Resistance, survival and alien rats

Part two of the story of a working person trying to use couriers is my starter for today. Having dealt with two human beings existing in the aftermath of ‘call centre rationalisation’ I was waiting for the next failure in a system clearly not intended to be convenient. I checked my tracking number eagerly this morning and learnt that my parcel had arrived at the depot at 01:56 but that was it. Surely it should say “out for delivery”? Some research revealed that all parcels arriving over Friday/Saturday are listed as “loaded for delivery” regardless of whether they are actually due to go out on the Saturday or the Monday. This was obviously no help at all and left me pondering if something had happened to the fugitive humans, had they risk exposure too much and been captured?

I called the depot when they opened and enquired as to the status of the parcel. Having given the tracking number I was asked various security questions, which made me suspicious that I was talking to a call centre automaton and not a member of the resistance. I gave up the security information without any delay and hope that I gave no indication of my surprise. “Oh that’s not coming out today” “but I’d requested it yesterday and arranged to pay the fee” at this point it all went downhill, had I said too much? “You paid the fee?” “Well no, I’d arranged to pay the fee on Monday” I could sense her incredulity in the silent pause whilst she doubtless sent the call centre police to sweep the building for the resistance.

Worrying that I had exposed the rare human beings that operate under the very noses of the call centre machines I quickly covered “Oh OK can I arrange for it to come out next Saturday?” but this was true call centre scripting “Oh no we can’t interfere with a package in transit” resisting the urge to scream at her that if she hadn’t interfered my parcel would be coming out today I explained my predicament. After some negotiation I agreed a settlement, the parcel would come out three times in the week but she would tell the driver that I wasn’t home and then tell him to add it to Saturday on Friday. I won’t even go into the arguments about taking my parcel for trips across the UK for no reason, there are beardy weirdys for that, but surely it’s not profitable?

I am thinking of opening a book on the options; parcel returned to sender, parcel out on Saturday but not delivered because driver ‘knew’ I wasn’t in, parcel eaten by alien call centre rats. In the meantime I hope that the resistance survive any attempts to find them and remain a rare ray of light in the rationalised call centre world, they may be no help whatsoever but hey they talk a good job.

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Drugged flies and stupid beards

After much consideration I have determined that flies are controlled by Ms Nature and that people are simply stupid. I had, rather graciously, assumed that flies were under the jurisdiction of the much nicer nature. After all without flies where would all the dog poo go? Yes they are irritating but they serve a purpose. My flat faces the beach in a tourist town, within sniffing distance for me (as a human) there is a veritable smorgasbord of fast food wrappers and detritus. So why is it that flies elect to enter my property and remain there. The flying around the light game is misdirection since the light is off and frankly they are not moths. They are there, darting in insane orbits, simply to aggravate me.

Further evidence of the twisted hand of Ms Nature is that when I dispatch said flies they are replaced. Always by four flies, never three and never five, as if they are queueing outside for some fairground ride. Of all the properties around what would cause them to enter mine if not directed by Ms Nature. I can’t believe that they are flying around, pop in the window and think “Hmmm no other flies and a smell of poison, let’s hang around here and see what happens”. This is like Jews queueing for train tickets for Auschwitz saying “I’ve never heard anyone say a bad thing about their trip”.

So I am fighting a constant battle with Ms Nature’s suicide bombers. As many as I kill she sends more, like the Chinese they are trying to win on numbers rather than skill. Now if you think that I am paranoid or that the flies are not simply there to annoy me, well you’re wrong. This morning I went into my front room and awoke the flies who were napping on the wall. Seriously, the bloody things don’t stop when I’m awake but as soon as I go to sleep it’s “here Bob all quite let’s have a break”.

Having established that flies are Ms Nature’s minions I scoured the internet yesterday to see the preferred methods of fly eradication. Don’t misunderstand me I have no global warming lettuce poisoning fears over pesticides, I actually think that they are great. My problem is that in order for chemical pesticides to work I have to let the flies in first. I want a means of dispatch that does not call for me to be irritated first, something that despatches on sight. I have tried fly paper but it’s not really for me. Firstly I have to hang it in the centre of the room in order to capture flies, this has the inadvertent result that I seem to have more contact than the flies. A few beers is enough to forget the fly paper, I walk into the front room and I’m immediately wrapped in a sticky strip of flies. Like something out of Radiers of the Lost Ark I’m rolling around trying to get glue and bugs off my face for ten minutes.

The other problem with fly paper is that flies are just unreliable. They sit on the little cardboard tube at the end just to tease you. I end up like the M&M’s ad, talking to the flies saying “get on the paper”. Have you tried encouraging a drug addled fly to change direction? If you wonder on the drug addled comment then let me explain. It’s common knowledge that suicide bombers are drugged to help them complete the task, and probably to cope with the concept of 72 hairy virgins waiting for them! Ever wondered why flies travel in such odd orbits, with no real sense of direction? Precisely!

So the mission was to find more efficient means of killing flies. I hit upon website after website with ways of extracting flies without harming them. Several websites commended the principle of using a vacuum cleaner and creeping up on them. According to the beardy weirdies you can then simply empty them outside to fly off into the sunset. What is the matter with these people? The things are pests, you want to track them like wild byson and then trap them to move them outside are you insane! They are drugged up terrorists, they won’t fly into the sunset, they will fly straight back in to your home! These people are talking about being humane to flies, the clue is in the first 5 letters ‘human’ if you add an e to fly you get flye which translates into ‘kill’, probably. I don’t want to befriend them, name them or keep them as bloody pets, I want to kill them. If I thought that decapitating a fly and leaving it’s body on a stake at my window would put them off I would be making cocktail stick stakes as we speak.

Apparently flies are “fastidiously clean”, how do you know? I’ve never seen fly deodorant or soap. Let’s look at this simply, they stand in their food, vomit into it and eat the result. Oh and their food of choice is faeces. I’m sorry but short of two hours in a Champney’s bubble bath or an industrial jet wash will make that clean. I hit upon one debate that flies got a bad reputation because they were not “endearing”. Not endearing, they are disease carrying terrorists, that fella with the hook and his family of letterboxes was more cuddly!

That is the thing with people, give them enough time and they will get stupid over anything. They forget that we had to fight nature back to build their bungalow, forget that the roads that bring their buckwheat to waitrose kill foxes and badgers and frogs. They sit in their bungalow, walls covered in insulating dung and scabs, and worry that we need to save the common fly. Well it’s not for me, I’m stocking up on Raid and going to war.