Emissions Kilian Doyle"To go postal (euph.): The practice of arming oneself with a high-powered, semi-automatic rifle and a dozen clips of ammo and embarking on a murderous shooting spree, often in one's former place of employment. Perceived oppressors usually become the primary targets, but frequently random colleagues or members of the public take the bullet. So called because, originally, the majority of protagonists tended to be disgruntled ex-postal workers in the US".
Thankfully, this phenomenon has yet to rear its vengeful head on our jolly little Emerald Isle. But for how long, I ask myself? I've seen many ideal candidates for raining down lead retribution on their tormentors: office techies, security guards, bouncers, clampers, bus-drivers, even the ubiquitous postal workers.
You can see it in their eyes. There's nothing they'd like better than to don the facepaint and combat gear and position themselves on a city centre rooftop, sniper's rifle in hand.
But, I said to myself, that's just you imposing your own twisted psyche into the minds of others. Wish-fulfilment getting the better of you, again, dear boy. It's not going to happen. Not here. Not yet.
Or so I thought. Until I drove through the Westlink tollbooth on the M50. Something clicked, and then I knew it was only a matter of time.
Let me get one thing straight here, lest I incur the wrath of dozens of tollbooth attendants. It wasn't any particular individual there that caught my eye as a potential potshot merchant. For one, that'd probably be libellous. And, second, I didn't get time to check them all out.
It's not the people themselves I'm concerned about, it's their job. Does any child, anywhere, aspire to this career? I can think of very few others that are so soul-destroying, so frustrating, so liable to tip a well- adjusted person over the brink.
Put yourself in their place: You're sitting in a glorified toolshed all day, rain, shine, snow or soccer match. Bored beyond belief. Nothing all day but money you can't keep, expensive cars, people going places, doing things, and you stay stuck in your box. Your dreams of adventure, excitement, glory, are all crushed under the weight of disappointment. It festers, rots, corrodes goodwill for fellow man.
Have a heart for the inmates of the Drogheda Toll Plaza. Dealing with surly Nordie boy racers, resentful truckers and sweaty salesmen in cheap suits and cheaper aftershave all day.
And at night? Staring down that long, dark road, nothing to bring a jot of joy into their seemingly endless shift but the vain hope of some foxy youngwan pulling up in her Micra and fluttering her falsies at them.
All it takes is one obnoxious clown in an ostentatious Merc throwing a cheque in the window to tip the balance into disaster. "D'you not have any coins?" the attendant asks. "Coins? Me? I don't use bloody coins! What do you take me for?" snorts Merc man, throwing a €100 note in the window, as if it were a sheet of soiled toilet paper. Little does he know he's just lit the touchpaper to the powder-keg in front of him that's masquerading as a human being in itchy trousers.
Wham, bam, cops, sirens, screaming, shouting, Paul Reynolds in conniptions on the Nine O'Clock News, his dreams of the big time all come at once.
"He was a nice fella, " the neighbour will say of the Toll Booth Terror, as Anne Doyle nods sagely. "He used to go out with my Cecilia, always treated her right. If it wasn't for that bleedin' job, dey could have been very happy."
That said, I could be completely wrong. Sitting in a tollbooth may well be a Utopian idyll among jobs. In which case, I take it all back. Please don't come after me with a .22 rifle. It was only a joke. You can take a joke, can't you? Can't you?