No, I'm not being overly maudlin and using the lyric from a song to express my headlong hurtling towards the final destination, I may have a few years in me yet... or not... who knows?
Curmudgeon that I am, I cannot help being mystified by the practices of the younger generation that defy logic - my logic anyhow. Sometimes it's the little things that seem to irritate the most or maybe irritate is the wrong word, perplex perhaps.....
Over the last few years I have noticed that many couriers, delivery drivers and, more recently, even Royal Mail postman eschew the traditional doorbell or door knocker and pound irreverently on the glass window either side of the door (guys, they're 1930's lead-lights, they weren't manufactured for being thumped on!) or the door itself, (it's a solid oak door so that can stand it, I think!) But I have a fully functioning doorbell and a doorknocker. SO WHY?
Someone suggested it derives from the pandemic when people were ordering everything including the kitchen sink online so those delivering were reluctant to touch a doorbell or knocker that might have been contaminated. Others suggest it is the advent of the video door cameras that turn folk against using the bell because they don't want to be filmed. And I get that.
Since every delivery driver is different there's little I can do about it but as I have a fairly regular postman I decided I could ask him to stop doing it. I was very polite and pleasant about it, and whilst he looked very mystified and confused as to why I should even mention such a thing, I have to say he has respected the request and now uses the knocker and the doorbell. Both of them, mind, because, of course I must be a doddery old bugger who might not hear just the one.
Another time there was an almighty persistent and urgent thumping on the front door, sounded as if someone was taking a sledgehammer to it! I thought there was some kind of emergency so I rushed, in the arthritic sense, to the door and opened it, only to find a teenage lad with a bucket and sponge offering to clean my car.
I motioned to the empty driveway and said, 'I have no car.' Whereupon he replied, 'Well I didn't know that!'. And he stomped off.
And while we are on the subject of delivery drivers let me articulate my beef about Amazon deliverymen. They frequently use both the doorknocker and the doorbell almost simultaneously and thump the door as well but when you open the door there's no one there. There may be a package that has been leant against the door and falls in on you when you open it, or it may be lying on the doormat or if you are lucky enough to have a savvy courier they may have attempted to secrete the order behind a flowerpot or something, out of sight anyway. But when you look on the Amazon website at your order it will always say 'Handed to Resident'!!! (I would estimate that only about 5% of my orders are actually handed to me.) How the hell do they continue to get away with it? Because it is untrue.
But then I am just a pernickety old lady, pay me no mind.
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