Ill Manners

I was stood waiting for a bus into town on my lunch hour. Someone once told me that Oxford Road is the busiest bus route in Europe. I don’t know if it ever was but it sounds like bullshit to me. It is certainly not that busy when you are cold in the rain waiting for a bus on a Friday night. It wasn’t cold or raining this lunchtime. Nor was the wait for the next bus that long. Was I anxious though? The guy from the Apple store had kind of made it sound like I might miss out on the iPad I was after if I didn’t get a move on. Someone from a retail outlet wouldn’t lie to make their product seem more attractive would they.

But whatever the reasons..the excuses..you can’t go around wishing deafness on people for pushing in front of people. And I didn’t.

Some guy did that thing of forcing his way in front of people patiently waiting for a bus. Then he aggressively pushed past people to get on the bus. He was not in danger of not getting on the bus. It was hardly the struggle to get on the last ferry in War Of The World. I noticed the rude guy had those hearing aid glasses on.

And while I definitely didn’t think it was justified that his rudeness befitted a sense being robbed, I did think what God – if one existed – might do with their powers to make people better. What if being rude and pushing in front of people WAS punishable – by a higher power – with the removal of one’s sense of hearing. Yes, I know this sounds like some ridiculous extremist doctrine. I am not proposing we deafen rude people. I merely began to wonder if people would still be rude and ignorant of others if there was some instant and permanent punishment dished out by a deity.

It seemed to cause more problems than it solved in my musings on a short bus journey. Would there be a three strikes rule? Or just first rudeness and the sense of hearing goes? The former seems very harsh but what is the point in the latter? Surely this maniacal higher being would operate a zero tolerance policy. Let’s face it, fictional God drowned everyone on the planet except a pissed up fella with a floating zoo for some reason or other.

And what would one punish the deaf with? Those without hearing would have license to run amok with ill manners if the removal of hearing was the only punishment available. Like I said the system was not perfect. It is probably a good thing that people are not deafened/blinded/robbed of the sense of smell or touch because of poor queuing etiquette.

Apple of My Irie

Yes, I bought an iPad, ok? Get off my back about it already.

The chap who served me in the Apple store really didn’t have to do much. He was just stood near the door and I just asked him for the iPad I wanted. He didn’t seem to be the only member of staff untroubled by having to chase sales; I don’t think Apple staff have to learn the hard sell. Hapless idiots like me just throw money at them.

While we were waiting someone bringing out the iPad he was scanning in the cover I was buying. It is grey. Only the box says gray as the name of the colour. He was telling me how outrageous this was. “It says colour – not color, so why gray and not grey?” he asked, not unreasonably. Then he went on to tell me he was going to complain to management about it – he actually said they weren’t going to get away with it on his watch.

I very much think they are going to get away with it – if by getting away with it we mean they, an American company, carry on using the US English spelling on boxes of their products. And by ‘his watch’ he meant working for the company at a very low level, though – again – being fair to the lad, that is a pretty good position to watch the labelling on boxes of Apple products in UK stores.

I stood waiting for my iPad with my iPod in my pocket (and two more at home) and my iPhone in my other pocket and, for a moment, I thought about my friends and other people who used to pretend they wanted to spend time with me and how they now all have houses and children to offer them excuses to not see me…I thought about them and wondered. I wondered – is there more to life than this for me? And at that moment it all became clear: I probably should get a MacBook or an iMac.