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On reaching the box, I noted the panel displaying collection times was obscured by a printed label informing customers, “In the interest of efficiency, there are no fixed collection times from this box.” We could be assured, however, that collection would be no earlier than 7am, but giving no indication in which month or year. “In the interest of efficiency”; do they think our heads button up the back?
I returned home in Victor Meldrew mode. After listening to the full ten-minute rant, my wife did little to lighten the mood by enquiring if I thought I was becoming grumpier. I suppose she had a point. Advanced grumpiness doesn’t happen overnight; it’s cumulative and takes years to master. As we age, we discover multiple fresh irritations to get under our skin.
It’s not just me. A friend recently experienced the theft of a trailer, worth thousands of pounds. Police Scotland’s finest were reluctant to attend. A crime number and an insurance form were offered. All in the interest of efficiency, I suppose. Eventually, they visited, but only after my friend grumpily enquired if they would turn out should a similar sum be stolen from a bank. Of course, he was assuming the modern bank robber can find a branch still open and available for robbery. My friend’s grumpiness was not improved when one of the officers criticised his “bad attitude.”
Covid-fuelled grumpiness. “It’s Covid you see” was perfect cover for terrible service and a couldn’t-care-less attitude. A whole day and a darkened room are needed to deal with incorrect energy/phone bills, tax enquiries and passport/driving licence renewals. Thirty or 40-minute waits for a call to be answered is industry standard. Being repetitively misled that “your call is important to us” would test the patience of Greyfriars Bobby. Invitations “to visit our website” lead to more dead ends than the local maze. “I’m just putting you on hold” is a surefire prelude to the line going dead after ten minutes of Opus Number One.
As a former teacher, I’m ashamed to admit youngsters contribute to my grumpiness. Why the obsessive hugging if it’s only five minutes since last they saw one another? Even worse is the simulated kiss on both cheeks, accompanied by the sloppy, onomatopoeic “mwah.” Youngsters talk in abbreviations. Eavesdropping on a group of lassies, every sentence was loudly punctuated by “OMG” and “TBH”. If “GOAT” had been preceded by old, I might have had cause for offence.
For some reason, my wife has formed the opinion my grumpiness is a problem. In the spirit of rapprochement, I visited the Mindfulness section of the local bookshop. An exercise in futility. Nothing is more guaranteed to increase grumpiness than shelves of smug, meaningless tosh. I was reminded of Manny’s advice to Bernard Black, my spectacularly grumpy role model and owner of Black Books. “Add a drop of lavender to your bathwater and soon, you will soak yourself calm.”
But wait, all is not lost. The BBC’s Future website reports that over-positivity “can encourage binge drinking, overeating and unsafe sex”. I knew it! Research also suggests happy people are less sceptical and more gullible. We curmudgeons are more creative than our laid-back brethren. Beethoven, for example, threw tantrums and a variety of objects at servants. Being the world’s richest man hasn’t inhibited Jeff Bezos’ grumpiness, often asking colleagues, “Are you incompetent or just plain stupid?”
We’re also better at solving complex problems. Next time my wife berates my grumpiness, I’ll say I’m working on creative answers to life’s big questions. For example, why can’t we tell the difference between a man and a woman, get an appointment with a GP or dentist, and build a couple of ferries? I feel better already. You can’t beat a bit of early morning grumpiness to get your day off to a good start.
