Blogs
Fletch's Thoughts
A blog from the Waterfront's Kate Fletcher.
The passenger
- 04 May 2007 18:00
I've just been deposited safely back in Winchester, after a stressful and, I must say rather traumatic, journey from Swansea.
My mum's partner notices my white face as I walk through the door.
"Four hours in the car with your mother," He nods in sympathy, "Need a drink?"
It's provoked me to think that I really, really, need to save up for my own car. When my mother kindly, albeit reluctantly, offers to pick me up from Swansea and bring me back for the holidays, I'm always grateful. It's less hassle than the train. I can pack more. But emotionally? What a turmoil. I think my nerves are damaged beyond repair.
How the woman ever obtained her license is beyond me. All I can say is that she took her test in the 70's. The examiner was probably high at the time. Or maybe it was in some way down to my grandma who apparently used to run a taxi service for the local policemen, whilst none of them ever knew she didn't actually possess a license. As they all knew her, they'd never pull her over. Cunning, that's what that is. I'd put money on my mother not passing again now.
- She drives in third gear on the M4.
- I get whiplash every time we stop at a red light.
- She hovers between the outside lane and the middle one as if she's not sure which lane she belongs in, and then wonders why she gets cross looks from overtaking drivers.
We lag two hundred yards behind the other traffic as the lights change because she 'can't get it in gear', and - oh god here it is - some guy with a death wish blasts his horn. I sink lower into my seat and hide behind my sunglasses as my mother purses her lips and thumps the steering wheel (because clearly, it is the steering wheels fault.)
We spend three and a half hours alternating between snapping at each other about which way to go (I refuse to open the map because it will make me feel sick, she has no sense of direction and before I know it we're on our way to North Wales - then she has the cheek to say "I think we've taken a wrong turn." We? WE?) and angry silence listening to David Gray (the only 'modern' music she'll play).
Being a passenger in a car with my mother is quite possibly as stressful as sitting your own driving test, or even single-handedly entering into battle with the Korean army. Your life is in their hands.
And yes, I do only call her 'my mother' when she's behaved truly awful.
My Great-Aunt, who's a fair way into her 80's now, is equally as bad a driver, but in her case it's more her safety I worry about, instead of her passengers. How she hasn't had more crashes I do not know. She manages to get through cars like Calum Best gets through girls, all because she spends the entire time driving with the clutch down. She just breezes along, whilst you stare down at her foot in wide-eyed terror.
I don't pretend to be a great driver myself. Not owning a car, I haven't had the practice. I don't pretend to know that much about cars and the way they work. Despite dating a mechanic for over a year, I would have no idea how to begin changing a tyre.
Am I trying to make a valid point?
That drivers should have refresher tests every few years perhaps?
Well, it's an idea, but no, because then, in the absence of my own car, I'd be forced to get the train or bus all the time.
And public transport? Don't even get me started.
Damn modern technology. Damn Life.
- 06 Mar 2007 09:00
Computers. Who needs them? If everyone pre-computer invention, back in 'the olden days' that nobody from MY generation can be bothered to remember, coped without them, why do we need them now?
Okay, so I don't really mean that, because a world without the internet and where we're forced to write everything long hand using a quill would be frankly horrible. But as I sit here now, in the uni library, it's pissing it down outside (tell me again, why did I choose university in Wales rather than, say, California?), I'm tired, grouchy, and I think I'm coming down with a cold (and when I get ill, god help the world, because I am a total hypochondriac wimp about it, I'll hold my hands up to that. Please bring me Kleenex, grapes and trashy magazines. And then leave me the hell alone to wallow in Olbas-oil scented self-pity.)
But yeah, I'm going off track here from what has really annoyed me today - computers. Mine, well this uni one, is not working properly today. The screen keeps freezing and to be perfectly honest it is doing my head in. I don't want to hang around here in this cramped, sweaty library. I want to e-mail in my assignment, check my facebook, and get the hell out. But the fact the internet keeps crashing has 'forced' me into ranting about it here. As quickly as I can type before the thing crashes again, which may lead me to throw the keyboard across the room (it has been known to happen), punch the screen then cry because I've hurt myself (also been known to occur) or even commit murder (not yet been known, but a distinct possibility if I meet any CPU engineers who dare utter the words "Have you checked it's switched on?").
