AS the Stoics once said ‘life comes at you fast’. Or maybe it was Ferris Bueller?
Whichever philosopher originally coined it, I found life coming at me at a rather gentle clip this week.
There I stood in my least favourite place on this planet Earth, the dreaded bottle-and-can return machine in my local supermarket.
While I embraced the scheme with civic-minded enthusiasm at the start, it has worn me down in the same way anything involving extra domestic admin does.
I now feel the same buyer’s remorse I experienced when purchasing an ‘efficient’ diesel car in the lower tax band all those years ago, only to discover the whole thing was a sham and my vehicle was just clogging up the streets of Dublin with nasty particulates.
The Deposit Return Scheme has similarly disappointed.
It means yet another place to store cans separately from recycling in the house.
It means hauling another bag down to the British supermarket chain I’d rather not patronise, only to find the machine out of order or myself queuing behind the local beer-club chairman with his four industrial-sized refuse bags.
Then I end up spending the couple of euro I got back from my deposits in the supermarket, which inevitably leads to impulse-buying rubbish because I’ve convinced myself it’s not real money and I’m getting something for free.
This week, I hit a new low.
One particular can, probably some Icelandic IPA extracted from puffin sweat that I’d spent €6 on in my local off-license, refused to travel down the can slide.
The print was so microscopic, I couldn’t determine if it even qualified for the scheme.
Eventually I had to hold it at arm’s length and use my phone camera to zoom in like I was conducting a forensic examination.
Not only was I grappling with the middle-class hellscape that is aluminium recycling in Ireland, I was facing the ravages of age and my own declining eyesight.
The truth is, after well north of 40 years on planet Earth, I’ve been struggling to read the small print on food packaging, even using my phone.
So this weekend, I did what most Irish men do with a medical problem: bought something for as little money as possible without consulting any professionals.
I popped to the local pharmacy and picked up a pair of black-rimmed 1.50 strength reading glasses for the princely sum of €5.56.
It’s not all bad news, as my fellow four-eyed readers know.
I now get to stare disapprovingly over the top of the glasses at my children as they beg for another half-hour on Fortnite.
I can push the glasses up the bridge of my nose either just before or after making a statement, which automatically makes it sound more intelligent.
In quiet moments, I sometimes pretend to be Harry Potter.
Now that I’m warming to the idea, I’m heading for an actual eye test this week, at which point I’ll undoubtedly start the process of fancy-spectacles shopping and careen entirely in the opposite direction.
Return to Alcatraz
DONALD Trump has apparently proposed reopening Alcatraz as a functioning prison.
The idea, reportedly sparked by a late-night rewatch of the Clint Eastwood classic Escape From Alcatraz, has all the hallmarks of classic Trump policy: impulsive, questionable, impractical but, unfortunately, quite entertaining. World leaders generally don’t dictate policy based on late-night telly binges, but we are where we are with this one.
Alcatraz, for the record, was shut down for being inhumane, wildly expensive, and partially eroded by the Pacific Ocean.
I visited during my honeymoon, and it’s a rather unnerving, grim, but memorable visitor experience, much like Eastwood’s movie.
But turning it back into a functioning, state-of-the-art prison? That seems about as fanciful as making America great again.
Win for the Wee County
LOUTH winning the Leinster football championship wasn’t just a result, it was an exorcism.
For the first time since 1957, the Wee County lifted the provincial title after a gutsy, grinding win over Meath, and in doing so wrote themselves into modern GAA folklore.
For decades, Louth have existed on the margins of football’s top tier, occasionally threatening something significant before slipping back into obscurity.
But on Sunday, in the searing heat of Croke Park, they finally did it.
The outpouring of emotion was something to behold. Fans who’d never seen silverware in their lifetime wept openly.
Statues were commissioned.
Cows, no doubt, went unmilked.
And fair play to them.
Because in a year full of bleak headlines, there’s something genuinely heartening about a small county with a big heart taking home the prize.
