Sometimes I'm Just Too Lazy To Think Of A Good Excuse

        After a lifetime of observation of both myself and others, I've finally concluded that laziness is as natural as having eyes. Just think what you do when, say, the batteries in your TV remote start dying. Do you do the sensible thing and get some more, so you can suddenly change over in case they throw Hollyoaks at you without warning? Of course you don't; You do what everyone else does: press the button harder, because that's clearly how they work these days. Or, if it gets really bad and you want to break out the big guns, you take the cover off and, for reasons that are clearly not backed up by any logic whatsoever, you roll them around a bit in the hope that this will remind them of their duties and they'll buck up their ideas. Then, when they totally give up and the TV remote takes on the shape and usefulness of a child's toy phone, you still don't do anything about it for weeks. What about that squeaky door that annoys the hell out of you every time you open it? You could go and get the WD40, but........ well, it's suddenly not that bad, right? In fact, you could leave it to squeak until it makes a tune! Or, like these people, you might discover that it sounds like Chewbacca, and the Internet absolutely must know!


        I'd like to think that these are isolated incidents, but apparently not. Mrs Max's Sister has a kettle with a broken switch, so it doesn't stay down in the "make-water-hot" position. Unfortunately, getting a replacement involves going outside, where it might be cold and there might be bears, and that might involve communicating with other people. So what's the obvious solution? Well, it seems that putting a potato on the switch and making sure you remember to take it off when it finishes to avoid a cup of tea turning into flamey death is clearly the better option. Then, there's a writer I knew who had a broken Q on his keyboard. Rather than pop out to Office World and get another one, maybe with some fancy wireless deal on it so he could type from his sofa, he simply ensured he never used a word that involved the letter Q. Luckily, he wised up and bought another before he had to write a quick press-release about QinetiQ working in Quebec. I've been guilty of unashamed laziness as well. For example, the aerial on my TV is one of those dinky little deals that sits next to it, as my house didn't come with one for some reason. Naturally, like anything technology-based that costs £4.99, it doesn't work. I could instead pay someone called Dave with a blue polo shirt some currency to go and install a proper one for me, but.......... screw it, I just won't watch TV!


       This is all laziness with a poor excuse attached. And we all do it (me included), but these are on small, insignificant things in life (well, except maybe the tea...), but when it comes to other, slightly more important, things in life I find it funny that this attitude still kicks around. Not just with things like going out and fixing something, but in simply engaging the ol' gray matter between the ears. Take charity giving, for example. There are lots of good reason to not give to charity: lack of money to give, time, lack of appreciation for the cause etc. What is not a good reason to refuse to give is that they pay salaries to their employees. Seriously, this is a common reason people give me for not donating a thing; because they're a charity, people should work for nothing. Take Macmillain, for example: they provide support to the victims and families of cancer sufferers. How nice! But no, apparently it's deeply immoral to employ someone who spent years studying psychology so they can specifically help children going through the trauma of this sort of thing, and to pay them a wage! I know, right? How dare they need to, you know, eat and have somewhere to live! It seems that the ideal candidate is someone who has the ability do such a depressing job (having sacrificed their left arm and right leg to pay for the training), yet also has the financial means to never have to work a job they paid a fortune to do (or any job) yet still does it. This narrows it down to possibly.... one person in their staff, if they're lucky. They don't ask for donations because what they do is cheap, but because it's very expensive!

        Then what is the problem then? Well, like the TV remote batteries or the kettle switch, it's simply easier than saying "I don't want to give money to you guys, sorry 'bout that". And hey, that's cool. It's your money and you spend it on whatever you want. Just don't pretend that it's a moral stance when it's really just not a priority for your money.

        And if anyone has any spare change kicking around because they didn't set up a direct debit to the NSPCC, I have this TV aerial that needs fixing.....



image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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