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Now I have a child on the way I have an investment in the future. Before this (like all other parents it seems) I didn’t care about anything but myself and so it was no problem to me that we were destroying the world and condemning as yet unborn millions to disease, misery, starvation, flooding and death. I’d be dead by the time any of that kicked in. But now part of my DNA has managed to find an escape shuttle from my decaying body and has taken up residency in a new host who might well live beyond 2100. So I have to start caring. It’s a pain in the arse to be honest. I wish I could go back to the carefree days of April 2014 when I could leave the lights on and the TV on standby and laugh at the poor idiots who were going to die in agony as a direct result. If only human beings were capable of caring about something that didn’t directly affect them. But we’re not. Get used to it.
So now I am making plans to cut global warming, find alternative energy solutions and invent a new world religion (possibly with myself as the new Messianic figure) that will unite all people and eradicate terrorism (which is clearly caused only by religion, because that’s what Richard Dawkings says and he’s obviously right because 100% of people who are religious are terrorists, and that proves that religion is the direct cause of terrorism. This is why he is a scientist because of his understanding of statistics and logic). I came up with a great way to help today.
I suddenly realised, why do any of us wear underwear when we know we are going to wash our jeans after the next wear? Our underwear is only there as a sheath to prevent odours and fluids getting into our trousers, allowing us to keep on wearing trousers for as long as we see fit (I wear my jeans for a week usually, though the blokes from that song thought that four days in a row was excessive, whilst at least one person on Twitter said that jeans, like hair, never need to be washed and become self-cleaning). But if we know this is the last time we will be wearing the jeans then why bother with the protective underpants sheath? Just go commando and (presuming you change your underwear daily) you will have saved the hot water and detergent costs of cleaning one pair of pants. Which might not seem a lot on its own. But if everyone on the planet did the same (accounting for peoples who don’t have pants or jeans in their culture or who go commando already) we’re probably talking about a billion pairs of pants a week that would not need to be washed. Think of the energy that would have been saved by this one act of selflessness. Enough to keep the country of Belgium heated and lit for ten years (I’m guessing, it sounds like it would be that much energy).
In order to make the world a better and brighter (and possibly marginally more smelly) place for my child, I calculated that I would be washing my jeans tomorrow and so didn’t wear any pants today (except when I went for a run, when I wore yesterday’s already used pants). It was not only liberating to be hanging free, but I knew that people in the future would look back at my selflessness and thank me for the fact that the water was only up to their nipples and not slightly above their nipples as it would have been had I put on unnecessary pants. Imagine the world where nobody wears underpants on the last day they wear their jeans. You may call me a dreamer and at the moment I might be the only one on this particular issue. But at least I am doing something. At least I am doing something.
I got an email from my union Equity today in which I found out the chair of my local branch is Rhubarb the Clown. You don’t get that with ASLEF. Beano the Clown is on the committee. My union is full of clowns. But they are clowns that settle any disputes by throwing pies and buckets of glitter over each other. This fact alone was worth my subscription fee.
I also sorted out my car tax online and felt slightly sad that for the first time I will not be sent a tax disc for my window. I remember being fascinated by these as a young child, the holder on my dad’s windscreen had the previous year’s discs slotted in behind the current one (or maybe he kept them in the glovebox) but they were all different colours and marked the passage of time and were weirdly intricate and detailed. And when I had my own car I still found it hard to throw the old ones away. I thought the future and computers would make things better, but how can getting rid of tax discs be seen as a move forward. I mean it probably saves millions of pounds and tax discs weren’t that efficient in helping identify tax fraud. But still.
Surely there is a market for some enterprising individual with a colour photocopier and a perforating machine to sell circles of paper that people can pop into their now redundant tax disc holders. Maybe just an accurate mock up of an actual tax disc would do well, but you could also put in funny jokes ones that said stuff like “I haven’t paid my car tax - 2016) or “Sex Stud Tax paid until March 2016†or whatever. I can’t be bothered to do it myself, but if people will pay tens of pounds for a real tax disc, they will surely part with a fiver for a jokey one. So by all means steal this idea and become a millionaire (though I reckon your business will do well for the first year and then people will lose interest. It’s like this year’s selfie stick.
