High Importance.

Saw an ambulance today. Written on the side of it was "Emergency Ambulance". Emergency Ambulance? In what deluded universe do ambulances exist without emergencies? The bloody sheer waste of the thing was what shocked me into noticing. Jumping straight into things, perhaps someday, I'll find myself in a position requiring urgent medical attention, I'l be stranded, hopeless, convinced of my impending doom, will have shed any hope of return to the happy meadows of my boring life, when lo and behold, out of nowhere appears an ambulance. I am saved! Not so fortunate.

Upon the ambulance pulling up in a frankly surprisingly complacent manner, meandering almost, I'll issue a cry of joy and intense pain combined. The vehicle will stop, the doors will gently open with a swish, a man will stroll out, quickly assess the situation, return back to his yellow and green chariot, and* drive away. Only later on the brink of unconsciousness will I realise my folly- did that ambulance say emergency? Oh, nope, that was one of those non-emergency ambulances, didn't serve the likes of me, was probably off in a hurry to treat someone who burnt their tongue on hot jame tart**. And then I'll die. And as I'm being whisked off to whatever valhalla will take me, I'll have to admit that my ridiculing the categorisation of ambulances was at least misinformed.

As much as that's an entirely silly story, its unfolding in my head led me to think about two things. Firstly, the entire degrading of the word "Emergency". Obviously not ambulances, I accept you could probably just about call them urgent... still. "Panic buying", I heard this first from Rhod Gilbert but he has a good point. In times of genuine panic, do people really go shopping (no. Just thought I'd throw that in for you. Helpful me)? I hear the souvenir desk of the Titanic was flourishing, better hurry though because the returns desk just went under. Life in the present words lives as pretty much a continuation of that thought.

Hey, maybe I'm being unreasonable. Maybe that's because my school had FIVE fire alarms in the last three weeks. Five. Two of them were on the same day. We were on our way back into the building when it went off again, and frankly if that had been a fire we would have been doomed, and the only safety for us would have been the possibility of the flames being drained out by us pissing ourselves. I believe this might to some extent describe how undeniably, incontrovertibly and ultimately awful my school is. It can get excellent results, it can persuade itself that it's smartly dressed and edgey and forward thinking, but peel away the surface of perspex coated scholarship and deep down you'll find an inescapable rotting core of mediocrity and shambling incompetence hurriedly disguised from the outside world. It just can't get the hang of being a fairly good piece utility education, no matter how hard it tries it will always turn up late and having been splashed by a truck to inter-school competitions, it will always have rooms that just smell plain weird, it will always clear out the old reception and pack all the staff out on to the path before it realises that funding for the new building never actually arrived. It will always demonstrate the absolutely ridiculous oddities of bureaucracy with none of the efficiency. It will always be bonkers and ever so slightly shit, no matter how many million students get an A in History. And I will always love it. In the fond way you love an embarrassing parent, you'd never show it to your friends but it will always hold a special giggly place in your heart.

Wow. I must admit that wasn't what I expected this post to be about, but whoever called me one to submit to expectations. Even my own.

*Oh by the way I haven't yet understood entirely, is that an Oxford comma?
**Have you ever done that? It's hot and sticky and is hot and sticks to you and won't be prised off you and ow it hurts so much. But not as dire a situation as my allegorical character.