You’re reposed on the couch, weary but satisfied after a long day down the pits, negotiating with hostages , hunting criminals, treating patients, saving babies from fires - or if you really are truly selfless & like to put something back in your work ; sorting out that tricky SIPP spreadsheet.
You've done the philanthropic, makin' the world safer, sounder & sexier thing - now its 'me time' . Film on. Drink, phone, everything you could need for the next two hours within easy reaching distance. Doesn’t matter if you fall asleep half-way through – it’s all about relaxing & being static, snug, settled.....
Disaster. So the DVD starts skipping a bit, and it’s a pain, but really - ARSED to get up? Once you make that decision to ‘intervene’ you know what you’re committing to:
its dragging yourself up, traipsing across the room , creaking & stooping down to the DVD player....stop it, eject it, give it that perfunctory rub against your top , scrutinise the surface of the disk...never see anything.....well, may as well give it one more rub ....before returning it to the mysteries of the machine ...oh,
god but then its impotently jabbing at “ffwd>>” to try cut past the stupid, interminable ‘video piracy is worse than cannibalism’ nonsense....for some reason the DVD will decide that the default setting is
with Polish subtitles on....*sigh* and that means having to locate the remote control....which you never put anywhere as a rule, it just gets lashed down indiscriminately when you can’t stomach another Transformers and slink off to bed at 3:18 am......that could require turning the light on...and the further plod across the room implicit there...
ah! But
ah! now you think about it - logically, it would have been on the couch next to me just then before all this skipping nonsense began...so trudge the way back over there.....then remember ; you picked it up & lugged it across with you just a minute ago.....so, that necessitates a grudging re-tracing of those same bitter, cold steps....
Even then it’s a bane finding where you were up to.....doy you re-view the just watched bit to ease back in...is that a risk though...that bit of disk might be the diseased bit....or jumpa bit forward to get safe distance from that toxic glitch....but then, you could miss a crucial detail hopping forward a scene and it will just irriate for the remainder of the movie...'yeah, it was passable, but why was that crooked fisherman in a wheelchair for the last half? what can have happened at that tribunal hearing??' Is this even worth watching? Should I get another drink now seeing as I’m up??
Minefield.
In short, it’s E – F – F – ORT.
But joy unconfined! In the 3 seconds it’s taken for the above to go through your mind & the pros & cons of taking decisive, swift early action and letting it know who’s boss vs. Frowning at it , being terribly put out but staying quietly passive & hoping somehow it all works out okay to be weighed up ; YES! Its rolling smoothly again! Clear skies here we come!.....Chamberlain at Munich.... We might have just avoided the worst-case scenario through sheer slothfulness! Tsk, it must have merely been a one-off scratch on the disc.
Ha-ha, what a canny, if not defiantly brave in its own undynamic way, move that was to remain plonked right where you were.
But there lingers a nagging doubt. Once the picture jerk genie is out of the bottle, can it ever really go back in again? Well, it does seem to have ....then literally as you exhale with relief that the whole polishing rigmarole has been averted....
DAMN DISK starts a-skippin’ & a-jumpin’ again.... there’s less resistance this time you accept you’ve been complicit in making this more of a chore than it neccasrtily needs to be - 'i may as well clean it or its just going to be constantly stopping & starting & I wont be able to realax, it’ll ruin the whole thing, and i’ll be arguing with myself about getting up or not.....its just going to be massivley annoying....you got away with it once but that was a fluke, alright then up we ge-'
... But once more, on the absolute brink of de-couchment, the picture clears....
'Hmm. i'll give it one more chance......I know
very recently I was duped & lulled into a false sense of security in
remarakbly similar circumstances....but y’know , this time it really, really seems to have gotten over that hump....ha! what a fool I was to be considering such hasty & unnecessary stirring!....another win chalked up for the loafer’s mantra; '
if in doubt; recline & stretch out’ .... It truly does seem to be spinning about in there & playing as smoothly & easily as a velveteen jellyfish being slid athwart an extra-lubricated downhill ice-rink, ushered by a crack curling outfit lest there be the slightest hint of friction ....grease in our time! Yep it really does seem fine now...’
finenowfinenowfinenowfiiiiiiinefiiiiiiineiiiiiiiiiineiiiiiiiiiineiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Bastard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just clean it straight away kids! Appeasement doesn’t work in the long run.
