Shropshire Star

Jack Averty: Let's just get on with it – after all isn't that what grown-ups do?

It's a hard life, this adult lark.

Published

I'm 24 now, so I really should have adapted to adulthood and not be wasting everyone's time on this column.

But I haven't, so ready your sarcastic 'well I'm never getting that time back' comments for about two minutes time.

What I have found in the last couple of years of living alone, as an adult, with a proper job (this counts right?), is that it's a completely different world from when you are a kid living with your parents.

Growing up, if something went wrong, for example there was no hot water, a simple shout of 'mum' (or dad) would see them scuttle off to look at the boiler. A few minutes later hot water would be flowing, as if by magic. Unfortunately, as the cold showers I have been having will attest, it was not magic.

The same can be applied to a blown fuse or, perhaps slightly more frivolous, a light bulb that needs changing.

Away from the manual labour of looking after a house there's the likes of paying bills and cooking, another two concepts that were foreign at best growing up.

I think we can safely include ironing in this category as well.

Basically when you live at home, as a kid, chances are if there is a problem then it will not be yours to solve and even if it is, if you ask nicely, someone is probably going to solve it for you.

But all of a sudden, fast-forward a decade as you lay in your freezing cold bath in the dark, these are your problems to solve.

I appreciate the efforts that were put in by my beloved teachers at school, but I would sooner learn about how to fix my boiler (not that there is a theme appearing here) than know that Sigmund Freud had a lust for white power (not Daz).

That's not to say my school didn't try and teach me 'essential' life skills, but unfortunately I've never sewn since, and the thought of beef stroganoff sends a chill down my spine even to this day.

My time risking my fingers perilously close to a sewing needle would've been better spent learning how to pay bills, how to fix things, how to be an adult.

But really the problem lies with me. Blaming school or my parents is rubbish.

I had the opportunity to go and watch my mum fix the boiler, or watch my dad sort his bills out, but I didn't. I saw these as trivial and not important. No doubt I prioritised video games or failing miserably in chasing girls.

I'm paying the price right now for my incredibly poor hindsight. But what am I doing about it apart from wasting precious column inches on sounding like a spoilt brat? Getting on with it.

I'm learning every day about how to look after money, how to cook decent meals, how to change lightbulbs without burning your hand and of course, most importantly, how to get hot water when a boiler isn't playing ball.

Getting on with it – this whiny column aside – makes me an adult right?

Assuming this is the case (I hope it is or else the next bit becomes highly irrelevant), then where does that leave us with the way some people have been acting in response to some of the events that happened last year?

I'll try to avoid getting too political as I'm sure my esteemed colleague Mr Peter Madeley already has you bored senseless on a daily basis, but the fact is that Britain voted to leave the European Union and the US has elected Donald Trump as president. It's what happened and it's how democracy works, more people voted for something as opposed to something else.

Picture the scene as I take my specially hand crafted placard back to school to protest in the playground over my lack of life knowledge.

'Justice for Jack' the kids will be chanting as I unleash a tirade of abuse at my former head teacher and all his supporters for letting me down.

Pathetic isn't it? But so is demonstrating against two fair and democratic results.

What is to be gained by standing outside Trump Tower, as many did in the build up to the 45th president's inauguration, protesting because you don't think he will be a good president? Millions think he will, just like millions think Britain is better off outside the EU.

It's time to get on with it. It's time to act like adults.

Conscious that I might have come across all Piers Morgan, I do think it's important to distinguish between protesting against a fair democratic result and for a genuine reason.

Despite the Good Morning Britain host's best attempts to convince you otherwise, the #MarchforWomen which took place all over the world was brilliant and totally necessary. Donald Trump winning the US election and Britain voting to leave the EU is fair, inequality between men and women is not.

Had I not been kicking a boiler pleading for hot water then I would have been down in London last weekend joining in.

It's always difficult signing off these things (not that I would know but it sounds like something you should say), however I will leave you with this nugget of wisdom: Whenever you think you're at the bottom and there is nowhere to turn, please remember there is always a man you can call to fix your boiler.

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