A waste of space…

Most people have pet hates, or pet peeves as the Americans call them. They are usually small, insignificant things, but they have the power to drive us up the wall.

Some pet hates are common and shared by many, such as folk who slurp their soup or show a mouthful of food when eating. Then there are people who incessantly click their pens up and down, or tap their pencil off a desk. After suffering a while, you want to scream, STOP DOING THAT!!

Other hates might be more personal and private. In the early noughties, when Madonna performed in Dublin, word was the exclusive shop Brown Thomas on Grafton Street opened one night for a few hours just for her.

She was the only customer.

I’ve never been in Brown Thomas, but once heard of someone buying an umbrella there for £93. Wow! I thought, imagine leaving that on the bus… although a person who pays that sort of money for a brolly is unlikely to be using the bus service.

Good luck to Madge, she was able to bring some items to the till and go back for more browsing. Another pet hate I have is people in supermarkets who behave like superstars.

They leave items at the checkout, and go for another wander down the aisles. The number of times I have arrived at what I thought was a vacant till, only to be told, “I’m serving a customer; she’s gone to get something”.

Sorry ladies, but it is invariably a ‘she’.

In the words of beleaguered England soccer manager Graham Taylor, “Do I not like that!”

I count to ten, slowly.

Then, there is the lady with a basket full of goods who sees me next in line holding a jar of pickled onions… but doesn’t have the courtesy to say, “Go on ahead; you’ll only be a second, while I’ll be all day.”

There is a young man works in a filling station near here, calls me ‘sir’. “Any fuel sir?” “That’ll be £4.80, sir.”

It grinds my gears. He probably calls other customers ‘sir’ but that is for them to process. It is not a Castlederg or Dungiven ‘sur’, it’s a mark of respect ‘sir’ that does not work. If you are reading this lad, please stop! Pet hate.

Speaking of pets of a different kind. Many moons and summers ago, I was friendly with a couple, Rob and Margot, in Bristol whence I spent a few years.

They were decent people. Paul was a throwback to the teddy boy era, with his pointed boots and quiff and enough Brylcreem for half a Premiership team.

They had no children, but did have two cats, Tigger and Bumpy.

I don’t like cats, even when they want to make friends with me. They’re evil. Tigger obligingly ignored me, but Bumpy was more inquisitive.

“He likes you,” said Margot, one night when he jumped on the armchair I was sitting on.

I smiled wearily and considered not returning. Bumpy had a habit of springing from the floor onto the shoulder of Paul or Margot. They loved it. One night, he tried similar with me,` and with a deft swing of the top half of my body, Joe Canning-like, he went ass over head into a display cabinet.

It was reminiscent of the scene in ‘Once upon a time in Hollywood’ when the Brad Pitt character sent Bruce Lee flying into yer woman’s car.

Margot was appalled, “What can I say?!” to which I mumbled, “I don’t like cats.”

I wasn’t about to tell her I came from a culture that once saw cats as close to vermin.

Seamus Heaney had a poem in his first collection, ‘The Early Purges’…

‘I was six when I first saw kittens drown. Dan Taggart pitched them, ‘the scraggy wee sh*ts’, into a bucket; a frail metal sound…’

It was the poet’s boyhood memories. Stark and brutal. There is little chance of that poem being taught or analysed in school these days, lest the children be traumatised. It would probably have traumatised Margot, too.

Some readers may find these musings somewhat frivolous and inconsequential, even a waste of space. It is an interesting phrase – a waste of space.

What if there wasn’t a column at all? If there was just my picture, the title ‘McSherry’s MUSINGS’ and a blank half page. And what if you heard I was still being paid as a columnist? You would be tempted to say, “That boy’s a waste of space, literally”. And you would be right, if I was being paid for a job I wasn’t doing.

It is also true of those who will not take their seats in Stormont. They focus on things that are inconsequential, and create faux controversies to avoid dealing with real problems. Too many of them are, literally, a waste of space.

When Steve Martin had achieved great success, he was asked if he ever worried about running out of material for his shows. “No”, he said.

“Because comedy is always a response to what’s happening and there’s always something happening.”

This column is more a response to what is not happening.