Outraged of Bacteria Gardens

I find myself filled with a sense of outrage quite often these days. I think it's an age thing. If I were older, I could shake my walking stick at people and shout shrilly, but I haven't quite reached that stage yet, or of writing letters in green ink to councillors or to Richard Branson (although I've come close to it when it comes to Mr B).

My sister, 3 years younger than I, is a champion complainant, and is known in the family as Outraged of Glasgow; she says it makes her feel better to set it all down on paper. I prefer to share my thoughts here; I won't type it all in green, however (green ink usually gets a letter relegated to the waste paper basket without being opened).

Of course, there is much to feel vehemently outraged by in our modern world, but I don't mean that, really. It's more the petty little things, like the hundreds of cigarette ends that have accumulated outside the house on the corner, hurled out of the bathroom window by the daughter of the house, whose parents don't seem to have put two and two together and made a carcinogenic five. Or the way bus drivers like to brake violently enough to ensure that people making their way to the doors get thrown about and bash their shopping against the seated passengers. It's never the drivers who say sorry either. My sister is focusing this weekend on driver rudeness and exorbitant fares.

Today I'm feeling belated outrage on behalf of a friend, who told me that her boyfriend had given her a toilet brush for her birthday. When she showed her horror, he bleated wetly, "But it's from John Lewis!". She says he never understood what was so terribly, symbolically, tellingly wrong with his gift to her.

I can write this because he is now her ex-boyfriend... (and because she said I could)...

Note: The chrome toilet brush rusted surprisingly quickly and was given the heave-ho too. She's a sensible woman, my friend.

So, anyone else out there who wants to share their Worst-Ever Present story and treat us all to another opportunity for righteous indignation? You know you have one.