I have been obsessed with the ‘Hyperobject’ through this lockdown period.
A hyperobject was described by the Author David Wallace-Wells who wrote ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’.
It’s a problem so big that you just can’t see around it or over it or under it and the COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly one of the greatest hyperobjects we’ve ever encountered.
It’s not as big as climate change but it’s up there.
As always in these situations though the only thing you can do is make it better or make it worse.
I went to B&Q the other morning at 7:45 am.
Alison had decided (this was very out of character ) that we were going to buy a cheap pretend Hot tub for Callum.
Callum has always obsessed about hot tubs since we had one at a house we were at on Holiday and him and I were supposed to be on holiday in Italy next week but obviously that was cancelled and the money was returned back to us by Ryanair (amazingly).
So we cleared out a space in the back garden for the hot tub from China to go.
I know it will be tat and it will not stand up to much battering and it’s £390 that we would probably be better off not spending. It comes from China and we shouldn’t buy it but we’re just the same as everybody else.
The funny thing was though that these things are all clearly out of stock in B&Q so you have to go first thing in the morning to see if they’ve had a delivery and what is happening at B&Q is that the same people are queuing every single day to try to buy as many Hot tubs as they can and to put them on eBay to sell them for twice the price.
People are buying them too (supply and demand) so firstly, and I appreciate the irony here. I should refuse to do that and have a fight with my wife and say that I’m not buying sh*t from China which is wrecking the environment and we’re all as bad as each other.
But I capitulate to keep the peace and see a smile on my sons face.
(Contributing negatively to the hyperobject) but the next thing is that I ask a lady in B&Q who works there about hot tubs and she asks me why I want one and which one I want.
We enter into a conversation and she says that it’s the same people everyday that queue up to buy them to sell them on eBay and I have a chat with her about how rubbish that is and how people are just rinsing the system and making it worse.
She takes a piece of paper out of her pocket and asks for my name and phone number so that the next time the hot tubs are in stock she can call me at 7 o'clock in the morning and I can then come and get one.
She then explained that she wasn't working until next Monday but she will phone me on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings until they're here so that I can have one.
She says “I’ve got two other people on this list and we’re not supposed to do this but we’re only doing it for genuine customers”, the lady also said that she would put it on the group chat so that if they come in stock when she’s not there someone else can ring me.
She revealed that they're trying to figure out a system between themselves to stop these guys buying them all and selling them on eBay.
You can make it better or you can make it worse and you can choose.
Blog Post Number - 2380
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