I woke up at 10am, gagging for a cigarette but resisted. Instead I wacked one of those funky clear patches that my doctor gave me and went back to bed so it could start to work (and also so I don’t kill the postman or anyone else for that matter who would have the unfortunate pleasure of crossing my path!). Following a disturbing hour in bed (Sara Cox talking shite on the radio and drifting in and out of REM sleep) I got myself out of my pit to get ready to join the rest of the unemployed bums ‘signing-on’ to get what little cash we are given. So far I still want a cigarette, but the murderous thoughts are subsiding as I continue to wake up and join humanity.
Ok, so I don’t want to kill everyone I come into contact with, but my usual routine of rolling a couple of cigarettes before I go sign on was missed...and boy did I miss it!! Every other Friday, I do the usual ‘sign-on’ and then mince around town doing the little errands that I had promised to do for the last 5 days. When nothing has changed and/or I am feeling well, I go about my daily business and nip in and out of the shops as quickly as I can (smoking to calm myself down in-between stops as the number of idiots in Brighton far surpass the national average!!) but today was different. I was chatting pure and utter crap to anyone who would listen, including the bewildered old lady standing in front of me queuing to pay for her small loaf of bread and tin of tuna. In mid flow, she interrupts me and starts rambling about the youth of today. Firstly, I don’t make a habit of talking to strangers in a shop and secondly if I do, I take everything they say with a pinch of salt and don’t let myself get annoyed by trivial things like moaning about the youth of today. However, today was different. Fuck knows how I said this calmly, but I responded to this old woman’s comments with a “If it wasn’t for today’s youth...then you wouldn’t have...” and proceeded to list off things about journalism, doctors, getting served quickly in this queue, the home help etc. I also explained to her that despite generational change, that the youth of today still had the same compassion and tolerance (if not more) than her so-called bohemian teens.
