Laziness is a curse. Or a blessing. Or somewhere in between, but for those of us born / afflicted with the lazy gene it is all we know. Whichmakes understanding that jolly demographic whosedays are filled with activity and never seen without some kind of creative tool in their hands all the more difficult.
You know the trope- never at rest because there’s always so muchstuff to improve their environment or themselves and their families. Half way up mountains accompanied by equally active tiny children, or copying theSistine Chapel roofwhile redecoratingtheir toilet walls. it’s tiring just thinking about achievingso much stuff,and whatlittle energyI can exertis directedathating them. Just a little bit.
While they are drinking from the font of endless endeavour,we are slumped over the lesser relics of procrastination, apathy and displacement. I could explain this to you,but it’s far too much bloody effort. Instead let me give you some examples from a mundane interlude in my life.
This incident of the incurious Al in the daytime took place ona balmy late summer afternoonat Morrisons. This meteorological context is provided only to fail to explain the behaviour of the pathologicallylazy.The supermarket has two car parks, one a two minute walk away from the front door, the other abouthalf that. At no point was any shopper risking anything other than squinting on their epic march to the entrance.
Yet denizens of the indolent tribe were impatiently queuing for the latter which appears unhealthily focussedeven to a lazy bugger like me. Parking in the tarmac emptiness of the able limbed, I still had time to lock the car, unlock it on returning for my wallet* and pass those who’d been in front of me. Revving engines and vigorous hand signals suggested lazy should not always be considered synonymous with an easy going nature.
Upping the ante somewhat, a man emerged from a car abandoned in adisabled space. He looked perfectly abled to me, not – for example- obviously missing a leg. In a moment of perfect irony he was very nearlymowed down by those who were too lazy to park at all,insteadcircumnavigating the car park waiting for their shopping kin to trudgeout of the exit. Now that’s properlyslack.
Inside it’s somehow worse, all glassy eyed sweeping of random items bytired arms. And yet within this state of apathy are occasional outbreaksofverbal violence. This is because supermarkets have a secondary function as anger factories equipped with temper amplifiers hidden in the cheese aisle.
Flashpoints over such red-line issues as the choice ofbreakfast cereal ˜Not that oneJohn it gives you terrible wind‘ escalating to couples nearly coming to blows at the deli counter. The bemused employee behind is half cheesemonger, half councillor. It’s a good job the sharp tools are held safe on his side of the counter.The dull ones are very much on the other side.
I digress, laziness permeates even the checkout. Bags carelessly loaded with no methodother than that of the slovenly path of least effort. Soft stuff thrown into empty bagswhile heavy, edgy stuff is shovelled on top. Only my inane Englishness preventsan embarrassingbarging in and loading the produce with some kind of system ˜the square things all fit together and – for future reference – what you believed was the large lettuce at the bottom of that bag is in fact your baby’.
And then payment. Or not as it it oft the case. Women – and I blame their voluminous purses for this – delve deeply into their handbags thereby triggering theopening of a portal to another dimension where infinite compartments may OR MAY NOT contain a credit card. I’m always surprised at their surpriseof being complicitin some kind of financial transaction to free their overloaded trolley.
Oh hang on, I just need to find my Morrisons card‘ they’ll trillblind to the seething eyes of passive aggression queuing behind them. ˜Is it worth dying for?’ I nearly shout as my hand grips a wine bottle and my mind dreams of committing blunt force trauma for the benefit of the gene pool.
This is the hard edgeto being lazy. It’s brilliantif that is all you are. Sail through life achievingfuck all and not giving a shit. I hate you almost as much as Mr. 24 hour party person up there. Sadlymost of us are trapped in a venn diagram of laziness, guilt and impatience. The intersection of which is angst.
It’s that thing of being geneticallylazy but feeling endlessly bad about it. Which inevitablydescends intoan ever deepening spiral of guilt. And further apathy. I find the best way to tamp down those imposters, and revel in the guilt-free life of the singularily lazy, is to douse their fire with alcohol.
It’s like Frank Turner sings ˜I dream of all the things I need to do, but wake up and never follow through‘. He could have been talking about taking a dump of course. I’m far too lazy to work it out one way or the other.
Right now the lawn needs mowing.If I procrastinate for long enough, it’ll probably start raining.
* this is happening increasingly often. The forgetfulness trajectory suggest not many more days pass before I turn up to something important in just my underpants.
