A Cute Frustration

Two very annoying things have happened to me this morning... and this is following on from last night which was also a pretty bad evening. Let's start with last night:

1. I had to collect my brother and his best friend from Charing Cross Road and take them to Heathrow to meet up with my parents who are taking them to Greece on holiday. I could have been going on that holiday had I not had a few gigs booked that I didn't want to cancel. I make no secret of the fact that I love my family - I'm lucky, they're good people. Some folks' families are dickheads so I figure I'll fly the flag loudly for people who like their siblings. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those "My mum's my best friend" people - she's not, she's  my mum. I need a mum more than a best friend so we've come to this useful arrangement.
    Leaving them all at the airport and knowing that they were about to go and make more of the memories that I really treasure was a bit pants. Never mind, I was heading to what was sure to be a lovely gig in Islington.

2. I DIED ON MY ARSE IN ISLINGTON. You are quite welcome to smack me over the head with a rusty shovel that's got a half assed raccoon attached to the end of it if that wasn't one of my worst performances in the history of my meagre "career". Jesus, Mary, the lowing cattle and Joseph. An audience haven't hated a comedian that much since Germaine Greer did that open spot at Portsmouth Jongleurs.
   I can't even really shed much light on what that hell I did wrong... I suppose I had less energy than usual and I started with some chatty stuff rather than a big BOOM joke but fooking hell I didn't expect that reaction. Each joke was met with either uncomfortable silence or a reluctant single laugh when I caught them off guard and they had to begrudgingly give something back.
   The back row began a stealth heckling campaign where they would say something too quiet for me to catch properly and then go silent when I asked them what had been said. The front row mistook my attempted bonding for blind hostility and it all spiralled into a clammy heap from there... abysmal.

So all in all I was glad to get into bed and finish season one of the adventures of Lorelai and Rory (The Gilmore Girls for you uncultured cretins).

Then, this morning has been lame for a few reasons:

1. I lost my joke book. If the panic at losing that is anything like the panic of misplacing your child then it's a good job I'm a barren harpie. I imagine it's a very similar worry:

You're not actually too fussed about getting it back because you're sure you can do another one, but you're petrified someone's going to find out and see what you've created before it's finished.

I've now found my joke book - it was hiding in a nook under my bed where I'd been scribbling something truly unfunny in the middle of the night and hadn't managed to put it away.

2. I tried to Google the whereabouts of my nearest post office. I need to offload some parcels... I know where my nearest sorting office is but I'm confused as to whether I can send things away from there. I'm suspecting you can't.

You'd think this would be simple, I went to the website, found the "Find your nearest branch" bit and look in the "What service do you need" drop down box and then select... oh hang on a minute, despite the fact that it's the frigging postal service there is no option to search for branches that have a postal service. Brilliant. Now, don't start assuming this must be because all branches have a postal service, because this beauty of a search device also lists all ATMs that it has a connection to. So there's a good chance if I take my 6 parcels to what is technically listed as my local branch, I'm just going to end up jamming them into the debit card slot whilst freaking out that I don't have a pin.

Ridiculous. I might write to the Daily Mail. Clearly not having a job is the main cause of Whiny Bitch Syndrome. Joy.