Castrol for a Knave

 I'm trying to do admin. I'm working with a big company who have a very formal and involved payment system - they're also based abroad - so I'm having to wade into a mire of international tax law as well as deal with the caprices of their financial portal. 

I'm not good at this. I get angry at bureaucracy, especially when it is both endless and pointless. Today, as I attempted to log onto the system, it refused to recognise either my user name or password, the latter repeatedly. I couldn't even get into the portal today. 

I screamed. I swore. I did Rumpelstiltskin fury-stomping. I punched the upholstery. Had I been Kevin Bacon I would have done an angry dance in a barn. Luckily, Susan was out - she doesn't need to see me at my most undignified. Any more than she has to. 

I went for an ill humoured walk. My frustration is dealt with by stalking around East Belfast, barking at passing cars. I shun humans, as they look at me oddly, but beyond joggers and dog walkers there are no pedestrians in east Belfast. Dog walkers are no doubt steeling themselves for the dead bodies they're obliged to discover each morning. 

But it doesn't matter where I go. I creep round back streets, wander through car parks, past golf courses, onto industrial estates, just so I can find some room to bitterly complain at the top of my voice about iniquity and horror, and wherever I go, however remote and seemingly deserted, there is always some bloke sat in his car with the window down. Just sat there. Is this just a Belfast thing? Men, and it's always men, randomly parked in every car park throughout the land. They're not cabbies, they're not eating lunch, they're not even like the pensioners I've seen at the seaside staring at the sea through their windscreen. They're just sat there. And not just in car parks - everywhere. By the side of the road. At beauty spots or accident black spots. Just there. Sat. Parked. Like absent minded doggers who forgot to pick the wife up. Tinned people, sardines in machines, preserved in motor oil - Castrol for a knave. 

What are they doing? Who has that much spare time that they can just go and sit and watch rain roll down their windscreens for a couple of hours? I don't have that much time and I do nothing. Though nothing is very time consuming. As is angry walking, though it's both a safety valve and regular exercise. 

It's mental health week and, in Northern Ireland, suicide rates for middle aged men are still enormous. I may have written a play about it once. I suppose if middle aged men need to spend time cocooned in a metal cage watching drizzle beetle its way down the glass, then more power to them. Whatever gets you through the night - just keep on dancing. 

Though why are you looking at me as if I'm mad, just because I'm wandering about in the rain, on my own, shouting to myself about the intricacies of international tax law? I'm just working through my process, man.