Deciding which queue to join is a challenge. Last Thursday, I had a dozen lanes before me, to pay the toll and get to the other side of the river. Obviously I managed without any supernatural powers to select the lane where the car driver in front was about to be a cunt. Yes, the task of putting £1.60 into the machine was over and above the competence level of the driver. I waited while all around me, numerous cars headed into the tunnel.
On the Wednesday, I'd already experienced far worse, courtesy of the duty free shopping at Malaga Airport. I had some vodka and some
Jagermeister, and six tills to choose between. I made my choice and lived to regret it.
Two
Toblerones and a litre of
Baileys! Some party he was planning. WTCF was he buying this shit for anyway. It beggars belief that someone really needs to buy overpriced
Toblerone at a fucking airport. However, my gripe is less with the pissing chocolate than with the digital cunting world.
The bloke presented his mobile phone to the till operator; the screen displayed what should have been a bar-code that could be scanned. As we all know, as part of international security control, the purchase of
Toblerones HAS to be subject to the presentation of a boarding pass. Mayhem would ensue if anyone was allowed to simply buy shit without red tape.
Rather than a paper boarding pass, the traveller used his smart phone, that turned out to be a fucking thick phone. Despite his efforts to fiddle, scroll, pinch, punch [oops, no, that was what I wanted to do] and tap, there was no progress. The till operator wiggled the scanner but it picked up cuntin fuck. I continued to wait.
Having taken over, and unsuccessfully tried to get the bar-code to register on her scanner, she decided the best policy was to manually enter the reference. For this, she needed her glasses, and so with further amazement and disbelief, I carried on standing there like a twat while she pissed about looking for them. She opened the case and adorned her windows to the world, and started tapping slowly on her till, peering at the reference on the tiny thick-phone. In doing so, he had to fend off the traveller who seemed intent on having another fiddle, pinch and scroll (on his phone, not her fanny).
The pair of them seemed to be enjoying the debacle as though it was some sort of technical tango. I, on the other hand, was sensing a rise in blood pressure that put me half way up the scale - zero being placid and amenable, 10 being ready to knock some cunt's head off.
At last she was happy, and the authentication needed for the purchase of two triangular lumps and a cream liqueur was successfully entered into Malaga Airport's computers. No doubt Interpol would be overjoyed, and would assume the Triangular tubes were legitimate chocolate rather than
Semtex. It was then time for him to pay. Out came the cuntin credit card; yawn.
***
While waiting to learn the gate number for boarding, I went to a machine to get a bottle of water. I noted that the price was 1.70 euros, exactly 40 cents more than a year ago, when the dispensing machine was a more basic model. Now though, the machines are multi-functional massive fuckers, capable of accepting Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, Green Shield Stamps, IOUs, Bearer Bonds, Krugerrands, Smarties and of course good old coins. Luckily for me, the
Toblerone Tosser was not around, and more importantly not in front of me - otherwise he'd be wobbling a thick-phone contactless, brainless mobile at it, or else from his wallet picking a card to use. I opted for ordinary money, and effortlessly obtained some water without wireless/digital/dreadful/diabolical needless complication.
***
As I went through the boarding gate, I spotted behind me in the queue a man wearing a three-berth tent. I was shortly to be in a middle seat, and prayed that he was not going to sit next to me . . . . . and overflow.
Standing on the ramp down towards the tunnel connecting the plane to the terminal, my fellow passengers and I all sweated while the lights intermittently but consistently went on and off. I was passenger 41. With so little to do (other than sweat) when waiting to board, counting the passengers in front of me seemed a reasonable thing to do.
I spotted the
Man From Del Monte lower down on the ramp, on the other side of the 'snake'. Passenger 12 was dressed in a pale linen suit, checked shirt and loafers. He sported a Panama hat, and had under his right arm a folded
Daily Telegraph. Whilst the real
Man From Del Monte was known for saying "Yes", this one said fuck all as he stood alongside his wife, a drab woman with a non-plussed look that for some reason reminded me of a character from
Trumpton, or maybe
Chigley. Then it came to me . . . . she reminded me of Windy Miller! [So,
Camberwick Green, then]
At last we moved forward. Pigeon step by pigeon step we inched towards the plane, ready to be cramped as fuck for three hours. As I stepped on to the plane, I sat the non-verbal Windy Miller and
Man From Del Monte in seats one and two. Twenty minutes later, Jordan (the air stewardess with the annoying voice) was, in preparation for the safety demo, asking for our "full and complete attention". I wondered what the difference was between 'full' and 'complete'. Then she invited us to (as ever) sit back, relax and enjoy the flight - which if course was impossible.
Among other things that caused distraction was the short woman in the seat next to me who was giving head to a baguette. This necessitated, it seemed, the need for an extended little finger (?)
Meanwhile, two seats away, a woman with more phlegm than a Flemish Phlegmatic with Flu was relentlessly proving her credentials, coughing up mouthfuls of vileness. Horrendous.
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