Sorry, You Were Out

Your parcel will arrive between 1am and 11pm tomorrow, probably, as long as tomorrow is not the day you asked us to come. Before our drivers set out they must consult the oracle, to be certain that the omens are favourable. If the eagle flies on the left, you will find a ‘sorry, you were out card’ even though you were in, even though you were staring at the driveway all morning to make sure you didn’t miss them. If the eagle flies on the right, then your parcel, which could fit quite comfortably through your letterbox, will be redirected to a depot 374 miles away from your house, only accessible by donkey on a Thursday at low tide. If the eagle is, in fact, a falcon, then your parcel will simply cease to exist and will be sent to the same final resting place as lost socks and hairclips. 

Of course we can redeliver. Of course. But under no circumstances to a more convenient address, or at a time, god forbid, that suits you. I’m sure you understand. You first need to locate the unique 82-character tracking code that we issue by smoke signal before the morning fog has lifted. We estimate that your parcel will arrive at the moment you start shampooing your hair and our driver, oblivious to your pleas for mercy, will leave just as you skid down the stairs, towel barely covering your wobbly bits.

Our dedicated customer service helpline is run by our very own terrorist cell. Every minute you spend on hold to them donates £5.87 to their quest to eradicate good sense from the world. As a special bonus, if you wait more than five minutes, they will detonate a stupidity bomb on Westminster, or on that bit of the internet below news stories. On reaching our call centre, your complaint will automatically be transferred to a representative who doesn’t speak your language.

Thank you for choosing us to deliver your parcel. Our mission is to make things as difficult for you as possible. After all, it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do.

Checking My Checking (Or, OCD And Me)

It’s been a long time since my last post (I know, I know, I’m sorry). To summarise the last year in some brief bullet points:

• I worked in an office, but still spent a lot of time in coffee shops
• I got engaged (wheee!)
• I applied for a PhD
• I stopped working in the aforementioned office and now work in another office, but still spend a lot of time in coffee shops
• I was accepted to study for a PhD (yay!), but am so far not having much luck with the whole ‘securing funding’ thing (boo!)

I will address all of these things in time, you lucky things. But today I’d like to talk about this completely non-coffee-shop-related bullet point:

• I took steps to sort out my OCD and was mostly successful

I came out about my OCD on Facebook yesterday, because this ‘article’ has been doing the rounds. Quite apart from the fact that it’s badly written (what on earth is a ‘twerk’ of personality supposed to be? It sounds painful), it’s also just plain wrong. These pictures, whilst amusing, and the feelings of annoyance and general WTFery that they provoke have almost nothing to do with OCD. I had a bit of a paddy about it and subsequently received lots of very nice comments, but also a few questions, which I thought I’d do my best to answer here. They can be categorised pretty much as follows:

a) Are you alright?!

b) Really? I never even realised you had OCD…

c) So what actually is it if it’s not all colour-coded pencils?

d) I think I/my friend has the same problem, what should I/they do?

So, here goes.