Diary entry #3 - tolerance

1995 was certainly a landmark year. My eighteenth birthday, my VCE year, passing my driver's license and buying my first car (a Holden Belmont Ute with three on the tree), my first part-time job with hourly earnings in double figures. And, naturally, there were a few other firsts in there as well.

Not that I knew it at the time, but it was also the first year the United Nations observed an International day for Tolerance (November 16th each year to those of you not in the know, which was me as well until wikipedia pointed me in the right direction a few minutes ago). In the fourteen years since, the values of tolerance that my parents instilled into me as a child have often been put to good use. And, as a friend once said whilst in the all-too-familiar situation of having to wait an eternity for his wife to get ready while he sat idle in the lounge room: 'By Christ, you need patience'.

But yesterday, when the planets aligned, conspiring to put me to the test, unfortunately, I failed.
The morning started well enough with me completing 'The Morning Pages' (a daily exercise from Julie Cameron's 'The Artist's Way' where you must fill three pages with stream-of-consciousness writing in order to block out any hindrances to your creative side), and then going through the same old early morning routine.

First up, after a week or more of procrastination, I decided to lodge my Austudy claim. To Centrelink I went, a short walk around the corner. Armed with realms of completed forms and identity documents, I was ready to be in and out in five minutes; be back at the house by 10.15am. Not a chance. In a sign of the times, there were two huge lines, one for job seekers and the other for first time claimers and general inquiries. The latter was longer, and no sooner had two minutes elapsed since I first slunk into line that the snake behind me was about to burst open the doors and move outside. There were stacks of people sitting down in an open waiting room, looking up at the morning news on TV. Pakistan terrorists shooting at Sri Lankan cricketers gave way to Ben Cousins' 33 drug tests in two months which gave way to the financial news. Numbers flicked up on the screen with down arrows next to them. The vibe in there wasn't great. The line wasn't moving, and I was out of there. I'd come back tomorrow at 8am.

Later on, after a morning where I added about 500 words to my novel (of which the first 250 will duly be deleted), I visited the RMIT shop on Little Lonsdale Street to pick up some texts on the way to Non-Fiction class, which, as usual, I was running late for. There was a queue of people waiting outside and a young-looking guy acting as a security guard of sorts. I looked around, puzzled. He spoke up. 'Look guys, unless you've got plenty of time on your hands you'll have to come back later. I can only let people in as they come out'. And sure enough, shortly after when three people went out, one was admitted in. It was like being out front of some seedy bar on King Street on a Saturday night, only difference being there was no hulking, white-teed, leather-clad meathead manning the door, rather a librarian type who would normally list the most physical aspect of his job as having to lift the 4th edition Macquarie dictionary in order to scan its barcode.

Later still, the old lady with the loose change trick did me again at the supermarket. It always seems to happen to me. I remember being stranded at Edinburgh bus station while my Belfast bus disappeared out of the station the same reason. I was in a rush to get home before Tash so I could clean up my breakfast mess. And there I was, in the express lane, at peak hour, and as a result of one of the registers malfunctioning three of the four checkout assistants left their posts to crowd round it and muse to one another its potential remedy. Meanwhile, the sole remaining assistant waited patiently for dear gran to count out three dollars for a small box of tea bags.

And finally, one more gripe to round out the day. On-street parking. Being inner city, it's on-street for most of us on our street, and occasionally it becomes an issue, particularly during Spring Carnival or the Big Day Out, and all the niceties, all the 'feeding each others' pets or watering gardens while the other is on holidays' goes out the window. On our side of the street we have an issue with pigeons. This is because our next-door-neighbor feeds them. Their rancid turds bombard many cars on our side of the street, and, left stationery for any length of time, they begin to resemble something taken from a crazy artist's lair. Therefore, some of us use the other side of the road, and now, it seems, the other side have had enough. Some of them have taken the time to pull branches off nearby trees and place them strategically so no one can park in 'their spot'. You see it everywhere, branches that would require two men to carry them, resting against gutters. What is the go with this? Doesn't on-street parking mean anywhere is fair game? Surely these people who we've spent time living in the close proximity of realise that we only park in 'their spot' as a last resort?
Anyway, there must have been some one-year old's birthday party because there was nowhere to park in within a 200-metre radius of the house and I wasn't prepared to go into conflict mode with someone who has the time to lift and move an elephantine branch each time he or she needs to drive somewhere. End result? Tash was home, but luckily, hadn't gotten any further than her office, and therefore missed the Weetbix-hardened bowl and crumb-infested plates sitting like sitting ducks on the kitchen bench.

I know none of this matters but I feel better now. When I say I failed so ungracefully on the tolerance front, it was only inwardly that I did so. And it feels better having let it out.