Quick thinkers get the last laugh
22nd August, 2006
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You have probably experienced road rage, maybe you've seen a bit of car park rage and you undoubtedly have a mental list of other types of rage associated with modern life.
There's checkout rage, where the idiot in front keeps ducking out of the queue to grab a forgotten item, or hogs the magazine with the latest on Britney or doesn't bother to start hunting for her money until well after the total price has been displayed. The best checkout rage is reserved for the supermarket supervisor who opens just two lanes for nine million shoppers. There's hardware rage, when you realise that the bloke who is supposed to be helping you find the sprocket-widget thingy actually knows less about it than you do. There's café rage, when the waiter or waitress arrives with all the food in random order, forgets the drinks and then acts hurt when you calmly repeat your request for cutlery. ATM rage sets in around the time you hear the beep that signals the person in front has pressed the "cancel" button, which means the entire process is about to begin all over again. And aeroplane rage looms as you watch 200 people grapple with the concept of overhead lockers. These are the twits who'll be asked to move quickly and calmly during an emergency? Jump now. Anyway, I could fill this page - and the rest of this blog - with rage rants but instead will highlight the outstanding work others are doing to deal with various types of rage. Most of them don't do anything to solve the problem, but they do hand a measure of control to the downtrodden. First up, kudos to the man who dealt with his incipient restaurant rage by taking mobile phone in hand and ringing the restaurant - from the table - to inquire when he might see the food he'd ordered an hour earlier. Second place to the woman who did almost the same thing. She called the supermarket manager from her place in the queue and asked if he'd open more checkouts. Third prize to the man who told airline check-in staff he had a severe phobia about being touched and if he was bumped during boarding, a series of psychological issues would be triggered and he might very well freak out in mid-air with horrible consequences. Oddly, they didn't have him arrested. But he didn't suffer any shoving or stealing of luggage space, and no-one pushed a seat back into his knees. No-one even asked him to move in order to sit next to offspring/lover/eighth cousin. Honorary mention to the man who ignored the two children who kept running past, around and even under his café table, uncontrolled by parents. When he'd finished his meal he went into the car park, moved his own car to block the family's four-wheel-drive and sauntered off down the street. He'd done nothing illegal, since the car park was on private land. Next morning, both vehicles were still there. He hopes the taxi ride home involved a long wait and vast expense. Hats off also to the 88-year-old woman who, in order to get a seat at the shopping centre, approaches the people occupying the seats and asks whether they think they might have better luck losing weight if they spent more time walking. And very high marks to the woman who was constantly being pushed out of the "recreational" lane at the local swimming pool by a group of men exercising their need to compete. The displaced woman emerged from the pool one morning clutching a bundle of soggy plastic strips. "Hormone patches," she announced to one of the men. "They must fall off the menopausal types because of the chlorine. Wonder you chaps haven't grown boobs yet!" And as she turned to dispose of the harmless Band-Aids she'd brought with her that morning, she noticed her lane suddenly and miraculously had been vacated. |
