I came here to kick gum and chew minds and I'm all out of gum because of YOUR stupid Christmas.

The festive period is in many ways a rather trying one for me. I'm not a Christian so the religious element doesn't set off any internal fireworks. It strikes me, as I look around that there is plenty of food on offer throughout the year so the prospect of a large plate of things I don't especially want to eat leaves me quite unmoved and more often than not longing for a decent channa dahl. Pretty much everything else folk are compelled to do at Christmas is more enjoyable at other times of the year when it's done in the spirit of spontaneous giggles and not out of obligation. 

However I accept that I am outnumbered and am happy enough to quietly go along with things. In a saner world than the one we inhabit, people would regard me as a fine example of tolerance. People would say "look at Jennifer, she secretly thinks this is a bit dull but she's letting us get on with the festivities instead of organising death squads to kill us all. We could all learn so much from her". As the world is not sane, people say "bah humbug". It may be they are excited at being able to quote a small fragment of classic literature or it may be they heard someone else equally irritating saying it and decided to join in. Like a parrot. A big dull parrot that can't even be bothered to grow fine plumage for us all to admire but has the effrontery to lecture other folk about jollity. That sort of parrot. 

Many years ago I witnessed a particularly stunning "bah humbug". It's the sort of "bah humbug" that I think about whenever I'm being verbally abused by a spunk box for not being a Christian and laugh like a drain. That in itself is somewhat surprising because the bah humbugger on this occasion was the most humourless person I have ever had the misfortune to meet. I used to call her "No Laughs Cath" behind her back, so remarkable was her complete lack of any discernible sense of humour. 

Allow me to set the scene. There are three women in an office, I am one of them, the other has just returned from work after the death of her mother from pancreatic cancer and the final but most astonishing one is the bah humbugger extraordinaire, Ol' No Laughs Cath herself. 

All is peaceful in the office when the 'bah humbugger' appears in a Santa hat and a ton of tinsel, hell bent on sucking every last drop of joy from the room. She immediately demands to know what we're all doing for Christmas I mumble something about visiting my mother whilst arranging my features in to something that I hope will deter any follow up questions. The other woman says she doesn't feel much like doing anything on account of the recent, agonising death of her mother from a terrible illness. 

I must confess I don't always know what to say to the recently bereaved but I'm pretty sure "bah humbug" isn't the most appropriate thing to say. In the unlikely event I did say something as catastrophically insensitive I wouldn't then smirk at my victim with a big toddler on the pot face like I was waiting on a round of applause. Reader, No Laughs did it. She dropped the big "bah humbug" on a recently bereaved orphan. 

I was immediately at war with myself, a storm of conflicting emotions. The urge to shriek with laughter, fought the urge to shriek out of total shock with a twinge of rage and disbelief sneaking up on the rear. The poor, recently bereaved orphan appeared too numb to feel very much and just said "oh I know". Having secured the silence of the room No Laughs then held court about how amazing her Christmas going to be as all her family would be there. I didn't comment but it sounded like a hellish gathering of terrible tools.

Until that astonishing "bah humbug" I used to be quite hurt by that jibe. I don't imagine anyone enjoys being likened to the repellent, mean spirited and stingy character of Scrooge and on that score I am no different but I realise that was because I hadn't thought it through. For a start it's highly unlikely the "bah humbuggers" have actually read 'A Christmas Carol' and have just latched on to a cliche large enough to match their out sized acrylic BHS  jumpers because they are actually too stupid to say anything else. I should be feeding them Trill and calling them Cheeky Boy, rather than paying any mind to their ridiculous banter. 

It is also worth noting that when one observes their behaviour throughout the year they're quite Scrooge like themselves. The person who sits next to you at work and says "at they end of the day, they weans were put on the boat by their parents" is a "Bah Humbugger" and no mistake. The twit in popcorn knit who says "at the end of the day, charity begins at home" is a whopping great "Bah Humbugger" The fat one with strange ankle swellings who says "at the end of the day, this is a Christian country and they should fit in with our ways" is not only a throbbing bell end but a "Bah Humbugger". What I'm trying to say here is that I can use graphs to show that I'm essentially harmless.Yet stupid, angry zoo animals in slacks without the grace to be cute, torment innocent bystanders everyday, unmolested by the jollity police.  

Let us imagine we lived in a better world. Let's imagine that when you said you couldn't be arsed dancing at the minute people said "hurrah, mind our drinks while we do The Slosh" and one could sit on their arse, giving the odd wee wave. Let's imagine some spunkbracket brings out the karaoke gear and instead of demanding others join in, they just invite folk to join in only if it would make them happy or a bit pleased. You'll think I'm BONKERS but let's imagine a world in which everyone simply minded their own business and did their own thing.  

Failing that, just know that when you harass me to JOIN IN WITH YOUR FORCED JOLLITY I am calling you a weaselflange and a rabbitspoon in my mind. Also know that I'm rather enjoying myself staring in to the stars until the moment you ruin my life, my evening, my hour by cranking out out a great big "bah humbug" in my face. If your reindeer games fail to bring all the boys to the yard, either you are the boys are in the wrong and that is hardly my fault. Let me smirk quietly from the banquettes. 

 

Shopping is a terrible chore, not a hobby.

I was in work a few weeks back helping a lady edit her CV and was startled to note that she'd listed shopping under hobbies and interests. I aim to be non judgemental but it's sometimes hard to suppress my true nature, so I judged. I judged harshly. I won't go through all my thoughts about the lady concerned, they tend towards the uncharitable. I will just say I have renamed her The Aubergine and filed her away in my head, under 'Vaguely Absurd Objects'.

