Rant BIT-TECH THUNDERDOME

"Dave at 63 clearly didn't panic buy anything"

 

Dear god he could take that indoors

 

Vault - this is a serious thread. I get that it's nice to have a bit of levity at such a trying time, but I think you're crossing a line here... is there any chance you could remove the sh!t posting and put it somewhere else?

 

I'm just trying to lighten the mood. Take it from someone who is usually very depressed and anxious, it's better to laugh than cry.

 

I thought it was funny.

And then made a mental note to pick up some more toilet paper.

 

I'm not forbidding you from having a laugh; I just think it's a tad unfair to post pics of people like that, which is basically shaming them. Normally I'd think that stuff was pretty funny... I just don't find it appropriate in the Serious part of the forum, especially when people are dying (in a really horrible way) from this virus. If you want to share juvenile crap, please go ahead - maybe do it elsewhere.

/end rant

@oscy, there's never any justification for hoarding. It's selfish and irresponsible. Other People™ matter just as much as the proverbial "you/me", and to see the infirm and elderly unable to get basic groceries sickens me; it's utterly disgraceful. We can make preparations for sure, but ultimately if you are faced with survival of the fittest versus altruism and you choose to prepare only for yourself at the expense of others, you're being a Richard. Imagine if all the doctors at the NHS had the same attitude... we'd be screwed fo' sho'.

I'm currently the only person in three households able to freely go out and buy groceries. My brother and parents are both in high risk groups, and my wife is pregnant with our third and (ideally) shouldn't be going out shopping either. Preparing for myself simply is not an option at this point. I'm going about life as normally as possible - buying what we need as and when we need it. If everybody else did the same, it'd make things so much easier.

 

A man who washes his bare arse in his back garden has no shame.

I get that perhaps it's slightly misplaced in this thread, but it's serving as a catch-all bucket for anything Coronoavirus related, from discussion of medical procedures, government responses, and people's day to day lives.

 

Can we open a general "petty bickering" thread and leave this one more or less intact?

Quote for quote point scoring adds little value and drives people away.

 

Well of course you'd say that wouldn't you.

Typical.

 

OK let's get serious for a while then. Trauma. Let's talk about trauma for a bit.

When I was 5 my brother and I were playing and found our nan dead on the bathroom floor (she lived with us)

When I was 6 years old I had the perfect life. My father was growing a building business and we had everything. New car, big house, etc. We bought a patch of land in East Sussex and my whole family were to go there and build a gated estate. They were all builders of some sort. My father did not want me growing up in London, as it was getting worse then. When I was 7 he died. We lost everything, apart from the house. The car was gone, holidays gone etc. My mother took up 3 jobs and worked 7 days a week. The year after I ran out in front of a car. I nearly died twice on the slab. I was in hospital for three months, then had to do physio for 6 months.

And it has just continued. My best mate lost his baby at 18 months, and so on.

You know what Lenny? I am the guy who laughs at funerals. Want to know why? because I force myself to think about the wonderful things that person did when they were alive, and our funniest moments.

Oddly enough in general day to day life I am s**t. I can't work out my arse from my elbow. I suck at working out bills and keeping general life afloat. However in a serious bad situation like this? something comes out from within me. I don't know how it got there, all I can imagine is the absolutely awful childhood I had made me realise that if you don't laugh you'll cry, and if you cry you'll overdose. Which I have done on three occasions, one of them had me on a ventilator.

So I am sorry, but you will have to excuse my humour and trying to make people smile. What do you think every one did in WW2? huddled together and cried? did we F. We pulled together and we got through it. And I bet there was the joker there, and the singer, and every one else.

Sure, people are dying right now. They die on every other day too. It's incredibly sad, but then so is life. It's beautiful sadness.

Maybe after this people will donate more to cancer charities or you know what? children's charities. At least I had an amazing family to pull me through and tell me to stop moaning and think of kids worse off than me. Some aren't that fortunate, and we born a bad hand. They have shite for parents, so they stand no chance.

 

It's probably pretty easy to find pics like that.

I know of a different story. People huddled in bunkers, or down the underground. London was the worst hit.

My grandparents suffered horribly. Grandad was a pow for 8 months and Nan's hair went white overnight and never went back.

But they were always smiling and in the case of my grandfather joking.

I believe they call it the British stiff upper lip. I can't even imagine how it felt to be standing in a normal street hearing the sirens and watching the bugs fly over. Nan said they had to watch them until the pilot light went out, then basically scramble for cover. The MK2 of course was a whole different animal.

Sadly they didn't get the choice to pack up and go home, nor work from home. They just had to get on with it.

Which is what we should be doing right now.

 

I am staying at home. Well, apart from when someone who is isolating due to health conditions picks me up to come and help my mother who can't even open a tube of toothpaste without my help. Or a bottle of bleach, or sauce or anything else.

Seems you don't know the full story there.

As for my 17 PCs? I have three built and operational. One at home (which is mostly operational) a second at mum's that is fully operational and of course my new one.

Which isn't much different to the thread you posted last year about your new one.

You'll have to forgive me, I stupidly thought this was a tech based computer forum. I must forge that and just go back to complaining all the time.

Oh and btw without me my mother would have no food either. Who do you think orders all of her shopping and puts it away?

Before you get personal you ought to have your facts in place. I've been self isolating for ten years already thanks.

 

Tense times.

Let's all take a deep breath.

So long as it's indoors and not near anybody, otherwise take a shallow breath facing away from them.

 

I leave my house usually once a fortnight. I come to my mother's. I open all her bottles, jars, tooth paste and soap dispensers. I don't leave my flat or her house at all. In fact, just making that journey is traumatic.

My brother lives in London, he comes down twice a year. If that.

Mum's neighbours are isolating. As thus they don't have it, nor have had any symptoms and have been home for over 4 weeks. I don't have it and nor does mum. And that's as far as the whole thing goes. If we do get it? Then that's life I suppose. I'd rather take that tiny risk once a fortnight (I won't be leaving here for a month now as I needed my brain meds) and we're being as careful as we can.

And that's all we can do. TBH my own brother doesn't even know how bad my mother is. No one does, but me.

My care workers all stopped two weeks ago, so of course even I'm struggling. Yet, I've chosen not to fall apart and be about as strong as I can. Am I scared? Course I am. Not for me. Once you've taken 3 overdoses you become at one with death and yourself.

If I get it mum gets it. That's the risk that we have to take unless I don't risk it and she dies of starvation. Which is assured.

I'm scrubbing my hands with isopropyl before and after all journeys and staying at least 5m away from everything. And everyone.

That's all I can do.

 

Because I'm not whining I'm just pushing on.

You learn that from depression. It's ugly, it's black, it pushes everyone away. If you don't learn that you end up very lonely.

So yes, despite all of my inner fears and anxiety I'm trying to get through this the way I know how. Like when everyone I love dies. If you don't learn that strategy? You've had it.

So I'm joking, laughing and being stupid. If I die? I died laughing not in fear.

 

David: "Can we open a general "petty bickering" thread and leave this one more or less intact? Quote for quote point scoring adds little value and drives people away."

Admin: "NOW HOL' ON THERE PARDNER, LEMME JUST MOSEY ON IN HERE."