The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. It's Christmas day. I've been strongly hinting to Girlfriend that for Christmas I want a jumper and the second book of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.

Among the presents under the tree, there were two for me. I picked up the first present. It was too small to be a jumper. And it was too squishy to be a book.

"What is it?" I asked Girlfriend.

"Open it and see," she replied.

I tore the present open. It was three pairs of socks from H&M.

"Useful," I said, generously.

I picked up the second present. It was big and squishy. It was definitely a jumper.

"It's a jumper," I announced confidently.

I tore off the wrapping paper. It was not a jumper. It was a pair of Levi's jeans.

"Try them on," said Girlfriend.

So I pulled my pyjama trousers off, right there in the living room. Soon I was standing there in the living room in my underpants. My legs were cold. Then I pulled the jeans on. As I was pulling them on, I realized something was wrong. These weren't normal jeans. These were skinny jeans.

They were skin-tight. I could barely get them on.

"I think they're a bit too tight?" I said.

"Oh. Well, that's a shame. I can send them back," she said.

I didn't know why she had bought me skinny jeans. I couldn't pull off skinny jeans in my twenties so what made Girlfriend think I could wear skinny jeans now I was almost forty?

Girlfriend sorted out a return on the Amazon app on her phone. "There, all done," she said.

"That was easy," I said.

"Now all you have to do is take them to an Amazon return point."

"Wait, I have to do it?"

"Well, the return point is open Wednesday and I'm working on Wednesday," she said.

"Okay."

6-year-old got a Lego Creator 3-in-1 set, a Number Blocks cube set, Catan Junior, and a pair of shoes. He giggled when he found the shoes. "Santa's funny! He gave me shoes!" he exclaimed.

1-year-old received a busy book, a toy pushchair, a pair of shoes, and Lego Quatro (which is like Lego but four times the size).

***

In the evening, we went to the circus. It was a special Christmas circus in the forest. Girlfriend had won four tickets by sharing an Instagram post. She was good at winning things on Instagram. Last year she had won a TV.

We got to the circus half an hour early. A big circus tent covered in Christmas lights. We went inside. There was a circus ring. A ringmaster wearing a top hat and red tailcoat.

We watched the circus. There was a lady who was good at spinning things on her feet. A man magician and a lady magician who could change clothes instantly. A juggler. A contortionist. Two clowns. But my favourite person was a girl on rollerskates. Not because she was good at rollerskates, but because she was wearing a tight see-through leotard with just sparkly glitter covering her rude bits. Her body was extraordinarily slim and toned. Her bum was covered by just a thin strip of fabric.

I felt anxious watching the performances. Not because I cared if the performers lived or died but because every performer was at the top of their game. They were the best at what they did. And this made me anxious because they must spend hours every day practising and practising their art, whereas all I do is sit around doing nothing, so how am I going to compete with them for a job when AI takes my job away? I can't juggle, I can't sing. I can barely stand up on two rollerblades. And if I have to swing around up high on a trapeze I'd fall and break my neck.

I don't have skills. I don't have a career. I don't have years of work experience I can show on my resume. My last proper job was ten years ago, working for minimum wage, testing video games. Once AI takes over most jobs, I'll be competing for the last remaining jobs with millions of people who are more skilled and hard-working than myself. At best I could get a job as a knife-thrower's assistant, having knives thrown at me, but even that's a stretch because there must be thousands of people who would make better knife-thrower's assistants than me.

The show was good though. I even snuck a few photos of the rollerblading lady so I could ogle her bum at home.