you have to face into the wind if you wish to have any hope of riding the storm of effluvial suspicion. “What are you wrinkling your nose at at? I didn’t plant that fucking stink bomb!” is perhaps a tad too aggressive. “Oh it’s not mine, it was here when I arrived” sounds so lame, it could qualify for a disability grant, but “Quite a stench, huh?” is sufficiently vague and conspiratorial to leave you smelling like roses. In manner of speaking.

One of my tasks in the company I work for is to beat my colleagues over the head – metaphorically speaking, of course* – when they fall foul of the organisation’s quality management system. Yes, extremely glamorous, I know.

The system has been updated, so I am I am busy putting together a revised audit checklist. It’s a bit like being in church, because not only is it one of the most brain-crushingly boring activities in the history of time, but it also makes me feel vaguely guilty.

I am aware of what the system requirements are in general terms, but in combing through the system documentation, I reminded of the specifics (When selling employee’s souls to the Devil, the project Leader must use standard form # 666…). However, since auditing isn’t my sole function here, I am also reminded that I’m supposed to be doing the same things my colleagues are supposed to be doing.

Hence the guilt – because I’m not.

* although there are often times when I yearn to get literal, if you catch my drift.

Allow me to direct your attention to the ‘small art‘ button in the sidebar. This is a link to Andrea Pratt’s on-line art emporium, where fans (like me) who have money (unlike me) can purchase their very own Andrea Pratt originals. Why are you still reading this? Click, dammit!

Membership of the (unofficial) Andrea Pratt Fan Club is completely free, so if you want to decorate your sidebar in a similar manner, you can contact Andrea here.