Will McAdam

Imagine you have just had a long hard day at the UL, leaving at 6pm on your bike to catch the last hour at the faculty and, upon reaching the point at which that unnamed UL lane (why don’t you just put that up for sale too, library syndicate bitches?) becomes West Road, a car jacks into your ass because you’ve not had time to buy new batteries for your bike lights. What would you do?

Frown, cock your head slightly back in an agitated manner and then move the hell over, doing that humble-pie wave thing that your conscientious uncle does when a car lets him cross at a point which isn’t technically, legally, even commonsensically a crossing (“They don’t have to stop, you know”, he’ll gush. “We know”, we all reply, “that’s why, when we drive, WE NEVER FRICKING DO”)? Well you’ll be pleased to know that that’s what one inspired dullard did (the former, not the latter; presumably this intolerable appeaser won’t have time to see relatives during term). And I should know. I was the one at the bus stop who commented, “Oh I wouldn’t take any of that shit love”.

It was at this point that an old lady, who I know for a fact had spent most of her day in the tea room ordering paninis and then pretending they weren’t for her, hit me with her stick on my lightly haired, fakely tanned calf and reprimanded me for swearing.

“Yes dear, my language was definitely the really unacceptable part of this whole scenario,” was my retort of choice. However, my reply got stuck in that really gross mucus-is-this-mucus-or-is-this-melted-chocolate stuff I always get in my throat in the aftermath of eating a Twirl. So I involuntarily hocked up a greenie instead.

She took it quite well in the end. Turns out her husband has hyperactive salivary glands so she’s used to this kind of craic.

And all this got me thinking about how rude some people are. Take, for example, that awkward moment when you’re about to walk down the steps in the library to take your work down a level, and that sweet cheeks you’ve always fancied a go on is just about to come up the stairs.

Naturally, assholes that we are, and in the vain hope that being this obnoxious will make her forget the inappropriateness and the dribbling at last week’s Bop, we descend forthwith; notwithstanding the fact that, if this were a real hill, and we were in cars, she’d definitely have right of way.

So we go down, we fiddle nonchalantly with our phones or, in the case of the slightly trendier guy, fiddle increasingly manically with the pocket where the phone is, and will remain, because the trousers are too tight to nimbly whip it out at such short notice.

When we pass her at the bottom, do we say thank you? No. We look straight on, inadvertently catching the eye of the librarian whose form might well be fine but whose clothes quite simply are not, and we pretend common courtesy is something you get if you sleep with a northerner.

Imagine if you were that fittie though; what would you do? Of course you’d shun that ignorant guy who never lets you up the stairs, and who keeps touching himself but could probably never find your clit since it’s only ever to the right of his own crotch that he’s rubbing. Of course.

So, my pretties, the logic of my own argument compels me to cede to that granny with the stick and rescind my vindictive(ly funny) ways. That gormless cyclist was right to look sheepish, and wrong to be without lights. She needs to buck her ideas up and buy some batteries. Or at the very least set up some sort of corner shop facility by the tea room. Whatever. That’s her call. But most of all, she needs to keep being polite, keep being humble, and being a role model to us all.

Thanking you in anticipation.