Open Writing

There’s big screen behind the counter, with a number on it. It’s the number on the ticket of the person who’s being served. At some shops or counters, that’s the system. You help yourself to a number when you arrive, and wait until it’s called out.

Easier said than done. First of all, you have to find the gadget that dispenses the tickets. How thoughtful of some shops to place it behind the area where customers stand, so they can’t see it. And in some supermarket delis the counter is so long that you need a telescope to find the infernal gadget.

You find it. You pull on the slip of paper projecting from some sort of internal wheelie thing. The result is rather like a toilet roll suddenly cascading down to the floor. You finish up with four tickets in your hand.

These things are here to help us, of course.

A more formidable challenge awaits you at your ATM. It’s not an ATM machine, by the way. If it were, it would be an Automatic Teller Machine machine, and that’s silly.

You’ve pressed all the right buttons and watched the little screen, and everything is going well. Then, if you are making a deposit, the screen says Take An Envelope. Fine, but where from?

You wait. Eventually, there’s a whirring noise in the ATM entrails. A slotty thing clicks open, and you can see evidence of envelopes. With considerable effort, particularly if your fingers are arthritic, you force the slot up and open.

Taking just one envelope is well nigh impossible. They’re packed so tightly that once again you receive more than you bargained for. You invariably pull out three or four in your effort to grab just one.

All very helpful, but how many people just throw away the extras? More paper wasted.

Paper comes from trees and trees are important. They’re so important to local city councils that they have special rules to protect them. You are allowed to plant as many trees as you like in your own garden. It’s OK to enjoy watching them grow. But it’s not OK to remove them if you realise that they are too tall.

Nor is it OK to remove them if branches start falling off and damage your house or the house next door. Oh no. You must apply to your enlightened city council for permission to remove a ‘significant’ tree.

It’s no good telling them that the tree is insignificant or has become dangerous. They won’t believe you, in spite of the tangible evidence. You must fill in a form, applying for their Inspector to inspect the tree. A fee? Yes, of course you pay a fee — tree inspectors don’t grow on trees, you know.

And then you have to pay another fee for a qualified treeologist to inspect the tree, too. It’ll cost you a couple of hundred dollars to find out that you are not allowed to remove a tree you planted in your own private property. Or your own private tree which has developed the habit of dropping bits of itself on people’s heads and roofs.

Should you take matters into your own hands, and remove your personal tree, you’ll be fined thousands of dollars. Up to $10,000, someone said the other day.

It’s all to help us help the environment, of course. And does it? Of course it doesn’t. The result of all this helpfulness is that people stop planting trees, because they know they won’t be allowed to remove them later if they become dangerous or too tall. So we shall eventually have suburbs without any tall or ‘significant’ trees at all, thanks to our city councils.

What a sad world, where people won’t have trees in their back gardens, for their children to climb.

Life would be a lot nicer without all this help, wouldn’t it?

© Copyright Brian Barratt