Diary of a Grumpy Old Git (3 page)

I remember the time I tried to make lemonade. I got as far as twisting a lemon on the squeezer when a painful jet of juice squirted into my eye. I spent the next few minutes
groping around in the bathroom for my Optrex and plastic eyebath. Then I gave up and sat on the edge of my bed, weeping silently until the pain went away. So rather than interpret this phrase as
‘make the best of a bad situation’, I interpret it as ‘sit on the edge of the bed and snivel pathetically when you’re in a bad situation’.

Follow your dreams.

Which dreams? What about the dream where I turn up to work with no pants on? Would you like me to follow that?

Your prayers will be answered.

Why would anyone think this is a comforting thing to say? It doesn’t say what the answer will be. It’s a bit like saying, ‘Your request for an overdraft
extension will be answered.’ It doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want.

You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.

I don’t mind a spot of rain every now and then, and I’m sick of everyone from songwriters to weather forecasters assuming otherwise. Rainbows, on the other hand, I
can take or leave. I don’t even bother getting my camera phone out for them any more.

At least I’m not trapped in the wreckage of a car and blacking out from blood loss as I cry for help.

I made this one up myself and it’s unlikely to feature on a motivational poster anytime soon, but it was the only uplifting motto I couldn’t find fault with.

The kitchen stool broke today. In the old days, this would have meant a drive to Ikea, an interminable trudge around the store’s one-way system and a feeble afternoon of
trying to work out how a pile of wood, screws and Allen keys relates to the assembly diagram.

But now? I simply force the broken chair into my wheelie bin and eat my Alpen standing up. Sarah can make Brad troop around that Nordic hell if she likes. I’m free now.

Did I mention that Sarah’s new boyfriend is called Brad? He would be, wouldn’t he? When fate plays that sort of joke on you, it’s best to laugh along. Let it know it’s
got to you and it will only make things worse. Like he’ll turn out to be an estate agent or something.

My boss Steve briefed me to write a brochure for a new street-sweeping machine today. It needs to be 2,000 words long and I’ve got a week to do it. I thought it might take
three hours, so I asked for an extra couple of weeks.

The project is so dull that no one else will want anything to do with it, and I should be able to drag it out for ages before anyone chases it up.

When I got fired from my ad agency in the mid-nineties, I asked the headhunter for the least desirable job she had, so I could get away with doing as little as possible without any swotty grads
snapping at my heels. She suggested this industrial copywriting job, and I’ve been here ever since.

The first few years went fairly slowly, but in 1999 I got Internet access on my desktop and it’s been fine thereafter. I just have to work a few hours every week, and pretend forklift
trucks and road sweepers are fascinating whenever I’m dragged into a meeting, and I get to spend the rest of my time faffing around on YouTube and iTunes. Bliss.

Hang on a minute, I just said something positive! And I wasn’t even trying! See? I’m not a grumpy old git at all! I’m a grinning happy-clappy old git! Hallelujah!

I went to Starbucks this lunchtime. I usually avoid asking the assistants for anything other than a cup of coffee, but today I asked if I could ‘get’ a ‘venti
caramel macchiato’. I even said ‘pain au chocolate’ in a slight French accent. I felt capable of anything after that.

I had my eye on one of the leather sofas, but a man with ginger dreadlocks barged in and reserved it with his rucksack before getting in the queue behind me. If you’re going to be this
rude, why queue at all? Why not push right in front of me? In fact, why not grab the caramel macchiato out of my hand while you’re at it?

In the end, I had to sit down at a messy table and listen to the ginger Bob Marley phoning his friends, who all seemed to be called ‘dude’ and ‘buddy’. But it
didn’t bother me because I’m not grumpy any more. I know it might have looked like I crushed my paper cup and ground my teeth until I burst a blood vessel in my eye, but that was just
an illusion.

Jen sits over at the front of the office, so I can’t tell exactly what she’s up to, but I think she keeps finishing her work early and asking for more. I know it
sounds crazy, but I can’t think of any other explanation. She’s always printing things out and taking them to Steve’s office. I mentioned this to Imran and Cathy, who sit next to
me at the back, and they were suitably horrified. I suggested that one of them should have a word with her about it, but they weren’t interested.

Jen is exactly the sort of workaholic I was trying to avoid by coming here. You’d think someone who wants to do crazy things like come in early and finish their projects before the
deadline could find somewhere better to work. Yet all it takes is a recession and a scarcity of jobs, and suddenly you’re overrun with latte-drinking zombies bleating about their proactivity.
I think I even heard Jen refer to Steve as ‘team leader’ this afternoon. I must have been imagining it. No one can be that annoying.

Tonight I wheeled my bin down to the front of the driveway for collection and I noticed I was the only person who wasn’t chucking out a mountain of shiny Christmas tat. I felt grateful for
my freedom from Sarah once again. This was the first year I didn’t have to bother with decorations and it was a huge relief. No covering the front of the house with tacky lights to compete
with the neighbours, no treading pine needles into the carpet and no spotting tiny scraps of tinsel still stuck to the ceiling in the middle of June.

And what do we get for coating every visible surface with sparkly rubbish? The chance to say we feel ‘all Christmassy’. What does this even mean? Is it a distinct emotion like
happiness or sadness? Do people feel it in summer by mistake and have to drink Pimm’s and listen to the Beach Boys until it passes?

Anyway, except for asking for turkey instead of chicken in Subway, I made no attempt whatsoever to celebrate Christmas this year, and I didn’t miss it one bit.

My train was delayed this morning because of ‘signal failure.’ It always seems to be signal failure. Either they need to stop buying their signals from the pound
shop or this is just a vaguely technical excuse they trot out when their staff are too hungover to show up.

I was forced to get the bus instead. The only free seats downstairs were reserved for infirm or disabled people, so I had to go to the top deck, where a teenage boy with massive headphones was
listening to hip hop so loudly we could all hear the rapper boasting about his possessions.