Hi there fellow gardeners. Well, it's Grumpy Old Woman time again. Grumpy is happening more and more often, you know and Grumpy never, ever has anything to do with gardening.
As a consequence, there is very little to do with gardening in today's column. My current rant has to do with people going mad all over the place.
Take last Tuesday, for instance. I'll call it Terrible Tuesday. A complete waste of a day but cannon fodder for a Grumpy Old Woman.
Before I go on to tell you my tale of woe, let me say that "grumpy" equates to "wise". After a certain age, we all become very, very wise and just like a wick in a hurricane lamp, our ability to suffer fools burns down appreciably.
Back to Terrible Tuesday. I set off quite happily, having arranged to pick up some goods (for the nursery) at a warehouse in Melbourne's west.
No slight intended here towards any particular geographic region because what happened could have happened anywhere, given that a once-respectable Central Business District has become a model of excellence in how to bash people within an inch of their lives. But I digress.
Arrive at Bay 3, the customer pick-up area. I took that to mean that I was 'The Customer'. You know, the next person to walk through the door with cheque book in hand. You know, the person who would assist in the ability of the business in question to remain sustainable?
Well, I didn't really think that at the time; we don't, do we? We just take it for granted that we will be welcomed and treated with courtesy. Right!
I had not been to this warehouse before, so after checking out the lie of the land; office to the left with people inside, rows and rows of goods stacked high etc., I waited in a designated and chained-off area where I could be noticed.
I say 'noticed' because after a certain age, one becomes invisible. Did you know that? My mother told me (among other hideous things) that people become invisible as they age and that I was not to let that happen to me, U.A.S. (under any circumstances).
I remember thinking that such a thing would never happen to me. Oh no, For the times they are 'a changing!
Anyway, I would dye my hair a bright magenta or something and voila, problem solved! But I digress.
Back to Bay 3, the customer pick-up area. I became transfixed with a machine that was plastic-wrapping what can only be described as a pylon of boxes.
I love machinery, so I watched with great interest as a huge fork-lift machine delicately positioned said boxes on to a platform which immediately set about wrapping them with see-through wrap. It was as though a giant spider was web-wrapping its prey.
Great stuff. You learn something every day. So good, so far.
A lady came out of the office, I told her my business details, she came back, wrong invoice, I reiterated my details, she went away and came back with the correct invoice. We cheerfully interconnected and she went off in the direction of the storeman who had just finished with the spider machine. So good, so far.
Then it all started to unravel and Grumpy Old Woman sniffed trouble coming. The storeman took great exception to being approached by the office lady and started yelling at her at the top of his voice.
I was once again transfixed. He, yelling and advancing, she rapidly retreating, red face and tears welling, me, well, the steam was just starting to rise!
I should say at this point that it is a failing of mine (Mum said it was) that I will not, cannot, retreat from an unjust situation. I can still hear Mum's words, "walk away Cherie, it's none of your business". Right.
It got worse. The storeman, by now his courage well alight at the sight of a woman retreating in fright, bellowed, "you f...... stupid m...". Please count the dots so that you are left in no doubt of the correct wording.
* See this week's Free Press for full article.
