#17 - Stress, FML

I'd been asked by my sibling (travelling and with no internet or phone access) to do something described as "the most important thing in [their] life." You might anticipate this to be a life or death kind of task, a job so important that everything else needs to be halted in order to make sure this one request is carried out successfully. Well, it is such a thing to them. To me it was booking tickets to see the two most annoying people I've ever seen on YouTube. I'm sorry, Steve and Larry (names changed so I don’t anger the fandom), I'm sure you're lovely in real life. You just made Friday morning so much more stressful than I wanted it to be.

It doesn't take much to make me stressed. To be fair, you could argue that I wake up stressed most mornings, predicting the nonsense my kids are about to inflict on me as we run the shouty gauntlet that is getting them ready for and to school. This particular Friday was a bit special, though. My kids were just the tip of the iceberg, the real dangers of the day hiding in the deep waters of the day still waiting to be dived into.

At the tail end of the heatwave that brought much of the air-con-hating UK and Europe to its knees, it was already unpleasantly warm at 6am. The kind of heat you'd appreciate on holiday if your only requirement that day was to lounge, eat, drink, and relax. I wasn't hopeful of doing any of those things. But first, a nice calming, revitalizing shower.

This being an especially stressful Friday, of course, even this rudimentary, hoped-to-be cooling start to my day wasn't going to play ball. To give the shower its due, the watery part went as planned. Job done. I just wasn't expecting a horror movie-esque moment as I dried what's left of my hair.

If you've seen the classic early-90s movie, Arachnophobia, you'll likely have spent a large chunk of time in the aftermath checking everywhere for spiders - especially the toilet. In the film they hide all over the place and nowhere is safe. I can't remember the whole story, but I'm sure at one point the spiders sort of mummify someone. How was this allowed to be a PG?!

Anyway, there was no spider lurking on the dark side of the toilet, not this time. As I looked up from drying my hair and stared at the abomination looking back at me, the towel semi draped around me like a lazy boa constrictor, something large, dark, and hairy caught my eye. Perched, just millimetres from my left ear, just sort of hanging out, was an enormous house spider.

I tend to be pretty good with spiders. I've tried to be "oh, there's nothing to worry about," when telling my kids about them. "They're more scared of you than you are of them," and all that jazz. This flies out the window quicker than Peter Parker on his way to save Aunt May when such a beast is possibly going for your jugular.

My survival instincts kicked in. I grabbed the spider with my tweezer-like fingers and flung the eight-legged monstrosity across the bathroom. I regret this now, I'm a part-time vegetarian, but my lizard brain had taken over. The spider hit the upturned toilet seat with a thud before bouncing off into the bowl and scoring me three points. I've attached an artist's impression of the meet and greet moment, just so you can understand my actions and hopefully find the strength to forgive me.

Keep in mind that this is only around 6.30am. Stress levels were maxed, and I had another five and a half hours of heat to endure before potentially ruining my sibling's life by failing to secure tickets for the wannabe-comedians' live show.

We'd had pre-booking calls, WhatsApp conversations, annotated diagrams, mock bookings, and general words of encouragement in the lead up. I knew how important this was, so I prepared my PC screen like a battle station. Multiple windows of key information carefully positioned so I wouldn't fluff my lines at the big moment. Box office on speed dial, just in case the website crumbled under the wait of thousands of desperate gen Zs.

At 11:50 I logged into the booking site, hoping to get a slight edge on everyone else, even though tickets were 10 minutes from sale. I was in a queue. Ninth. That's not so bad - I'd been warned that the queue to book could reach 2000 or more. I felt quite smug. In a moment of genius I also called the box office, and was entered into a queue. Fifth. Things were going well.

11:59 and the website was apparently about to let me in. Perfect timing for the tickets. It pinged into action, I entered my account details, clicked into Steve and Larry, rapidly clicked on the seating plan, selected two seats from the zone that was marked green on my battle plan, added them to my basket... and then another queue. Panic set in immediately. I was still on the phone with the box office, but that queue hadn't moved at all. One, two, three minutes passed and I was still in a queue.

Internally screaming but outwardly as passive as always, I considered divine intervention. Maybe I could ask for this one thing? Does attending a C of E school 30 years ago count? Probably not. I instead prayed to the god of functional online services and infrastructure, and I was answered. I was in. Two tickets in front of me. Protection? Yes. Delivery? Yes. Payment card security number? Entered. Processing.... processing... processing... a web page that very much didn't look like the one you'd see after successfully ordering tickets appeared. I could have cried.

It's hard to convey just how stressed I'd become. Would I forever be the brother that failed to sort this life-long dream? Would this be the story told at every family gathering? Would I be exiled? Then I heard a tiny voice. "Hello, box office, John speaking, how can I help? Hello?"

I hate using the phone, but the analogue gods had sent me an angel (of course, there's nothing analogue about my mobile phone or John’s system, but go with it) and I hoped we were about to witness a miracle. "I think I might have booked some tickets, but I can't tell," I hastily mumble, unsure if there's any time left to sort this out. "Let me have a look," John says calmly.

"No, no tickets are booked under that name," he says, but he might as well have shot me through the heart. "What do I do?" I ask, sweating, not really expecting any possible way out of this. "Check your basket," he says. I do. I can see two tickets in there. I try paying again. Same error. Fuck!

“Don’t worry,” John says. “I can see the seats are temporarily reserved. Remove them from the basket and I’ll swoop in and take them for you.”

I was convinced the second I released the seats one of the many hundreds of fans waiting would grab them, but John was like a Ninja. The instant the seats left my basket he jumped on them. I gave him my payment info and the job was complete.

You’re a hero, John. Maybe I’m a hero too? All that for two tickets to see a pair of buffoons!

I’ve been playing Elden Ring for a new video series that you’ll be able to watch pretty soon. While I find the whole thing rather overwhelming as someone who already has a lot going on in their life, it’s hard to deny that the game offers a tremendous sense of discovery. I’ve barely scratched the surface and I’m already impressed by what I’ve found hidden away. I don’t know how long I’m going to stick with it, but I hope I’ll become competent enough with the combat to see a lot more.

This newsletter isn’t entirely about video games - in fact, this one was mostly about being an incredibly kind brother. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• Task (Sky/Now TV/HBO): We followed the disappointing and often rather silly True Detective Night Country with Task, another HBO cop show, but this time one with a cohesive plot, heaps of tension, tremendous acting, and Mark Ruffalo. I won’t spoil this at all, but it’s a brilliant show. Ruffalo and the rest of the main cast are superb, it’s highly emotional, and packed with depth. 5 Bruce Banners out of 5 Matt Flamhaffs.
• Honey Cake (Gail’s): Right, so I’m trying not to spend much money at the moment for unemployment-related issues (there’s a tip button below this, or you can become a paying member if you wish), but I was in London for some temp work and I saw a Gail’s. I’m not sure if it’s cool to like Gail’s, what with its high prices and competition to independent bakeries, but damn, I love its little Honey Cakes. Bite-sized honey sponge cakes topped with cinnamon honey icing and blue cornflour petals. I bought four to share with my wife. Treats are nice. 5 bites out of a 5-star cake.
• Soda and lime (my kitchen): The simple things are often the best, so everyone not willing or wanting to spend time on anything complicated has said to have a little bit of an easier life. But soda and lime is in fact a brilliant example of this being true. In the recent heat wave there was nothing nicer than a chilled glass of soda and lime. Soda and Vimto if you’re feeling cheeky! 5 cooling sips out of 5 cheap litres.