Friday 7th September 2018
Reading time 2 minutes 17 seconds
We’re living in a society – George Constanza.
I was standing in a queue at a taxi rank. It was midnight.
5 ‘elderly’ people arrived and looked at the line in anger. When I say elderly, I mean 60+ so in fact not that much older than me but enough for me to notice and when I say they were angry I’m guessing they had had enough and just wanted to go home to bed because they were, you know, old.
A taxi pulled up ahead of the rank and in a daring display of agility they all ran straight to it. The look on their faces said to everyone else in the queue “so long suckers”.
This felt like an injustice to me, so I sprinted over and shouted at them “What the hell are you lot doing? You know we are living in a society”.
Shame crept across their collective faces as they were old enough to know better. I was expecting to hear a cheer from the others in the queue, but they just looked at me. Nobody likes a person who shouts at pensioners.
They started to exit the cab. My victory stood, and I think my chest expanded fractionally as they traipsed back to the queue. Within seconds some boisterous young men exited a nearby pub and climbed into the cab as I was holding the door and about to get in.
This time my anger didn’t just erupt, it exploded. I’m not proud of this as I may have sworn and to be honest I was rude. Very rude. Nobody likes a person who shouts at young people.
These ‘Yoofs’ were giving all young people a bad name and I wasn’t going to stand for it. I was going to teach them the difference between right and wrong so I pulled in a breath to unleash more anger comprising of all the injustices in the world that had ever befallen me. As soon as the words “Oi you rude…..” left my mouth one of the Yoofs said “Shut up mate this is our cab, we booked it”.
The cab driver looked at me in disgust and asked me to go away as these gentlemen had indeed booked the cab. Confound these young people and their handy apps.
The pensioners were smirking at me.
I explained in anger that my point to them still stood but by now I was not in the right I was very clearly in the wrong. Unnoticed hero to very noticed zero in under 60 seconds. Not my best time ever but it’s in the top three.
My girlfriend, who had observed all of this, had a little scowl on her face as we had now lost our place in the queue while I was being a failed justice warrior. She flipped her head which said to me “Get back to the curb now!!” whilst in my head I was playing the theme tune to Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Picture: This T-shirt was worn by my friend Alex and gifted to me by my sister. I’ve always identified with the stupidity yet hard work of the main character.