A Musing on Tolerance

I am not going to be a grumpy old or young man, woman or git . . .   

BUT

I can’t abide the television and radio shows based on cliché intolerances given voice by guested celebrities: fat people on aeroplanes, young children anywhere, queues of any description, white van drivers are examples; even when I find myself nodding and agreeing as I hurry to staunch my leaking hypocrisy by switching channels. 

These shows are, like the redtops, reporting the national zeitgeist and the fault is collective.  They are popular for that reason – they are, after all, simply a distorted echo – and for being cheap to produce and purchase.  My vicarious embarrassment and resulting discomfort on hearing or reading any of that sub-genre (details TBC) stem from fellow feelings I cannot suppress. 

These feelings are embedded.  Visceral.  Sub-conscious.  I make amends by turning up my internal tolerance control (early results of my research indicate that this is a pituitary gland function.  Wouldn’t you just guess that?) Thus I release a flood of benign thoughts whilst grinning as widely as the Joker. 

This form of psychological quantitative easing works for a while, then an unbidden thought surfaces: Why don’t people say what REALLY pisses them off?  Like the taboos I can’t even hint at here.  The taboos everybody knows – even if they don’t agree – but which are so taboo that only the elderly or radio phone-in members of Bigots R Us are permitted to voice them. 

The conspiracy theorist in me says that we are encouraged to take cheap shots and complain about minor matters in order to distract us from the big issues of organised religion, a usurious banking system, poor government, manipulative media and the all-controlling corruptocracy dating back to the Normans.   

Goodness!  I do take on so, don’t I? *winks*

Despite the above statement of intent (before I got a little carried away) and the recent withdrawal of my SAD award system, I now insert a large BUT . . .,

. . . I shall continue to grumble about specific instances and events affecting me and those I know.  If only when the fickle Muses leave me no choice and I feel the need to scribble something.  

One recent example:

At 8.20 p.m. yesterday I received a phone call from somebody asking for Paul.  Use of my first name out of normal working hours implied that the caller was a friend, or at least an acquaintance, with whom I might wish to talk. 

Wrong on both counts.

The caller introduced himself as “Swinton Insurance” then launched into his pitch about an insurance policy that would be of benefit to me . . . at which point I said I wasn’t interested.

Now that was rude of me and I hate being rude since it makes me feel churlish and even when warranted by a pushy sales type or chugger I feel lessened by each occasion.  If my evening caller had asked why or taken the smartarse option of asking me how I could not be interested in something without first knowing the details, I may have either hung up or expanded as follows:

“I am not interested in any product or service offered to me over the telephone by anybody I do not know.”

That’s it.  A simple rule that also applies when anybody calls at my door, puts something through my letter box or to whom I take a dislike if addressed in the street.  I don’t want to discuss or argue or justify or answer questions.  I don’t want to talk.  I don’t want eye contact or an exchange of smiles.  I don’t want to pass the time of day.  I especially don’t want to pay.  If I wish to obtain a product or service, I look for it.  In other words: “go away”. 

No, I am not a misanthrope, I just want to cut out the annoying bit of human interaction where somebody interrupts my life to separate me from my money at their convenience for their reasons.    

Continuing with (if not warming to) the theme, I don’t like junk mail but I can live with it.  There is a well-trodden route between letter box and recycling.  The printed material is a waste of resources, but at least I can help recycle it into usable toilet paper.

Worse are polythene charity bags, delivered at a run by volunteers with the printed plea to give what unwanted items I can for collection the following . . . Monday, for example.  I have filled these in the past, but the only result is non-collection.  It is a plastic bag disposal service.

     

Spam, phishing and other unwanted junk emails all share the same fate.  Instant deletion.  They don’t bug me like they used to once I realised that the endless emails I received from the supplier of every product I bought online – the great majority of all such emails – could be stopped by the magic of the deregistration process.           

The overseas-based criminals who phish provide more amusement than anything –

now I have stopped taking their assumption of my stupidity personally – with their combination of sheer gall and illiteracy. 

My ire is instead reserved for Google and the other ISPs who do nothing about them.  They seem to require verifiable proof that emails are illegal in nature before they will close a sender’s account.  This is not, I believe, a legal requirement but a symptom of attitude.           

Over and above all the above, I despise the unwanted phone call with an unreasonable passion even if they are in the minority by being able to pronounce my surname, get my gender right and be intelligible in English.   

Mr Swinton Insurance did not respond to my short statement.  There was a silence lasting a good ten seconds before I hung up.  A minute later I called back out of curiosity – via the precautionary measure of pre-dialling one-four-one, since I didn’t want to get his hopes up – to be answered by a female-voiced robot telling me that an unsuccessful call was recently made to me by Swinton Colonnade and I would be called again in the near future. 

The voice went on to say if I did not wish to receive any further calls I could dial the  number it then dictated.  I rang this other number, only for the same robot to tell me that all staff were busy and I should call again later.     

No voicemail option.  No email contact address.  No deregistration option via a website.  No way out, just one-way traffic. 

I like to think if a Swinton employee had interrupted my attempted communing with the Muses that evening before I took out the insurance, I would not have sought a quote.

The trouble with that stance is that since Swinton’s was the cheapest quote I found the result would have meant me paying more. 

So, on balance, I’ll take the annoying phone calls as the price of greater choice and competition and just grumble a little afterwards.  Already my mood is lightening as tolerance washes through me and a grin stretches my cheek muscles to tearing point.