Listing the bad things
I am, as I sometimes do, despairing. So, I am composing a list to cheer myself up.
Not a list of good things. No – after all, once you write down an appointment, isn’t that license for your brain to totally eradicate it from your memory, rendering you helpless when you are unable to access your appointment-recording device? If I write down the good things, won’t that mean I will promptly forget them?
So then, write down bad things! Let’s all erase the badness together, mina!
The shopping list of disappointment
Being lost in thought while halfway across the train tracks, and then have your heart leap into your mouth when the train crossing signal switches on.
Hearing multi-lingual people speak a few words in a non-native tongue even though no one present understands it. You think they are being pretentious. Then you learn a second language. You realise you want to use it all the time in order to practise - but don't because you'd feel like a hypocrite.
Waking up in the morning and having a big stretch to relieve the tension in your muscles - the first few wonderful seconds are erased when it suddenly creates a painful crick in your neck.
Watching the guy who sexually harassed three separate women continue to be employed, but the one who refused to place his manager on a pedestal is fired. And the one who wore eccentric (but completely appropriate) clothing who isn't interested in conversations about mortgages or children is fired. And the one who was more popular than his boss is fired. No wait, that last one is incorrect. He was "mutually dismissed" (he agreed to leave rather than to continue to make his boss look bad. True story.)
Ordering all 7 volumes of a series, and having #2-#7 delivered within a week, but waiting for several more weeks for a copy of #1 to appear.
Flies inside the house.
Knowing the reasons why something bad is happening, but being powerless to do anything to change them.
Watching your mother burn herself out working herself to the bone in her sixties, and being so broke you can't throw money at her so she doesn't have to any more.
Being too polite for your own good.
Getting a minor injury, then trying to be "tough" and exacerbating it to the point that something that would have taken you out for a few days takes you out for a few weeks/years/lives.
Hmmm. Didn't work. Don't feel any better. Guess I need to list more negative things I have encountered! :P