So believe me, its better that I exercise my inner demons into this here word document than into my poor housemate's ears once I get home. I've been told I'm pretty scary when I'm really angry. I've been told my eyes actually flash with fury. I've been likened to Nicky from Big Brother, by some foolish, ignorant person. I sometimes growl like a raging lion, last week I did in fact destroy the TV remote when it refused to work, and then got even angrier when I couldn't put it together again.
I like to blame it on hormones. If anybody else blames it on my hormones, that is completely unacceptable. Perhaps it may also be due to me being one of the most impatient people you're likely to meet. I like to blame that on my mother.
I realise I have gone completely off subject from computers, and am instead just advising you all to stay the hell away from me if you ever encounter me ill or angry at modern technology (thus I may be about to lose all my friends), but I'm entitled to a diversion off course from my original subject. And really - it could have been anything at all to antagonize me when I'm in this kind of mood, provoked by the fear of getting a measly cold. Are you going to argue with me about that? I DARE YOU.
Bloody banks
- 04 Feb 2007 17:15
Right now, I am fuming. Really fuming. My normally placid self is contorted into a tight ball of pent-up anger, ready to be unleashed on the next person who dares talk to me. Why, when you make the stupid mistake of going over your overdraft limit, do banks feel that they can charge you 35 quid for the measly amount of time they had to take out of their not-really-that-hectic schedules to approve whatever it was that's sent you over?
In my case a cheque. And a really stupid landlord. Or his company. Or my bank. Or the whole world in general and the way it ticks merrily along fooling you into thinking everything is okay. Or a combination of all of them. Basically, nothing to do with me, obviously. And definitely nothing to do with that new top or my £700 quid flight to Sri Lanka for this coming summer, or the copious amounts of beer (and the odd £4 cocktail) I have consumed so far this term. Nothing at all to do with that. Anyway, they've charged me. The bastards have charged me. You know the Sri Lanka trip is for charity? Yeah, try telling the bank manager that though. Heartless son-of-a... [Deep breath] And it doesn't even matter if you have gone 50p over, or 500 pounds, you still get charged the same and they still say the same stupid words about bank policy.
You know what they have to do? Click a button. 35 quid. For clicking a button. I feel like reaching over the counter (or down the phone line), grabbing the smarmy bank person by his pristine Next shirt collar and yelling in his ear "I'm a student you bastard! You get a kick out of robbing me of my valuable beer money, [might be better if I said here 'valuable money for charity, or for a roof over my head, or for me to give to the Big Issue guy...] do you? DO YOU?" But I know it's not this little guys fault. He's just the unfortunate person who has to soak up my rage and, with extreme awkwardness, pick my sobbing self-pitying self off the floor of Natwest. Its company policy, he repeats. Skint student or multi-millionaire, go over your limit and you're charged. This makes NO sense.
If you're at your overdraft limit, that's kind of suggesting you're in pretty deep shit money-wise already, right? Else you wouldn't already be at your limit. So why – WHY? – do they decide to get you in even deeper shit money-wise by adding to your financial strife? Talk about kicking me whilst I'm down. I'm left with nothing, Nothing! That might sound melodramatic but I'm in that kind of mood so just don't, okay? Just go with me. Listen in sympathetic silence, nodding your head in compassion. I'm a nice person, I do my bit for homeless animals, I know what a hard days work is, and I've never hit anyone; I deserve to win the lottery much more than some pikey idiot on benefits. So, Mr God, Mr Fate, Mr Bank Manager, whoever, send me some financial luck please. I'd be very grateful. And yes, I am actually thinking that the heavens will take pity on me and I'll receive a cheque in the post tomorrow from an anonymous millionaire who's read my 'story' and has decided to help out.
Now I'm off to calm down, to remember how to breathe, to regain my natural pale complexion, and (in desperate times) to buy a scratchcard.
Kate Fletcher