Worst View in the World?

Now typically I like to talk about the pretty things when I write.  I'd much rather think on the brighter side than dwell on the darker side of things.  But, every so often, a girl simply must admit to the stark realities of life.  One of those unavoidable realities, an unpleasantly true fact, is that I have one of the ugliest views in the world.

You see I live in Leeds, not the prettiest city in the world.  Sorry Leeds, you must remember that I first met you just after the bin collectors' strike, so the bar for ugly sites has been set rather high.  That being the case, what is it that makes my view so terrible?  Well, for a start I look out at an alley full of rubbish bins.

Ok, you may be thinking to yourself, rubbish bins?  Everybody has to look at rubbish bins.  There is nothing unusually ugly about that.

AND the neighbor children play football in the alley and frequently knock over the bins, strewing their contents about the alley.

Hmm, ok, maybe slightly worse.

AND there is a construction project going on across the way.

Well, again, you think to yourself that it can't be all that bad.

You may be right, the construction isn't so much the issue as the pace at which it is being completed.  It is halted every time it rains.  Hello!  We live in England!  It's ALWAYS raining!  So, I have the sneaking suspicion that the pile of rubbish and construction supplies will never actually disappear.

The bin collectors have just come and gone so it almost looks decent for the moment.

Ok, so it's not the best view in the world, but what makes it the worst?

I just love heaps of construction waste, don't you?

The real sign that it's the worst view in the world has nothing to do with the construction or rubbish.  The test for ugly views is far more random and simplistic.  You know how everything looks better when it snows?  Well, I am here to tell you that my view isn't even improved by a snow.  And if a healthy coating of beautiful white snow can't even make my view pretty then nothing can.

I've seen bins that look exciting and almost fun in the snow, with giant domes of snow crowning them and making them not only funny but also somehow attractive for once in their lives.  Normally ugly shapes are suddenly interesting and lovely with some snow.  I've seen car parks (or parking lots) that by any normal standard would be judged a blight, that were transformed into a beautiful scene by snow.  Snow is the ultimate beautifier, yes, I just made that word up, and if snow can't fix a view then it's hopeless.

My view therefore fails the snow beauty test.  My view is ugly.  No it's worse than that; it's heinous.  My view is quite possibly one of the worst views in the world.  It is certainly the worst view I've ever had.

So, I have decided to enter the Worst Window View Competition by Wooden Blinds Direct to see how my abhorrent view compares to others.  Maybe I will be surprised, realise my view isn't all that bad, and come away heartened by the fact that my view could be decidedly worse.  Or maybe I will win a Kindle Fire HD.  It is a competition I cannot actually lose.

I didn't think I'd ever have occasion to say this, but I am actually looking forward to seeing the worst views the world has to offer. 

On a scale of 1 to 10 I'm an Um...

True insanity cannot be measured.  On the light side of things a one is mild insanity.  Then there is intense insanity.  And then there is, well, me, at whatever strange alternate level of insanity it is that I seem to exist in.  I am more of the "Um... okaaaay" type of insanity and I've had another one of those days.

You know how some days you are just too tired to care?  You stayed up late you woke up early?  Your reaction to sunshine and the alarm was not the typical sleepy groan but more of the melodramatic face-plant into the pillow?  Do you know what I'm talking about?  Well, I had one of those days today.  I was not tired enough to be grumpy, just tired enough to make absolutely no sense.

Photo Source: Pinterest

At work I was meant to be updating my client's social media profiles.  I barely know how to update my own.  What makes you think I'm qualified to update a financial client's profiles?  I had to research how to effectively use hashtags on twitter for businesses.  Yes, I do actually have a twitter account but I'm not really sure what to do with it.  I certainly don't know how it's used for business.  And Delicious.  What is the point of that site?  Is it really a directory of links or is it really like twitter?  Do people actually look at your Delicious account or is it more meant as a list for you?  Why is it called Delicious?  There is nothing tasty about it.  I just don't understand. I know nothing about technology and social media.  I really am the world's worst online marketing employee. 

A day of staring at the screen trying to decide if articles were interesting enough to catch attention, but not so interesting as to offend my financial client, sent me further into my strange mood.  Suddenly I was staring at the weirdest abbreviations and I couldn't keep my mind from wandering.  I muttered "SM?" to my computer.  My colleague looked up with a cocked eyebrow and asked "did you say S&M?"  Social media does not abbreviate well it would seem.  We were both tired and this was much funnier than it should have been.  We decided that after a day of work I would clearly be an expert in S&M and loans for my finance client.

Not long after lunch our big boss arrived with two teenage girls and starting filming the boot of his car in the parking lot below.  Well, at least that was what we heard.  There was apparently too much fast driving and some sort of flipping involved as well.  We came up with kidnapping theories and somewhere along the line nearly invented an office rumour that he had two families and was trying to keep them from knowing about each other and this somehow involved a blackmail video filmed from the office of a car boot.  We are still working on it.  We may or may not send round an email on Monday asking the burning question of what on earth they were actually doing.

As the day progressed work got more boring. When you start to read the phrase "pitch craft ideas to x person" as witch craft, and you giggle to yourself, you know you are reaching that stage of tired where everything is funny.  Next writing emails that proposed an article about loans, I asked the blogger if they would be interested in it and even this caused me to giggle inanely to myself.  Interested.  Loans.  Interest.  Hehehe.  Clearly I had not slept enough, I had been at work too long and I had really, truly, gone over the edge.  I was past the point of no return.  Returns... hahahaha.

I'm bored.  Are we done yet?  Photo Source: Flickr by Holster

We decided to count the seconds, not minutes until we were done with work.  This led to the realization that seconds seem so much shorter than minutes and even a great number of them somehow feels short.  But we went further, by the time we arrived in town on the bus at about 6pm there were roughly 2,009,000 seconds left until Christmas. 

We stopped in at Primark, a work friend and I, and found the clothes to be quite exotic.  We found zebra stripes in one row.  And then rounded a corner to find the rest of the zoo.  Every variety of great cat imaginable was there as well as owls, ducks, and dragonflies.  Dragonflies are there to support the ecosystem not necessarily as an attraction, but anyhooo.  We had fun trying on and making fun of everything we could get our hands on.  It's more fun this way.

Eventually we left for food at McDonald's and met some very interesting and slightly overly friendly guys.  They wanted to know how old we thought they were.  It became a big game.  They tried to guess our age and my friend tried to convince them she was 29 with two children.  They didn't believe her and were triumphant when she revealed that she is only 24.  Though they had a hard time believing that I was 26.  They also didn't believe that we worked at a marketing company.  True it has a funny name, but they suggested that we looked like we worked at Nando's instead.  I'm not sure that wasn't an insult.  Ah well.  It was funny to mess with them.

Eeyore wonders why and how it always snows only on him. Photo Source: Flickr by Nikoretro

On our way out and to the train station we started to see snow flakes.  Really large ones, all of a sudden and not in a flurry, just randomly.  It was suspicious.  Turns out it was only snowing on one street of the whole town.  I'm guessing it was a snow making machine and possible marketing ploy?  I don't know but it was odd and we weren't the only two who noticed.  Needless to say it was a strange day.  It was almost surreally funny and strange.  I mean, who has ever heard of it only snowing on one street?  Yeah, I'm going to have to investigate this tomorrow.

For now I'm going to sit indoors all snuggly with some hot chocolate and attempt to return to a state of semi normalcy, you know, mild insanity, and maybe even warm, cozy sleepiness.