Saturday afternoon I went along with CR and two others from the church to take 18 of the kids bowling.
Talk about a "challenge"! The others are all teachers, and I can see why I'm not. It was a real test of patience - not just the kids, who weren't too bad now I look back on it, but the staff too, and the whole environment which is totally alien to me and made me feel quite uncomfortable. Why are people SO rude?
We ordered 18 meals - just burgers or fish fingers and 'fries' - and when it (eventually) came there were only 17.

Rant The First

I could NOT persuade the girl behind the counter of the mistake - she just would not believe me and just kept repeating that she "put the right number on the traaay".
So I had to pay for an extra meal. Do people try that kind of thing on all the time??.

TV on monitors when the lane is not being used?
No lights, other than flashing neon?
Music very loud that ISN"T the same as the MTV on the monitors???

As far as I can see, the whole place is just a money pit.
But I ENJOY bowling - which is ironic.
Why can't there be somewhere I can go to just do bowling,
without all the other shit?

There we go. Better now.

I should have just stayed with Stan at the birthday party i dropped him off at on the other side of the city before "rolling" as LC insists on calling it.
We were SO late back - the second round game after the meal was a mistake. The kids were too tired by then, and so pumped full of chocolate and crap they couldn't settle.

Rant The Second
While I'm out with the kids, Trx goes over to the hospital for a midwife appointment.
The NHS carparks (which I believe are now sub-contracted out to Anonymous.com?) made £1.2 million last year.
She has to use a £10 to pay the £3.60 for carparking (for two hours???) and the machine spits out incorrect change. £1 short.
Walks over to the reception to explain, to be told that it is "nothing to do with us".
"Call this number madam, if you have a problem"
Being as pedantic as me, she did.
"OK. Sorry about that madam. If you come to... I can sort out a receipt for you."
A little office somewhere round the back.
A receipt is issued.
"Oh no. Sorry love, I can't give you the cash.
If you take this to… they will sort it out."
Office on the seventh floor. She's pregnant, remember.
Having got this far, decides to follow it thru.
Finds the office - hands over the receipt. Gets a shiny £1 coin.
result.

But how many people
a) don't count the change from the machine? or
b) can be bothered to go thru this palaver to get any money back??

At least they actually believed her. Maybe it happens all the time.
If the machine short changes a percentage of every note over a certain size they would make a fortune. £1.2 million, even?
And its a private company.
People will of course assume their money goes to the NHS...

Rant The Third
Then at 10.30, just as we put the cats out, Trx noticed a strong smell of gas in the front garden. Same at the back, so we called the Transco emergency line.

Phone number, address, description etc.
Some "important safety advice"…
"Thank you sir. One of our engineers will be there within an hour"

TWO hours later no-one had come.
We went to bed.
An hour after that we fell asleep. Lights on, everything…

No note thru the door or anything in the morning, so I rang the line again at 8.00.
This time they explained that there had been over 500 calls relating to what turned out to be a mysterious gas cloud passing over the city, presumably from Fawley, and there was nothing they could do but the situation was being carefully monitored.

BUT THEY TOOK MY PHONE NUMBER???
Why did no-one ring back to explain this at the time?

"We take your phone number for security reasons, sir"
"In case I'm a hoaxer?"
"Well… I'm sure that's not the case sir, but it does protect us from that circumstance."
"SO why could no-one use it to ring me back, once it became apparent that this was a more general problem. So I didn't wait up, and then lie awake half the night.?"
"I'm really sorry about that. I'm afraid we're not in a position to make return calls"
"So why take my number."
"For security reasons..."
etc

We had a better day Sunday though :-)