I'm back and with meerkats

I haven't blogged in a while because I don't really have Internet at home. Or anything interesting to say. Also, I forgot my password. And then how Blogger works. In related news, I still drink a lot.

In the meantime, my colleague Carroll (who is actually a man. GO FIGURE.) started Bullshit Friday, where we randomly email each other bullshit until the other person is Bullshitted out. It takes a really long time. We are both filled to the brim with Bullshit.

For example:

ME:

"Dear Staff members, please find your free ticket attached for the upcoming Propak Exhibition. Print and distribute to your clients."

CARROLL:

"There is a pile of them at reception so you don't have to go print that one out...You know, for someone who loves stray animals so much, you show an alarming disregard for rainforests! What you have got against rain forests, Estelle?"

ME:

FACT: There are over 40 cancer-causing bacteria in the rainforest.

FACT: There are 500 species of animals that can kill you in the rainforest.

FACT: We need to stop the rainforest, before it kills us all.

CARROLL (who just returned from Bangkok):

PS… NOTHING is free. Parking at the CTICC costs the same as a liver transplant in Bangkok.

ME:

Did you have one while you were in Bangkok? Everyone could use a spare.

CARROLL:

No but I was offered an opportunity to perform a rhinoplasty on a she-male but declined because I had already had like 8 beers…

Missed opportinities...

ME:

And now you will always lie awake and wonder, “I wish I gave that transvestite hooker a nosejob when I had the chance…”

Last year, David and I had the opportunity to purchase two perfectly good donkeys for R500 from a dude in Wellington. I pointed out that with the petrol price and garden service fees being what they are, those donkeys would have paid for themselves by now…but he was all like“we don’t need donkeys”…and then I said, “well, I ended up not buying that set of taxidermied meerkats I wanted last week, so that saved us R600, so this is like making a profit… he was all like “that’s not how saving money works” and then we didn’t speak for a while.

This is why I never get ahead financially.

CARROLL:

That's ridiculous. I can think of at LEAST 7 good uses for a pair of taxidermied meerkats!

ME:

I mainly wanted to use it to scare off snakes and freak out my cats. What are the other five reasons?

CARROLL:

1. Re-enact the sex scene from "Team America"

2. Receive a disability grant from the government because you introduce them to people as ''your parents'''

3. Pair them off on either side of the bed with your taxidermied warthogs (cause they just look silly by themselves)

4. Hollow them out and convert into salt and pepper shakers

5. Mount one on either side of your car in the ''lookout'' position.

ME:

You forgot "meerkat lighters". Because nothing says "pleasure" like lighting up your pipe with a dead rodent. (See attached ad)

CARROLL: Wow.

ME:

One of us should probably get back to work. It's not gonna be me, though.

Porn isn't a currency. Although it should be.

I regularly troll the classifieds for things I don't need bargains and I found this gem:

I'm sorry. Porn is not a currency. I've never heard of the explorers swopping land with the Indians in exchange for illicit etchings.

Plastic. It's marketing kryptonite.

So, I went to an exhibition for Marketing Professionals today. I enjoyed it because all the other marketers were trying to sell their stuff and it’s virtually impossible to come up with a sales pitch for me.

SALES PEOPLE: “Hi, I’d like to tell you about our awesome new exhibition material stand/radio station/magazine that will really boost your business. What do you do?”

ME: “We make rigid extruded thermoplastic sheeting.”

SALES PEOPLE: “Um.”

ME: “Basically we take polymer beads and melt them and put them through a big machine and then it becomes a big, hard plastic sheet.”

SALES PEOPLE: “That’s interesting…”

ME: “Let’s talk about your ideas for a jingle!”

The New Cat is highly defective

The cat is extremely messed up.

Not only is it asthmatic and wheezes in a very judgmental and pathetic way when SuperDave lights up a smoke, he also pretends like he is starving every second of the day and eats bread, veggies, things that fall off the table, things that stick to the cutting board, things that I leave lying around, flies and the cardboard fluff that comes off the scratch post.

And if no one gets up at 4.15 exactly (which is when he opens his little demon eyes), he claws and cries until EVERYONE gets up. Naturally, everyone has told us “just ignore him” until he stops. That doesn’t WORK with this cat, people. When ignored, this cat simply flings himself from the second-storey balcony onto the golf course below like a high-rise victim trying to escape a factory fire. Then SuperDave has to run downstairs in the wee morning hours and spend at least half an hour trying to extract him from underneath various cars, cursing and inevitably waking the neighbors.

