I’ve worn out two cushions and slightly depressed a sofa during the pandemic lockdowns. Made a change from wearing out my visitors, not that they ever stayed long anyway. Perhaps I shouldn’t have made them stand outside in the rain.
The term ‘collateral damage’ was originally used as a euphemism to refer to non-combatants killed or wounded in military operations. Like many euphemisms it was intended to soften the blow. Not the best simile I could have chosen. Until I met a few reformed characters I thought a ‘correctional facility’ was some sort of grammar improvement school for slow learners. On reflection, I suppose I was partly right.
My point is, objects as well as people can sometimes suffer at least a minor form of collateral damage through no fault of their own. (Well, no, of course not, they’re objects, although my reading glasses sometimes seem to run and hide, as I stumble blindly in pursuit.)
Like lots of housebound people recently, I have been eating more than exercising, and my waist has suffered the consequences, leaving me in need of a belt — no comments, please — with extra holes in it to cope with my expanded girth. Fortunately, before I spent cash rashly, I discovered a type of braided woven belt on which the holes are created by the buckle prong wherever you choose. It was cheap, too, and I’m a Scotsman.
“Probably a factory reject,” decided my wife. “Their puncture machine must have been broken that day.” I felt suitably deflated. I hadn’t thought of that! I’d been cheated! One more collateral casualty of online shopping.
My car battery was an innocent victim as well. Prepared to take me anywhere, I had taken it nowhere, and it had run out of steam, or whatever it runs on. My butler checks the fuel after he fixes the skis and picnic hamper on the roof rack.
Part of the problem is that goods we buy nowadays come with deliberately planned obsolescence as part of the deal. By making products useless or undesirable compared to new ones of a similar type — think mobile phones — or even non-functional within a set period of time, and introducing upgrades incompatible with existing hardware, the manufacturers have stymied us. We are their version of collateral damage. Time for a change, I felt, when my microwave oven started emitting smoke and flames.
Little wonder, then, that we feel scant sympathy for large commercial concerns when we hear they are suffering from a multitude of euphemisms — financially challenged by temporary negative cash flows, reduced customer footfall, the dog ate their accountant’s homework, etc.
I have ceased to care very much about any of it. I don’t even really need a new car battery, I’m already over the hill and picking up speed. Any damage I do going downhill will be at best collateral. Something I recall bank managers required in the past, when you asked for a loan to buy a new sofa.
