I tend not to worry about things until they have happened. It’s somewhere between a policy and a habit – and has its ups and downs. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have fewer dreadful surprises, but not often enough for me to try to change.
Mr. Z is the exact opposite. It does a minute-by-minute analysis of the threat level in the medium term, as if it has one of those tilted dental mirrors in the future. Therefore, he is extremely concerned about gasoline prices and even very concerned about food shortages. He also has ambient concerns about nuclear submarines.
He spends his life, or at least the part covered by the radio news reports, trying to get me up to speed on things that I should also be anxiously engaging with. He is remarkably unfazed by his lack of success. Maybe it’s not remarkable – maybe he’s seen into the future and there’s a point where I’m starting to pay attention.
I can’t practice whether or not we will be able to get a turkey for Christmas or not, partly because it’s so far away, partly because I don’t like turkey and partly because my children will be with their father this year. I’m not moaning. I can see that I made this divorced bed and have to lie down on it. But the shortage of your own offspring on Christmas Day is such a deep and unnatural famine that whether you eat turkey or rat is a second-rate concern.
“It’s the lack of CO2,Mr. Z said, with all the authority of someone who has just read an Internet explainer to the layman. “Something-something by-product of fertilizer.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied, which I think is a well-worn English expression, but I use it more as a Yoda-style instruction for others.
“CO2 is also important for making crumpets, ”he continued. “Warburtons experienced a shortage in 2018.”
My brain immediately turned to all the bread products I would happily eat instead of crumpets. It took ages, and I didn’t share it with him, because I’m trying to keep my mystique. Besides, he knew that was what I was doing. “I will continue until I find something that interests you,” he said. “Shortages also threaten the production of soft drinks and beer. “
Gasoline prices, meanwhile, interest me even more, since, hard, it is still 21C outside (according to my phone). “Beyond the next 48 hours, do you see a reason to worry? He asked softly. “Given something-something-something-something, are you even a little bit curious about what’s going on?” “
If, emotionally, I remain completely inert, I admit that it piqued my interest. My friend C’s partner is a gas dealer, so I texted him to ask him what was going on. If I had asked her what the White Lotus guy was also into, or how to make Irish stew, she would have answered me within five minutes. Instead, two days have passed. Then, finally: “He has a lot to say about it. They are, I realize, having the same relationship as us, a mile and a half apart; he tells her things she needs to worry about and she marks him off, the difference being that her business is mostly gas.
While the decision to ruminate or not is, of course, mostly capricious, at this point in 2021, it is also a political one. I don’t want to argue on social media about whether or not these are effects of Brexit, or whether long-haul truck drivers would have left the UK anyway because of Covid, or how every country lacks CO.2 from time to time, but the meedja does not mention it. Never would an “I told you so” taste more ashy in my mouth than that delivered in an empty bakery aisle, from one thoughtful person who couldn’t find any crumpets to another. I prefer not to notice that something is wrong anywhere.