Sometimes when I should be working I play solitaire instead on my desk computer. A while ago I decided to go a little crazy and start playing the Vegas version. That’s where you pay fifty two bucks up front for the game and you try to win it back, plus some, preferably. Now the average human being could probably play five games in a row before getting bored, but not me. What with the thrill of winning virtual money I can play up to twenty games in a row.

Yesterday, during one of my solitaire marathons, I decided to add a new dimension. I continued playing the oh-so-risky Vegas version, but this time added cumulative scores. At first it was like a challenge, absorbing the debts of the previous game and trying to overcome them with the help of that finicky character, Chance. After about my tenth game I began to get palpitations. I was by now hundreds of dollars in debt and with each game I became steadily more convinced that the next game would prove to be the big winner that cleared the debts and made me rich.

It never happened and by the end I was anxious, sweaty and a thousand dollars down. Let this be a lesson to you all.

I don’t usually do blog lists but I am feeling bitter and deeply unoriginal today (as usual).

THINGS NEURO HATES

1. The Sugababes. Especially that song “Ugly”. It’s a little semi-autobiographical faux-wisdom slash cheap fairground dance track. I actually feel angry when I hear it on the radio. I wish death upon them. I know I will get my wish. I just hope that I am still alive to relish the earth without their grammatically incorrect presence. Also in this musical category, every version of that damn “You Raise Me Up” tripe. SHUT UP. Why does everyone do a cover version of it? WHY? There are other songs!
   
2. The girls in the bakery across the road from me. They never, ever, ever give me exactly what I ask for. Each and every one of them should be fired and the establishment should be torched by a slightly off-kilter office manager with an addiction to pretend gambling.
   
3. Ironing. It is my opinion that clothes ought to exit the tumble dryer in a ready-to-wear state. There are certain things I detest about being a grown up and sort of taking care of my own laundry is one of them. (I say sort of, because K does most of it.) Also in this category should fall the phenomenon I suffer from whereby I believe that I have absolutely nothing to wear, in spite of the fact that I have a huge amount of things to wear. They’re all just crumpled. This phenomenon results in me running around in my knickers feeling frantic and irritable just before leaving for work. In my mind, it all becomes K’s fault. He’s the guy I live with, why can’t he sort out these trivialities?!
   
4. Working. I hate it. Why can’t I just be given a pension to live off? I’ve paid my taxes! I’ve given my due to society! (Not to be confused with giving your Jew to society, that’s called “anti-semitism”.)
   
5. Ads. It is a rare thing that an ad doesn’t make me upset. My pet hates at the moment include all and every ad on the tv or radio for the Bagel Factory and the ads for Deirdre O’Kane’s upcoming comedy show (YOU’RE NOT FUNNY DEIRDRE, EVEN LESS SO WHEN THE ADS REPEAT THE SAME THREE JOKES AGAIN AND AGAIN).
   
6. Bored people dropping into my office in work to “say hello”. Not friends, just people I vaguely know, passing by, they come in and lean on my desk and force me to make small talk. GO AWAY, I AM PLAYING SOLITAIRE.
   
7. Small talk. Oh God I cannot bear it. Let’s just not talk, ok? Would you mind? I am just not in the mood. I actually like silence. It’s a welcome break from the Deirdre O’Kane ads.
   
8. Lists on blogs. THEY’RE JUST SO CLICHED! ALSO: rants! They’re so 2001.

I have become everything I detest. It’s the human condition innit? Praise Jesus it is Friday. I suggest that tonight we all eat steak and drink champagne in preparation for not getting up tomorrow. And let’s watch dvds too! You will notice that “the weekend” is not in the category of things I cannot bear.

neuro-praxis – Laughs When You Call Her A Saturday In May