Illustration : Matt Herring You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.
Ninteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
I was tagged by the wonderful AtoZ Mummy in her Room 101 post, inviting me to nominate some things that I would banish to that dark place never to be seen again. I may have let a little squeal of happiness slip out when I saw I'd been tagged, because I really don't need to be asked twice to have a good rant.
But there was my first hurdle - how the heck could I limit myself here? So I've decided to only list things that have irked me in the last six hours. And this is not an exhaustive list...though it is in the order in which they annoyed me.
- Unpopped popcorn kernels
So there you are, engrossed in a film and fueling your concentration by automatically shoveling fistfuls of sweet (or salty, because even you weirdos will have experienced this) goodness into your gob. It's soothing, it's comforting, it's preventing you from talking all the way through the film. But then, holy motherducking heck - searing white pain shoots through your tooth and right down into your soul, rendering you momentarily blind and your jaw paralysed mid-chew. Yep, you've chowed down on the evil unpopped kernel. This pain is second only to biting down on your own mouth piercing (which is a good horror story to tell your kids if they ever suggest that they fancy sticking metal through their lips/tongue/cheek). Those tough, nuggety bastards need to be condemned to 101 hell. - Wasps
Tell me one good thing about these evil beasties. Just one. You got nothing, don'tcha? And I'll tell you why - because unlike bees, these little buggers are not powered by the desire to bring sweetness into this world. They are simply cruel, bitter little bitches who can't get over the fact that they turned up to the party in the same outfit as the bees, but the bees look a million times cuter. - Ironing
Who exactly decided that wrinkled clothes were a bad thing? Who was the first person to heat a bit of metal in the campfire and frantically rub it all over their loincloth (and did they think to remove said loincloth first...I hope not, serves them right)? And why, thousands of years later, are we still carrying out this bizarre ritual? We are a culture obsessed with eradicating creases - first clothes, then hair, then skin...where will it end?! - The traditional working week
Now I'm not great at maths, but even I can tell you that 5:2 is not an even split. We only get one life, and are often told during that one life that it is precious, that we should live each day like it's our last, that life is short, that we should live life to the max. So why is it that the majority of us resign ourselves to spending most of it doing work for other people? Surely even 4:3 is a better balance. I advocate that "full time" should now mean four days on, three days off. Let's make some placards and take this campaign to Downing Street! - Niggling pains
Currently, I have this infrequent pain in my shoulder tip. This could mean my spleen has ruptured, I have a lesion on my diaphragm, or I'm having an ectopic pregnancy. But really I know it is just one of those stupid niggling pains which serve no purpose, and which disappear just as you approach the verge of getting seriously worried about them. They're like sneezes which wont come - build up, build up, build up...nada. Obviously, I don't want these pains to come to anything, but I would just like them to not bother turning up in the first place. I get a lot of these pains, and it makes it difficult to take any real pains seriously (like the hilarious time an idiot GP misdiagnosed a serious issue with my ovaries, telling me I just had a stitch, and nearly rendered me infertile. It's a laugh-a-minute tale, remind me to tell you about it some time). Pain receptors need to get with the programme, and act more like bouncers rather than welcome hosts to any random electrical pulse they come across.
I'll leave it up to you guys to play Paul Merton - can these five things be banished forever? What about you, what would you put in Room 101?
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