Milk and potholes
I’m up today at the crack of dawn. Nice and fresh. I made coffee and threw my hands to head, like a football striker who should have scored in the wide-open goal but instead, kicked it over the bar.
Milk.
There was enough for me, enough for maybe about 3-4 cups of the black gold which I turn brown by adding the milk. No big deal. It’s 5am… by the time the family wakes up and the kids want their precious cereal, the smaller shops will be open.
It’s Sunday. The archaic UK Sunday trading laws say that no shops over a certain size (presumably someone took out a tape measure and then lobbied) are allowed to open their tills until 11am. Whatever. I can always drive to the local small Tesco Express or worst case, there is garage (petrol station, gas station) within a couple of miles from me. They sell milk in the fancy forecourt shop which is open like, always I think.
The reason for the hands-to-head moment was that I was out yesterday and forgot the milk. Plus the Other Half went shopping yesterday but lost the list somewhere between home and the supermarket. Milk wasn’t on it. I know because she did ask what we needed before she left the residence and I assisted in compiling the list. Like her own little personal AI dude.
“Hey, Cybrkyd! What do we need?”
I rattled off a few items from the top of my head but milk wasn’t in my head and did not make it on to the list. Maybe she needs to work on her prompting skills. Add more specificity.
Anyhow, today, Sunday. Short on milk. I need to get some pronto.
I hop in the car at 7am sharp and drive. Tesco Express opens at 7am. On a Sunday. Imagine that!
Maybe it was the light or the fact that at this silly hour on a Sunday, there is no one on the roads yet. Or maybe both. I noticed how many potholes there were. Everywhere.
This picture is not right. I live in the UK, a barely-G7 nation, but still a G7. There. Should. Not. Be. Any. Potholes. In. The. Roads. This is not a third-world country. But here we are.
The skinheads will blame the immigrants for causing this mess.
The current government will blame the previous government. And then point out that the local governments are not repairing the roads.
The local governments will claim there is no funding from central government.
Screw ‘em. Screw ‘em all. This immigrant just wants milk. And he wants to drive in his tax-paid, lowered, souped-up German-engineered, autobahn-worthy vehicle on an actual pothole-free road. Which he paid for himself with no help from the generous benefits system in the UK. But no! Impossible.
Funny thing, yesterday. Being Saturday, the roads around me are bumper-to-bumper. I took a few detours which led me through a road I’ve never been on before. It was a nice, wide, tree-lined road and there were literal mansions on both sides of a PERFECTLY SMOOTH POTHOLE-FREE road. Newly-paved and everything. The whole bloody road. It was such a good surface that the finely-engineered German driving machine actually seemed to drop an octave or two on the revs, like it was in heaven or something.
So that’s what they’re doing. They’re re-paving the roads where the billionaires live first and will get to normal people’s roads in ohh…like, never?
Screw ‘em. Screw ‘em all.
I got my milk. At least Tesco Express had milk. The Tesco at the end of the road with potholes.
I’m proud of my milk. And I’m proud that I can openly advertise I happily obtained it at Tesco Express, the supermarket chain where the nation shops. There are no Tesco Expresses in close proximity to that Billionaire’s Road, one can be assured. And, I’m not quite sure why they need their neighbourhood’s roads paving anyway. Don’t they have their milk helicoptered in?
What I’m no longer proud of is living in the UK. Not with these roads. The roads are the perfect reflection of the rest of this place, the image in a mirror of a nation falling to pieces.
Except for where the billionaires live.