Heaven ain't close in a place like this

Was the uk always like this? I don’t think so. Something is afoot. Something is going on. You can feel the elevated levels of unease, tension and dissatisfaction crackling through the atmosphere, making us all that little bit more volatile, that little bit angrier. The much-heralded feelgood factor of the later 1990s has well and truly scarpered and seems to have been replaced by a corrosive ‘feel-sh*te’ factor.
Maybe it’s the sense that most of us have got rather less disposable cash than we’ve had in many years. Food, fuel, lighting and heating are all a lot more expensive; houses are both hard to buy AND sell. Our politicians seem like a complete bunch of no-marks, our judicial system is out of touch and hamstrung by the lack of spaces in prisons. It’s not like it’s catastrophic out there, it’s just crap and aggravating; singularly lacking in inspiration. Everyone is just generally waiting for the next shoe to drop...fully expecting it to drop on them.
Anyway, the reasons why I began contemplating this general state of affairs stem from what began as a rather pleasant shopping expedition on a rather pleasant spring morning. So me, the missus and Jack Junior are pulling into the large, and mostly empty, car park of a specialist toy megastore. I’m really rather chipper because I love toy shops, especially big toy shops – I mean, with aisles of games, Lego, remote controlled jeeps, climbing frames what’s not to like? I was particularly energised on this occasion because we were going to be looking at playhouses as a potential present for the wee-man’s second birthday.
However, I had scarcely time to contemplate where might be the optimum parking position when a roar filled our ears and a green blur flashed down the side of our car. To my considerable alarm some brain-dead numb nuts had decided to overtake me using empty parking bays as a fast lane. He then had to stand on his brakes to avoid ploughing down a family crossing the car park with a trolley full of toys. Not unreasonably the parents within this family unit were pretty vocal in expressing how unimpressed they were at the driver’s idiotic behaviour (what kind of moron drives at 40mph inside a car park – particularly of a store likely to be frequented by kids?) Rather more surprisingly, the driver in question appeared to be every bit as angry with the pedestrians. The window was down, the air turned blue(er) and there were multiple hand gestures of a distinctly impolite nature. Had the female pedestrian not pulled her male partner away I’m pretty sure there would have been a fight...right there in a toy shop car park on a quiet Sunday morning.
What’s more the driver wasn’t some spotty teenager blaring distorted bass-filled noise out of the windows of his souped-up piece-of-sh*t – he was a bloke in his early thirties with his own family on board.
Aside from making me use extreme caution when crossing the car park, this incident also resulted in my system being flooded with adrenaline. I was tense and my early warning radar was on red alert for any threat to me or my family – which is pretty bloody stupid if you consider I was walking into a toy shop. But as I looked around I could see similar guarded expressions – the sort of blank, ‘don’t mess’, passive aggressiveness you see on public transport a lot. Particularly on the Tube in London. So what happens? All of a sudden the loud, colourful, chaotic splendour of the store becomes oppressive and annoying. The piped-in music seems too loud and you can feel yourself clenching your fists every ten seconds as it is interrupted by staff announcements being bellowed over the tannoy.
Rather than a fun expedition, getting the information about the playhouses is now a task to be completed as quickly as possible. On seeing said playhouses the little tyke becomes a squirming mass of limbs shouting “Get down, get down, want it, want it”. With reluctance I let him investigate the small hamlet of colourful plastic buildings. In fact I actually start to relax again as his grinning face pops out of a shuttered window. I barely notice: “Staff announcement can Hayden come to the loading bay please?” Unfortunately some thug of an eight-year-old (seven or eight but that’s almost 20 in pikey scum years), hideous with his shaven head and earring, comes barging into the playhouse area, slamming the doors and barging the gathered ankle-biters out of the way...my own 22-month-old included. [“Staff announcement can Jayden come to the checkout please?”]
Now kids will be kids and even this little monster was really just being boisterous so having picked up my now wailing son and told the other boy to stop pushing the little ones. [“Staff announcement can Matt come to pre-school please?”] The adrenaline was flowing again as I sought the nasty little troll’s parents. Not hard to spot as it happened. They were three feet away, mother looking slightly embarrassed and father looking shifty. Neither one doing anything about their offspring’s behaviour, indeed when I looked straight at them accusingly the father just shrugged. [“Staff announcement can Matt come to pre-school please?”] I’m really not a violent man but had I not been carrying my own toddler I’m honestly not sure how this exchange might have escalated [“Staff announcement can Martin come to the playhouse area and bring your mop, repeat bring your mop?”]. Instead I stalked off towards the tills muttering angry insults as I went.
By the time I rejoin my wife at the checkout she’s queuing to pay for a small treat she’s bought our son. I’m flooded with unexpressed anger (not about the present). [“Staff announcement can Sally come to computer games please?”] This didn’t help. “Oh just p*ss off will you?”, I respond to the tannoy way too loudly. Now I’m angry and embarrassed. [“Staff announcement can Tyler come to the trolley park please?”]. Must get out of here. “Did you find everything you were looking for today?”, a perfectly polite and cheerful kid at the till asks. He’s just doing his job but all I can think is “Are you taking the p*ss?”. Instead, I sneer and ignore the question. He goes to repeat himself, then, looking at me, decides against it and scowls as he gives me my change. My guess is he wasn’t particularly cheery with his next few customers.
And this is the problem, in a time of growing dissatisfaction with our lot, negativity spreads and mutates like a plague – adding to the overall epidemic. Aside from getting a better deal from energy suppliers and politicians the only thing we can do to armour ourselves against it is to refuse to be swept along in the malign tide. Be positive where you can. Be cheerful if you can. If you can’t, wait until you are out of earshot before spoiling someone else’s day with your bile. I’m going to try, what do you reckon?

Workplace wind-ups? Rude or annoying customers? Irritating colleagues? Want to share? Email: jack@theappointment.co.uk