I Should Be So Lucky! (Room 101)

Member Name: pjs21

Product:	Room 101
Date:	17/09/02 (136 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I'd be happier

Disadvantages: No one's ever told me where this room is!

For many years I have found myself becoming riled by the small things in life. You know the ones: Battenberg cake with no apricot jam to hold the marzipan on; Toothpaste being squeezed from the wrong end; No desserts on a menu. Maybe the latter isn't a small one!?

At the age of fourteen we were asked by a teacher to write down 10 things we hated. With the teacher stood directly behind me peering at my work, I calmly jotted down "I hate people who read over my shoulder." I was an angry child who then received detention for insolence.

Now, having finally made it to my 30th year of age (some unbelievers used to state I'd be lucky to make it this far the way I was going!) I am in proud possession of a list for my very own Room 101.

They are a complete mix and stem from things that have niggled me over the years, and probably always will.

1. Four Wheel Drivers

You know the one's I’m going to talk about. I've been driving for 12 years now and I've always hated them.

It would be unfair to say that I hate them all, but it is not far off the truth. Four wheel drive cars were invented for off-road and rough terrain. Why then do people find them necessary in small villages and busy towns? Why are they needed to run the children to school, to not be parked properly on streets and in car parks all over the country? I bet that 95% of the off-road vehicles in this country have never been used for the purpose for which they were designed.

I watch people regularly around where I live struggle to get their large jeep through the gap twice the size of their vehicle. I watch them as they reverse into a parking space big enough for a bus and have to manoeuvre back and forth several times before finally parking at a 45 degree angle and nipping into the grocers.

When all is said and done, I have no problem with the vehicles themselves, merely with the people who choose
to drive them in an area where they are blatantly unnecessary modes of transport. If you lived in the outback, or somewhere where you had dirt tracks for access, fine, but the majority live at number 47 Acacia Drive. The only rough terrain encountered is when they've accidentally gone up the kerb when turning a corner.

I implore these drivers to buy a vehicle more suitable to their surroundings. No, I implore you to allow me these drivers to put into Room 101 where they are ever condemned to drive over rough ground and through swamps in a Nissan Micra.

2) Bad Customer Service

Both my girlfriend and I have a huge problem with this. It is one thing that really gets our feathers ruffled.

I have found myself standing at a check out staring at the cashier who hasn't told me the total cost and asked for it, just held their hand out. In these occasions I refuse to look at the LCD screen on the till, hold their gaze and wait for them to speak to me. I have been known to shout at people who are too busy having a personal conversation to be bothered to serve.

To me it is of great importance in Restaurants. Staff should always be friendly and efficient. The best staff will move around you without you really noticing them. Yet when you want them they just appear. I have received excellent service recently in two restaurants – Mon Plasir in Covent Garden, and Sonny's in my home town of Barnes. The staff were fantastic, the service superb and we left having had a wonderful experience. Yet only one week ago I went to ASK for a pizza with my family. First we were moved from one table to another, then one of the waitresses had no idea of how to serve and constantly lent across the table forcing one of my friends to bend backwards to make room. She did this twice during the meal itself when she came to collect empty glasses. And the worst sin of all – clearing plates from the table while others are
still eating.

Good customer service skills are not hard to implement, though obviously not every person is good at it. Having worked in Customer Service for several years and having trained people in good service skills, I find it appalling when big companies are let down by bad management and bad customer service skills. They are doing themselves so much harm when they could so easily give themselves a top reputation.

So, as there are no excuses for bad service, I would like this to be my next thing into Room 101.

3) Rudeness

This is a very short one. I grew up in the knowledge that manners cost nothing and nearly all sentences should begin with Please and end with Thank You.

I would like to commit those who do not follow this simple rule to a life in Room 101.

Enough Said.

4) Religion

I grew up with Jesus. Not literally, obviously. Though I once knew a man who looked like all the pictures in my copy of the bible. I was a regular at church and attended Sunday school from a very young age. At the age of 17 a very close friend of mine was murdered, she was 15.

At the funeral service the priest said “God decided that she should be taken away from this awful place, away from the bad and the evil.”

Those words have always stuck in my mind.

God once sent a flood to destroy all of the bad things that were happening on his earth and he was unhappy about it. Now, according to the church, he was removing the good amongst us instead. What’s that all about?

I have never been once for hypocrites and something that I had once believed in now turned out to be something different. Rules were changed to justify the situation in hand. There was no justification in the case of my friend. There never will be. And if God is so great, where was he/she at the time?

On a bigger point religion has been the cause of many rows, wars and d
eaths around the world. While I understand that to believe is important to many people, it is ignorant and foolish to respect an unfounded belief more than it is another human life, surely?

So, for these reasons, amongst many, I would like to send religion, the bringer of war, death and misery to Room 101.

5) Menus without Desserts.

That’s surely enough to convince you?


6) Eating Disorders

For everyone who has ever suffered, or still does.

7) Clowns

I have no problems with Clowns, I've always seen them as a bit strange, but have never had a huge hatred for them. So this is for the people in my life who find them scary.

There was once a film called Killer Clowns from Outer Space, in which very big clowns would suck the blood of their prey through large stripy straws. Ridiculous. Well, is it? I though the first person I met who screamed at a clown instead of laughing was just a bit mad. I was wrong. This is a phobia as big as mine for Spiders – although spiders do have too many legs, clowns still only have the two.

The reason I think is behind it isthe fact that the painted smile hides what is going on beneath, it is highly deceptive and a little creepy. We like to read peoples faces in order to judge what is really being said. With clowns this is not possible. Besides, if someone is going to drink your blood through a large straw, I'm not sure I’d want to see that big red mouth grinning back at me as I fade away.

8) Wasps and Mosquitoes.

I’m not a great lover of insects. There's something about them that gives me the shivers, but I can understand that some do have their uses.

Spiders, with all those legs, catch and eat flys. Good for them.
Bees, which I love and try to save when I find one, make honey.

But wasps, what do they do? They kill bees. They sting for no reason what so ever, just
for the sheer hell of it.

They are the thugs of the insect world, out for a fight and with no other purpose in life. They do not make honey, or any sweet product. If they produced custard I may be a little more forgiving, but they do not. They just want trouble and it's trouble I could do without.

For exactly the same reason, I join Mosquitoes to the Wasps. They do nothing for anyone. They wait, out of sight, until the bedroom light goes off and then they buzz around your ear, teasing you. When you switch the light back on again they have disappeared from sight.

You wake up in the morning with a large red lump somewhere on your person that itches and irritates.

Again, if they were to produce a sweet treat to go with my toast, or over my apple pie, I would give them a second chance.

Instead I send them both to live an eternity in Room 101, where they can annoy the hell out of the Four Wheel Drivers and all the rest.


9) George W Bush

Do I really need to explain that choice?


So there you have it. In thirty years I have managed to whittle my ever increasing list down to only nine things I could happily live without. That's not bad going. Maybe in another ten years it will be slightly different. But I doubt it - Only Number 9 may have come true in the time ahead. I am sure though that it can be easily replaced with another choice when the time comes.

Now, with that spleen vented somewhat I feel so much more relaxed.

<big sigh>

What was that?

That buzzing sound?

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