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Chris Ivins

Typical budget: $3,000 and under
Located in South Durras, NSW, Australia

If you have something to say, but can't write it the way you want it to read, I can help.

I write all the time. When I do actually sleep, I am woken by a way I can perfect that poem or make that piece of flash fiction punch a reader in the guts. Or I am plagued with ideas for something to write about. I get images in my head sometimes, and end up writing something based around those images. Or a phrase will constantly play over in my head until I give it vent on the pc. It's exhausting but I love it. I will write in preference to other activities, which sometimes means I miss out on exercise, Vitamin D, and the garden gets overgrown. I get to those things eventually. My partner has learned that he'll need to lasso me and give that lasso a big tug to get me off the chair. He doesn't always succeed.

I Hate It When

  1. I'm queued up at the supermarket checkout and someone pushes their trolley into the back of my ankles. And does it more than once. 

  2. I'm being served at the 12 items or less checkout and someone shuffles up so close I can smell their armpits. This happened to me a few weeks ago and after glaring at the boundary crosser with no good result, I shuffled sideways and nearly sent her flying. I still can't put my finger on the scent either; maybe sweat and Rexona. 

  3. I go to the self serve checkout and after scanning a couple of items, the bloody thing says "please remove item from bagged area". THERE'S NOTHING IN THE BAGGED AREA. But even after "removing" the phantom item in the bagged area, it asks me to remove it again. So I repeat the whole process to no avail, except to make me look like a weirdo, then it comes up with "please seek assistance". Thank you, I will. But the "assistance" comes in the form of an annoyed staff member who, by the look on her face, really has better things to do with her time. And who also can't find the offending item in the bagged area. 

On that, why is it that supermarket staff who patrol the self serve checkouts seem more cranky and intolerant than those manning two measley checkouts with queues stretching to Uranus?? 

  1. I go into the supermarket at the busiest time of day, and only one checkout is open, the self serve is bulging at the seams (patrolled by abovementioned cranky staff member) and the 12 items or less checkout has a queue stretching, this time, to Pluto. I feel so sorry for supermarket staff! How they keep a smile on their faces is beyond my comprehension, and I make sure to say something that will keep that smile on their face, trust me. This way, I manage to circumvent my irritation and annoyance by realising that someone else is worse off than me. If I were behind the checkout, I'd be guilty of mass murder or possibly a very vocal, and very messy, suicide. 

  2. On 5. above, it's upsetting on the very rare occasions when I do say something positive and cheery to a beleaguered checkout person and end up with them looking at me like I have two heads with snakes coiled on both, or that I'm so incredibly stupid they can't believe what they're hearing. I guess my supposed faux pas will make good dinner time conversation when they eventually drag their exhausted, sorry bottoms home. I hope their cat is a good listener. 

Open file IHATEITWHEN.odt

This series is an example of what I call "observational humour". I like to think that I am (almost) the written equivalent of Carl Baron. This article is the first in a series of things I hate or that annoy the crap out of me. There are three parts to the series, with me getting ready to add a fourth.

I see things differently to most people, so I'm told. Even being told that, I actually agree. I'm the sort of person who could be sitting in a group that's been discussing a certain topic at length, and who will chip in with some out there comment, that comes in after the discussion has became an hour+ old.

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