There is no stasis like “waiting for the van.”
My injured camera - it does so much to call it merely “damaged” seems an insult to its capacity – is awaiting a van driver to collect it and take it who knows where for who knows whom to do who knows what to it.
I feel as if I am in a Beckett play with time suspended and nothing able to happen as I am Waiting for the Van. It does not come. Time passes.
When you are told that the package will be picked up between 10 am and 1 pm the cynic voice at the back of your mind tells you that it will actually take place more towards 2.30 pm than 10 am. Unless, of course, you go out when the van will then immediately appear, ring and disappear, never to appear again.
As it is now 12.05 pm the cynical voice has become a chorus of mocking figures sneering at my inactivity and urging me to have the courage of my cynicism and go and do the shopping that needs to be done and then reappear just before 2.30 tapping one foot elegantly indicative of the justified irritation that one can feel for a wasted morning. A wasted sunny morning!
Time is ticking away. The van has ten minutes to get here to make it in the three hour slot that I was given! This sort of existential time keeping is one thing which is common to all advanced societies in which the White Van Culture has been allowed to develop!
The White Van (Surprise! Surprise!) is late – and to think that I hurriedly packed the camera just after my early morning swim so that it would be ready to be collected if the van were to arrive exactly at 10 am. It is that sort of misplaced faith that keeps society going!
It just goes to show how one can delude oneself that I actually believed that the delay would only be an hour or so! It is now 4.35 pm and there is a likelihood that the bloody camera will not be picked up until 6.30 pm. That would only be five and a half hours late! Home from home!
The van (yes, it was white) finally arrived at twenty to seven. The poor man who took the brunt of my fury had only been told about the pick-up a half an hour or so before he arrived! The organization which is supposed to be an efficient communications concern is woefully inept and I wonder where my camera is going. At least I have a receipt so I know at least when it went!
I cannot pretend that time-slots were anything more than a hazy indication of possible intent rather than a contractual assurance of prompt timekeeping in Britain so this is not something particular to Spain or Catalonia. But it is irritating. Infuriating. And lots of other words ending in –ing!
A frustrating day, but not a time to sulk as tomorrow sees preparations for the Journey South!
My injured camera - it does so much to call it merely “damaged” seems an insult to its capacity – is awaiting a van driver to collect it and take it who knows where for who knows whom to do who knows what to it.
I feel as if I am in a Beckett play with time suspended and nothing able to happen as I am Waiting for the Van. It does not come. Time passes.
When you are told that the package will be picked up between 10 am and 1 pm the cynic voice at the back of your mind tells you that it will actually take place more towards 2.30 pm than 10 am. Unless, of course, you go out when the van will then immediately appear, ring and disappear, never to appear again.
As it is now 12.05 pm the cynical voice has become a chorus of mocking figures sneering at my inactivity and urging me to have the courage of my cynicism and go and do the shopping that needs to be done and then reappear just before 2.30 tapping one foot elegantly indicative of the justified irritation that one can feel for a wasted morning. A wasted sunny morning!
Time is ticking away. The van has ten minutes to get here to make it in the three hour slot that I was given! This sort of existential time keeping is one thing which is common to all advanced societies in which the White Van Culture has been allowed to develop!
The White Van (Surprise! Surprise!) is late – and to think that I hurriedly packed the camera just after my early morning swim so that it would be ready to be collected if the van were to arrive exactly at 10 am. It is that sort of misplaced faith that keeps society going!
It just goes to show how one can delude oneself that I actually believed that the delay would only be an hour or so! It is now 4.35 pm and there is a likelihood that the bloody camera will not be picked up until 6.30 pm. That would only be five and a half hours late! Home from home!
The van (yes, it was white) finally arrived at twenty to seven. The poor man who took the brunt of my fury had only been told about the pick-up a half an hour or so before he arrived! The organization which is supposed to be an efficient communications concern is woefully inept and I wonder where my camera is going. At least I have a receipt so I know at least when it went!
I cannot pretend that time-slots were anything more than a hazy indication of possible intent rather than a contractual assurance of prompt timekeeping in Britain so this is not something particular to Spain or Catalonia. But it is irritating. Infuriating. And lots of other words ending in –ing!
A frustrating day, but not a time to sulk as tomorrow sees preparations for the Journey South!
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