I am looking forward to getting old and cantankarous and reaching a place in my life where the only way I can vent my frustrations with increasingly cruel and unfair life is to shout at Post Office counter staff, who will be the only human beings I have any social interaction with.
Because that will inevitably be my fate (unless kind death will remove me from this mortal coil before I become old - in which case it better hurry up, there isn't long to go).
I was sending off a few posters to those good enough to purchase them (see last newsletter for details - you get a free Hercules poster as well as a Yoghurt one and for a limited time, whilst stocks last, a very rare Stewart Lee "King Dong Versus Moby Dick" poster, which might actually be worth something on ebay) and was waiting patiently in line at Hammersmith Post Office. I was looking at the tat on offer in the shop part of the store, which included a lot of poor quality toys. They had about twenty reduced He-Man action figures, the only drawback being that they were all the same character, the (presumably not very popular) Ram Man. I was considering buying all of them and putting them up on my mantelpiece and seeing how people would react when they came over for tea - I would be sure to behave as if this was a normal thing for a 38 year old man to have in his lounge (plus when no-one was around I would play with them) - when I became aware of a slight commotion.
An old fella was at one of the counters and seemed aggrieved about something, "How much?" he cried, "It's gone up then?"
The teller said that no, it really hadn't, in such a way that would make it hard for anyone to doubt her integrity. Anyone who wasn't old and alone and angry and confused by the world that seemingly didn't need him or care about him any more. "Don't give me that. I know your ways," grouched the suspicious curmudgeon, as if the woman working at the post office had anything to gain by lying to him. There was definitely the implication that the woman was syphoning off the extra ten pence or whatever it was and spending it on luxury items, perhaps saving up to buy another Ram Man for her child - a child that she had to convince that the Masters of the Universe only has one character in it.
"It's been that price since January," said the woman's colleague - no doubt in on her Ram Man scam, but the elderly gent would not countenance that he might have made a mistake and just shouted a bit more and made a disgruntled scrunched up face. The old ladies in the queue around me tutted and looked at each other, taken aback by the fellow's rudeness, trying to pretend that they didn't hate the world and the evil God that had decided that human flesh would grow old and wither and then decay, when he needn't have created the ageing process or death at all (especially given that we ultimately live forever).
His transaction completed, the man stormed out as fast as his old legs would carry him. There were some raised eyebrows, but I respected him. He was not going to pretend to anyone that his life was OK and that the world wasn't an annoyance to him. He was going to let it know how unhappy he was. Even if he could only do that by chastising the one person that he is officially allowed to speak to every week. It's as much her fault as anyone's. Why not?
I am looking forward to getting to the point where I don't give a fuck about anything any more and can let the world have both barrels of my ineffectual fury. But I am still in my prime and so when the woman charged me what felt like 3p too much for my poster postage I just briefly paused, then said nothing and paid her what she asked.
I am pretty sure I saw her eyeing up the Ram Mans (the Ram Men?) as I left. I wish that I was old.
