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A new boiler, and other aggravating ways to blow money you could have had fun with

SPEND weeks agonising over £60 shoes then have to drop a grand on boiler repairs without blinking? These are the dull as f**k purchases that eat cash: 

A new boiler

There’s nothing better than draining your savings, your credit card and your parents’ goodwill for a new boiler. You can’t live without it and it costs the same as a wild weekend in Las Vegas just for things to be just the same as they were before. And you can still barely afford to have the f**ker on.

An MOT

You were considering a new Xbox or a fancy meal. Instead, legally, you’re required to get an MOT, and two hours late a mechanic informs you that your 12-year-old Corolla needs new sprockets, replacement pinwheels and its chakras realigned, all for £800. And you know nothing about cars so can do nothing but pay the man.

Going to the dentist

NHS dentist? Are you taking the piss? No, the only way to stop tooth pain dominating your every thought, day and night, is to spend that money you’d earmarked for a holiday on a replacement crown. Or anger gangsters enough that they pull your teeth out with pliers and hope they get the right ones.

Vet bills

Just when it looks like affording Sky Sports might be a possibility, the dog falls ill. And only the most heartless bastard would do anything but rush to the vet and cheerfully stump up £500 for examinations, X-rays, blood tests and a course of medication it refuses to take. Only monsters want their money for themselves.

Various automotive fines

F**k it. You buy yourself the shoes anyway. When you get back to the car, there’s a £60 fine on the bloody windscreen. You drive home, don’t like the shoes now, can’t afford them anyway, and drive back accidentally passing through a bus-only lane. The Man has plucked money from your pocket and laughed.

Christmas

Presents for loved ones aren’t such a burden. Presents for the very much less loved ones who are turning up expecting shit are a burden. Food and drink for those freeloading twats costs £100 every time you pop out for those last few things you’ve forgotten. They give you stuff, wrapped up. It’s nothing you want. It’s worthless.

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The five obvious reasons you've come down with a Christmas cold

ILL? Cursing fate while baffled as to where it could possibly have come from? Knowingly overlooking these painfully clear infection vectors?  

It’s winter

Viruses thrive in lower temperatures, so a fortnight-long cold snap has been like an Ibiza rave for these microscopic infectious bastards. Being sparing with the heating saved you money while unwittingly turning your flat into a Petri dish of seasonal disease to strike you down just in time for the 25th. Merry Christmas.

Everyone else is ill

So you’re ill, and everyone you’ve been in close contact with recently has also been hacking up phlegm and battling with an endlessly runny nose? If only there were some connection between these two pieces of data. But science is an unknowable art and freak incidents like this will forever remain mired in mystery.

When did you last wear a face mask?

It was around February, wasn’t it? That time you wore it to the shops and nobody else was wearing one and you felt like a dick so you binned it. Turns out they actually do a decent job of preventing viruses from entering your respiratory system, who knew? You could not have been this ill.

You went to the Christmas market

And didn’t just leave with a jar of festively-spiced chutney and a wooden tie. You also picked up the most evolutionarily sucessful and physically debilitating virus of the dozens infecting the meandering twats you shoved past to the mulled wine hut. Was it worth it? Was any of it worth it? No.

Mainly it’s the winter thing though

But, circling back, the hard truth is that your cold is winter’s fault. You’re knackered from a year of toil, your diet of mince pies and alcohol has left your body vulnerable, you never dry your hair properly and it’s been freezing for weeks. That’s why you always have colds at Christmas. And it’s the season of giving, so soon so will everyone else.

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