I don’t know how many times it’s happened to me. At the McDonald’s counter, I am presented with my Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, ketchup not included.
“Could I have some ketchup, please?”
The guy at the counter gives me a single sachet.
“Could I have some more than that please?”
He hands over one more sachet. This is clearly not his decision. Policy forces him to make me beg like this. I think about asking for a third. Sometimes I do, more often I don’t. I walk away from the counter vaguely annoyed. Even more annoying is being forced to pay for ketchup. It’s not that I’m bothered by the cost, it’s just that it’s so petty. Ketchup, a naturally occurring substance, is our birthright, and should be free to all, not sold for small but annoying sums. Likewise, the twenty cent charge for the toilets in Busáras doesn’t make or break me financially, but it does add a tiny bit more irritation to my day every time I am faced with the turnstiles, which along with the junkies and the overpowering smell of urine, are the third most persuasive argument against using the facilities. I paid for my ticket. Is a toilet too much to ask? Apparently it is.
Annoyance. Irritation. Chafing. Just short of outright anger, these smaller emotions are the ones that nag away at us until one day, like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, we just snap and go on an orgy of random violence around the city. The day of my own killing spree was hastened today by a budget so crammed full of petty little levies and mean-spirited cuts that it might have been devised by Ryanair and Ticketmaster in a joint entry in the world Gouging and Penny-Pinching Games. Witness the following:
Snip! An “Exit Fee” payable by everyone leaving the country, €2 or €10, depending on how far you’re travelling.
Snip! Stamp duty on cheques to rise from 30 cents to 50 cents.
Snip! Automatic entitlement to a medical card for over-70s to be abolished.
Snip! Duty on wine to increase by 50 cents a litre from midnight.
Snip! Standard rate of Vat to increase by 0.5% to 21.5%.
Snip! Child benefit for 18-year-olds to cease.
Snip! Early childcare supplements will cease at five and a half years of age instead of six years.
Every little helps…
This all without mentioning the 1% income levy (“I thought I’d already paid this” “Oh no, you paid Tax. This is a levy“). There must now be few human activities remaining which have not had a charge slapped on them. I know times are hard. Money needs to be found somewhere. But I thought it was a basic rule that the more you have, the more you pay. These sneaky charges hit everyone equally, the richest paying no more than the poorest.
Some of the Irish people will sigh, and soldier on stoically. Some will say “at least they didn’t raise taxes” and go back to voting for Mr. Lenihan’s Party every chance they get. Some will manage to hold it together until the next time we get charged for ketchup, whereupon it will finally become too much for us. We will pull out our firearms* and wildly spray bullets around the restaurant as indiscriminately as a stealth tax. When they come to take us away, to prison or a mental hospital, the press won’t be interested in the years of minor irritations that brought us to this. They’ll think it was all over a sachet of tomato ketchup. I think it’s in everybody’s interest if I stay away from McDonald’s tomorrow.
(*I should add that I don’t actually own a firearm. But some days I wish I did)
6 Comments
I’m still a bit numb at having my wallet raped by Brian Lenihan, but once I calm down I’ll write my own blog post.
I’d take my wallet to A&E to get treatment but I can’t afford it.
Nicely written Mr C.
And like a ryanair flight, it was advertised as taking us to a particular destination but ended up delivering us to a run down prefab 120 miles away.
[…] A Ryanair Budget […]
Two small things crossed my mind when reading this (nice post by the way).
Firstly, a 1% levy does require that the more you have, the more you pay.
Secondly, I think the reason I don’t feel bad about asking for ketchup in McDonald’s is because I know that if they handed it out for free to everyone, then my meal would probably cost a bit more every time. Not much more, of course, and I’d probably prefer to pay a bit more each time instead of asking for ketchup, but I also need to remember that the whole point of McDonald’s is that it’s cheap and that everyone can choose to go there! In addition to myself, they are catering to others who wouldn’t spend money going to more expensive places where ketchup is given out freely. So annoying as it may be, it is pretty reasonable of me to accept their policy, all things considered (yes, I have thought about this too much.)
“Firstly, a 1% levy does require that the more you have, the more you pay.”
The amount you pay as a proportion of your income remains the same no matter how much you earn. A progressive taxation system ensures that you pay less as a proportion of your income, the less you earn. The wealthier you are, the more you have spare.
That modern American proverb, There’s no such thing as a free lunch, can be applied to the Snips we have to pay daily, whether it is spending a penny (EMU that if you can)or paying a levy on credit cards. Everything gets paid for somewhere along the line of production and consumption. From a socialist perspective there are social inequalities in the consumption of state provided services and benefits. The ‘universalism’ of provision complained of in a recent Irish Times editorial ensures that benefits affordable by the well-to-do are taken up by that sector while less money becomes available from central funds for spending on primary education and medical cards for the unwaged and the impecunious elderly. As for ketchup sachets at fast food eating places, I consider the easy availability of packaging, plastic spoons and serviettes to be a net contributor to the waste of natural resources.