I'd been summoned to the bank this morning for a review. Well those were the words used by the schoolboy sitting in front of me, and I assume they were for the benefit of his teacher who was sitting next to him...and probably holding his hand. Whilst the reality was that I'd asked to see him - I always think that a regular face to face meeting is the best way of heading off any problems before they become PROBLEMS. But I'd been thrown for the second time in a week to be confronted by someone who should probably be spending their time studying or playing on an X-Box. It's most disconcerting indeed. Why am I staying the same age whilst the rest of the world gets younger?
The weekend had been full of its own challenges. We'd gone to a glass workshop to pick up a piece which we'd paid for a couple of months ago, but allowed them to keep as an exhibit for a while. I'd been in earlier on in the week to confirm we'd be there on Saturday to collect it, but was hardly surprised when it hadn't been packed up (it's very delicate so needs a lot of wrapping), nor had the artists autograph been collected as promised. In fact the girl at the counter (daughter of the owners) despaired at the hopelessness of the situation as she hadn't been told we'd be coming. "Too may cooks" she said. We went off for lunch and came back an hour later...
By contrast, the TV shop manager where we'd gone to get a new one nearly drove me to murder with his inability to stop talking and telling us completely irrelevant nonsense, "Do you have pets?" "No" "Well this one is good if you do" "We don't" "It's got a glass front so the screen won't get damaged if the dog should jump up". "All these are 3D" "We don't want 3D" "Well if you want 3D we've got this one, this one this one or this one". "We don't want 3D" "You'll have seen the Sony advertising" "No" "We'd like a 42" LED TV with Freeview HD" "Well the purest like a plasma screen, but that doesn't mean it's a better picture. There's no difference between LED and LCD expect the ambient lighting. LED TVs don't have a widget which LCD TVs have...and that's the bit that fails most often." etc, etc. I'd have walked out and gone to Richer Sounds, but The Cat's Mother wanted to buy at the local shop. I thought he got the message when he said "You seem as though you know what you're looking for", but that didn't seem to stop him and his verbal diarrhoea.
I'm never going shopping again. Actually I suspect I've turned into a grumpy old man. Fortunately we bought the TV that turns itself off if you fall asleep whilst watching it...and that may well come in at my time of life....
