Esther McCarthy: To the eejits giving out about lids being attached to bottles — have a small bit of cop-on

Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn

Here are my top five campaigns that I wish to enforce immediately, all of which deserve their own columns, but I have a deadline looming so I’m going to throw them all out there.

I hope I can count on your full support.

1. No more hotter-than-hell hotel rooms

Mother of God above, why is every hotel room in the land hotter than Hugh Jackman in a sauna? 

You can’t open windows, it’s stiflingly stuffy and you wake up with a face like a dehydrated prune. 

It can’t be energy efficient, it must cost a fortune. I’m telling ye now, hoteliers, cool it with the heat. 

I have an idea of what a dream hotel for perimenopausal Irish mammies would be like, but that’s another column for another day.

Pic: iStock

2. Vexing vouchers

I forgot to activate my Lidl vouchers the other day and I only realised when I got home. I had to have a little sitdown and practice my circular breathing.

I experienced a mix of sorrow and self-loathing that was fairly disproportionate to proceedings.

I mean, I overpaid for a punnet of lean mince by 49c and I missed out on 30% off selected Red Hen products, but I still felt utterly bereft.

If you forget your Tesco Clubcard, you might as well just set up a self-flagellation stall by the checkout. The cashier does a sharp intake of breath and your bill is now 250% more expensive, and it’s your own fault for not having your fob, you fool.

And now the Dunnes ones go out of date, wtf, Dunnes? I have an actual heart episode the day of. I wake up like Kevin McAllister’s mam on the plane. 

I HAVE TO GET TO THE NEW SMALL OLD DUNNES BEFORE CLOSING TIME!!!!! 

It’s driven my anxiety up several notches. At least with SuperValu, you get a new one every week. 

With Dunnes I’m just like, all twitchy, muttering to myself, ‘I can ill afford to be throwing away tenners out of every 50’.

But what about the 40 I saved by not going there in the first place? Is the sunk cost fallacy a real thing?

3. Sizeist sizes

I’m sick to death of not fitting into clothes. 

This is clearly a ploy by Big Fabric to make me question my five-a-day Hobnob habit. 

I hereby demand all clothing manufacturers do away with the 10, 12, 14, 16 rubbish (a 14 in one shop is a 10 in the other anyway, I’m looking at you, Zara) and just put random pictures of flowers or bees or, I don’t know, I haven’t thought this through, but every woman I know can pick up a piece of clothing and know if it will fit or not. 

Same with bras. Either make all the measurements mean the same or just forget about it and we’ll manage by sight. Or maybe by fruits – grapes right up to wanton watermelons.

4. People looking like their pets

Hilarious but off-putting. 

There’s a man who walks his Schnauzer in the park and they both have the exact same moustache and mad eyebrows. His wife was with them last week, and she could give the Lorax a run for its money. 

There’s a small, wiry, ould fella who has the exact same gatch as his Jack Russell. It’s gas. 

Why I’ve decided I’m against it, is because I’ve got an elegant-looking lurcher yoke, he is many things but his main physical traits is that he is skinny and swift. 

I am fat and only fast when there’s a voucher deadline looming. I’m upsetting the whole aesthetic of the dog park.

So I either buy a watermelon-chested bulldog or I find a new park. I’m not keen on either.

I do believe in embracing my mistakes, however, which is why I lavish the lurcher in hugs every day even though he is the bane of my life.

Return machines for Bottles and cans to be recycled in at Dunnes Stores on Angiers Street, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

5. Eejits giving out about the lids being attached to bottles

In a valiant bid to reduce plastic waste, the EU has created a Single-Use Plastics Directive, which means lids are now attached to bottles and can’t be fully removed, thus ensuring both pieces of plastic are recycled.

By the reaction on social media, you’d swear people were being forced to ingest the bottle top before getting to their delicious drink. They are furious! 

‘I scratched my face!’ typed one moron. ‘It threw water onto my chin,’ whinged another. 

One fella wrote on Reddit that he swigged his drink with the bottle cap in the way resulting in him having to change his clothes. Oh, the humanity!

Have a small bit of cop-on, stop trying to angrily rip the lid off your milk and get over yourself.

Wear protective goggles making your cup of tea, if you must.

Of course, what we should really be enraged about is the fact that single-use plastics are still being produced at all. 

That most certainly is another column for another day.