A moment of distraction

I stopped in The Warehouse store at Glenfield Mall this evening, and I saw these metal barstools, and I realised I really don't get the whole "distressed look" thing. When I buy something new, I want it to look new, and if it's used looking worn can be okay. But buying brand new stools with matching fake bum wear marks seems odd to me. I mean, if any bums are going to wear stripes in my barstools, I'd prefer they were from our family's bums and not strangers. Well, it's actually some stranger's idea of what bum wear would look like if the same bum wore down each barstool in exactly the same way. 😂 #sarcasm #thewarehousenz #glenfieldmallauckland #auckland #thedistressedlookiswayoverdone

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Aug 15, 2017 at 3:55am PDT

The photo above is one I shared to Instagram two days ago. The reason I shared it was that I needed something a little light that day, so when I saw the barstools, a sarcastic post was the only natural conclusion to the adventure. I never intended to share it here, but the reason I'm now sharing it is the same reason I did then: I need a distraction.

The day I posted the photo was the same day that Don—who I’ve now started calling “P45”*—made his infamous fiery defence of nazis and white supremacists. I saw his idiotic rant several times that day in different contexts, and each time I found myself yelling at whatever screen I was facing. Of course I knew that was pointless, but I also found that I was feeling an irrational, instinctive rage every time I heard that man defend nazis.

So when I saw those barstools and thought they were funny, I shapped a photo and shared it with a sarcastic caption, thereby taking the piss out of those stools (which I really DO think are ugly) and myself (even though I really DON’T care about the “distressed look”; whatever makes someone happy, I reckon).

In the couple days since I posted that photo, which was autoshared to my personal Facebook, as usual, I’ve sadly still found myself yelling at whatever screen I was facing whenever P45’s infamous rant was re-broadcast somewhere as commentators all over the world rightly condemned him for it. I’m still as thoroughly disgusted now as I was when I first heard him—maybe even more so, actually, which means I need a little levity more than ever.

So I return to my photo and my own pseudo rant. But unlike P45, my rant wasn’t real or consequential. But at least mine wasn’t—um, uh, …the fact is, I STILL have no words for what that thing polluting the White House said. No words. And no sympathy whatsoever.

At some point, when it won’t send my blood pressure into the danger zone, I’ll put my thoughts down, because everyone—the great and the small—needs to utterly denounce him for what he said, and for everything he is and represents.

But, not today. Today, I just needed another brief break.

*Long-time readers will remember that I started calling the current occupant of the White House “Don” because it was a way for me to express my contempt for him without using the obscenities that are so often in my mind when he says or does something imbecilic (every single day, in other words). I read somewhere that he insisted that everyone—all his staff, and maybe even his wife and kids, for all I know—call him “Mr.” followed by his surname that I will not mention. I also noted that everyone in the media and politics called him by the full version of his first name. I surmised that he would hate anyone calling him “Don”, and so I did. But calling him by ANY of his names, even when the intent was to show disrespect, still showed too much respect. So, it’s now “P45” which is derived from “president 45” because, sadly, that’s what he is. But calling him “P45”, with just the letter, reminds me of the videotapes the Russians supposedly have of him, and that makes me laugh a bit. And these days, I’ll take every opportunity to laugh that I can get, because they are so very, very rare.