<rant> Nice simple easy afternoon - or so I thought. Finished work at lunchtime and just a couple of quick things to do on the way home - should only take 5 minutes or so. Pop into the bank to pay a bill. Only a small amount on a credit card - which I shouldn't have had to pay at all if Farcebook hadn't tricked me into paying extra for an advert for one of my gigs after giving me free credits for adverts. Cunts. Actually, I thought I'd already paid this bill via online banking a week ago so I'd forgotten about it. What I didn't know was that my payment had been immediately returned - for reasons unknown, although I had already successfully used this payment method between these same two accounts last year. Then a credit card bill arrived for the Farcebook ad this week - with interest as I apparently hadn't paid it! Cunts.
10 minutes at the front of a non-moving queue with only two cashiers working. Then told I can't use my debit card from my other bank to pay the bill. No cash on me. Bank's own cashpoint out of order. Directed to another one a few minutes walk away. This one confirms I have plenty in my account - then refuses to let me have any of it. I only needed a fiver! Minimum amount the machine will dispense is £10 - so I ask for £10. It still won't give me any of my own money. Walk further down the road to cashpoint number 3 - it generously lets me have £10 of my own money. Ironically I used to have an account at a bank at the location of cashpoint #3 where I could have done all this business in one go, but Barclays in their wisdom decided to close it. Walk back to the other bank with folding in hand to pay their credit card bill -there is now a queue.🙄 Eventually I get to the front of the queue. Again. And payment is finally paid. It's taken me over half an hour to pay one bill for £2.40 (plus interest) at the bank. Thanks a million Facebook. Cunts.
So, onto the chemist to pick up my prescription. Fortunately it's only next door to the bank - so this shouldn't take long. Wrong. Actually it's taken a week already: There are 3 people queuing OUTSIDE the chemist. WTF? Due to all the current shit going down because of the fizzypopvirus they are now only letting 3 people into the shop at a time - 1 in 1 out. I have to wait ten minutes in the cold wind just to get into the pharmacy. This is something else I originally did online last week. Leave 2 working days to allow enough time before picking up your prescription from the pharmacy said my doctor's practice web page. I left 3 days. And then they had no trace of it when I arrived to pick it up.. Here I am a week later and it has finally turned up over the internet. Only it's STILL not ready and can I come back in half an hour? I give up and go home to get something to eat. My journey home should only have taken 5 minutes or so longer than usual to complete those 2 simple tasks.- I eventually arrive home nearly an hour later....
I have another go at picking up my prescription a couple of hours later on my way to do my weekly shop. There is now a queue of about 8 people waiting to get into the chemists. I say 'queue', but actually in this country people no longer seem to know how to queue - they just mill around and then all rush up to the door when the pharmacy assistant let's someone out. Cunts. Us British used to be so good at queueing once - society is rapidly breaking down. It's even colder waiting outside now and I have to wait considerably longer than last time, but I eventually get to the front of the queue. Again. And get my prescription. One week and three hours after I first went to pick it up - there was no queue system to get in last week. Guess what? They didn't have any hand sanitiser.
So now I just have to get my weekly shop done. I arrive around my normal time - to find I don't have to struggle to find a parking place. Which is unusual. In fact there are plenty of places. It looks like the panic buyers have been busy while I was at work earlier. Cunts. There is no sugar - for the second week running. No eggs, no toothpaste, tinned soup, baked beans, other tinned food or cashew (or any other kind of nuts) but I do manage to get everything else on my list. No toilet rolls, soap, hand sanitizer and so on of course. SO many empty shelves - all for NO reason It's like there is a fucking war on! I notice the shelves are also empty of all the beers drunk by the less discriminating, but there is still plenty of my current favourite ale.
So after several hours spent running round on errands I look forward to winding down after the working week by getting to the pub by mid to late afternoon to relax with a couple of pints.
Oh.....
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Sorry, but I really needed to vent after a long and needlessly frustrating afternoon - I know other people are going to have it FAR worse than me over the next few months or longer. But half an hour (mostly waiting outside in the cold) just to pick up a prescription at a chemist, endless supermarket shelves empty of the basics, and all pubs ,clubs, and music venues closed down - is this going to be the new 'normal' for the foreseeable future? What have we done to deserve this?