Shopping isn't a hobby. It's a chore. There is no pleasure in it, with the possible exception of pet shops and that is only because they have real animals in them. Although after about five minutes of cooing at the animals I get the guilt and feel sorry for them. Imagine being guinea pig in a pet shop and spending your day in a cage with big, silly human faces looming at you and making stupid clicking noises. That is no life at all. It's bad enough being in a shop but being caged and then gawped and clicked at in a shop at must be even worse.

I was once held hostage at a cosmetics counter by a woman who made stupid noises, though mercifully she didn't cage me and I was allowed to go free after agreeing to pay the ransom which entailed purchasing some sort of face primer that I didn't want until the woman told me I had abnormally vast pores and made me feel self conscious. I wonder if pet shops use similar techniques to trap the animals in the cages. Do they sneak up behind kittens and roar 'get in the cage, those stripes make your arse look enormous'? We just don't know.  I googled 'How to start a pet shop' but no information on animal trapping techniques came up in the first results so it's clear there is a cover up of some sort in play.

Of course pet shops aren't the only sort of shops. You also get department stores. The first thing one normally encounters is the cosmetics and perfume bit. This department is staffed mostly by sharks. Naturally they do the sharks up like women, as sharks are not widely regarded as aspirational but as soon as the store shuts the 'women' return to their true shark form and swim about in tanks until their next shift. Rather like the way Princess Michael of Kent turns in to a lizard when no one is looking.

As long as you are in the cosmetics and perfume bit, you must remain in a state of constant wary alertness. One wrong pause to look at a particularly extravagant counter display and BAM! they've got you. A shark-woman will appear and somehow talk you into spending absurd sums of money on things you neither want nor need. Do not make eye contact and move quickly is the best advice I can offer.

The ladies clothing department is less dangerous but a good deal more frustrating. It is generally full of foul tempered men who position themselves in front of the very thing you want to look at. I'd love to be able to blame the patriarchy and issue a clarion call for men to be hurled down a drain but I cannot. It saddens me to report that women bring the men in to the ladies clothing department. I can offer no explanation for the women and their perverse behaviour. At first I thought it was to make the men angry but realised that I had no evidence the men weren't angry before they were brought to the ladies clothing department. I did wonder if it was the grown up version of the teenage girls' practice of taking a larger, plainer friend clothes shopping as a bullying exercise but there's no real evidence to support that either. It could be a punishment or it could be an elaborate wind up. I doubt we will ever know.

There is also a men's clothing department, it's generally quite easy to get round, probably because all the men are 'blouse blocking' in the ladies section. It is quite vexing for me that the least annoying stretch of shop is the one I have the least reason to use but that is the hand life has dealt me. I shan't linger in gents clothing. I am not a shirt blocker.

Moving on, there is usually a household bit and a toy bit. Household is so dreary I can't even be bothered to have an opinion on it. The toy bit is pretty good until some child goes off on one and starts screaming the place down because it wants Lego or Malevolent Frogman Steve. I don't know if Malevolent Frogman Steve exists but my ears were assaulted by a child repeatedly roaring "MALEVOLENT FROOOOGMAN STEEEEEEEVE" in a shop a while back so Steve is real to that child at least.  

You get little shops too. Like ironmongers or hardware shops. These shops tend to exist for many years before announcing they are closing down. When this happens everyone gets upset but fails to see any connection between them doing all their shopping in vast shopping centres and little shops closing down. Sometimes little shops try to entice customers by being friendly and chatty, this is a mistake. When you go down the friendly, chatty route you drive the customers away to the big, impersonal stores where they can shop in peace and instead attract lonely people who haven't received a Christmas card since 1986 and have no money. A valuable service to the wider community but not a profitable one for the shopkeeper.

Probably the shop one encounters most is what they incorrectly call the supermarket. There is very little super about these establishments at all. The idea behind supermarkets is pretty good. What is meant to happen is that you get everything you want under one roof. What actually happens is that you'll get a few things that you want, some inferior versions of some other things you want and then have to go elsewhere for the rest because there is no customer demand for it and you are not a customer but an inconvenient oaf with obscure tastes.

Supermarkets like to pose as our big pal in the community by putting up a public noticeboard where you can view adverts for second hand tricycles, dogs and trumpets. There's no actual evidence these notices are placed by members of the public. Knowing how ruthless supermarkets are, I reckon they would have you shot if you tried to sell a three piece suite or a trombone on their premises. I'd stick to Gumtree, it's not worth the risk, no one can take on the supermarkets. Not even farmers and they are red faced mad men with guns.

I could do all of my shopping online if I hadn't had such a peculiar upbringing. Occasionally as a child I would calmly and reasonably point out that I did not wish to do something, to which my mother invariably responded that life was full of doing things one doesn't want to and that I should just get on with the thing I didn't want to do. Consequently I fear something terrible will befall me if I devote myself to pleasure by doing the online shopping. Then there is the haunting fear that the things you order online are picked and packed by badly paid people on strange shifts in a horrible warehouse and I don't want to put them to any additional trouble.

I suppose I could ask The Aubergine to do my shopping since she enjoys it so much but she strikes me as the type to come back with goose fat when you asked for jam. There is also the whole ethical dimension of taking advantage of an obvious simpleton to consider. Sadly until the Japanese invent a suitably advanced robot or a magic wand I am stuck with the chore NOT the hobby of shopping.