The reason the cat goes into hiding within seconds of his dramatic escape is because he is, not surprisingly, severely xeno- and agoraphobic. Once he gets outside he cowers fearfully in corners, making it seem like we have so relentlessly abused him that he fears all human contact. I can feel the neighbor’s judgmental eyes following us as we drag him back to the flat, nails digging into the asphalt, eyes rolling dramatically. (Of course, the minute we get him home he plunks down on my cushion and licks his balls like nothing happened. Ass.)

I think its karma for when I was little and used to scream, No, Mommy, no! and shield my face in a very cringing way when my mother wouldn’t buy me candy.

I suck at this!

I have not yet mastered adult reasoning.
In fact, I still barter with myself on a regular basis, e.g. do something mature…in exchange for spending the entire afternoon at work online shopping and buying pajama-jeans in three different color. It’s like my brain is this weird marketplace where scaly Portuguese men try to sell me junk to clutter up my home in exchange for coolie labor (much like the market in Greenmarket Square. I should totally go there this weekend. I haven’t bought a giant inflatable mallet in ages.)

For example, I cleaned the bathroom on Sunday. I even bought cleaning supplies! (SuperDave made me throw out my cleaning supplies when he saw how much mould was growing on the bottle of mould-remover). Don’t get me wrong: I love buying cleaning supplies. Lemony-scented kitchen wipes. Bathroom sprays. Oven cleaner. Those cans of dust spray that seem to do absolutely nothing to the furniture but smell really good in a toxicky kinda way…ah bliss. I could shop in that aisle for hours. I just don’t enjoy using them.

That being said, I scrubbed the tub, sink, faucets and toilet until it sparkled. For three seconds. The cat, who regularly pees on his own feet, likes to play in the bathroom right now. But even as I sat on the couch, thinking, I need to clean the tub again, my messed-up brain was telling me: “No, Essie. You washed the tub 3 days ago. You shouldn’t have to do it again today.” Then it got cocky: “You shouldn’t have to wash the tub EVER AGAIN.”

Every day when I pass that bathroom and think, I need to start being a motherf*cking adult and clean that thing, my brain tells me not to. After all, I did pay rent this month.

Does anyone else DO this? Here’s my list of subconscious payoffs:

ADULT ACT: Ate coucous for lunch
PAYOFF: Good job! You now may eat chicken waffles deep-fried in bacon grease covered in mayonnaise and blue cheese for dinner.

ADULT ACT: Completed assignment on time at work
PAYOFF: Good job! Now you can safely spend the next 7 ½ hours of the workday reading back posts of The Oatmeal and still feel productive.

ADULT ACT: Fed the cat
PAYOFF: Wow. That was hard. Don’t bother clean the litter tray. The poop will turn into dust eventually, thus becoming its own cat sand. It’s economical, really.

ADULT ACT: Paid the bills
PAYOFF: Let’s go gambling! You might get your rent money back!

ADULT ACT: Went to work
PAYOFF: Go to Monkeyland!

ADULT ACT: Bought life insurance
PAYOFF: Buy a ferret!

ADULT ACT: Invest money in shares
PAYOFF: Invest money in comic books!

Happy Birthday, Ouma!

My grandmother is turning 86 today! My grandma is awesome for a number of reasons.

1) She still lives by herself in a little house, which is amazing considering that she is legally blind and still fearlessly crosses the road all by herself. When pressed about when she'll move out of the little house into some sort of assisted care facility, she always says, "When I'm dead, you can take my corpse anywhere you want to."

2) She had six kids.

3) When I was small, she hit me over the head with a rolled up magazine for backtalking to my mother and told me I was a "bloody bitch". I was instantly in awe of her because I didn't know that old people swore.

4) For saying, "You are too thin. Get fat like your cousin", and then pointing at my cousin.

5) For telling the people on Bold & The Beautiful who to have sex with because she didn't want the actors she liked hooking up with "the mean ones".

6) For saying, "Halleleujah" when I told her I was getting divorced.

7) For letting all of us stay at her house whenever we're in the area and then having sandwiches ready when we get there.

8) Because she believed in letting kids sort out their own problems. In fact, she would let her boys move the beds out of the bedroom so that they can beat each other up rather than keep her awake with their arguing.

9) For pulling the BEST practical jokes, baking the best cookies and painstakingly cooking vats of apricot jam every year as long as I can remember. And back when her eyesight was good, she used to knit me these woolen socks to sleep in that I first hated getting for Christmas and then adored and then missed more than I ever thought I would.

10) For introducing herself to our boyfriends: "What's your name? Nevermind, I won't remember. These girls have so many of you young guys coming and going..."

With my aunt, uncle & cousins having a dignified cup of coffee

I love you, Ouma, and hope you have a great day :)

You may or may not be birdbrained...

Because I have terrible sense of direction, I always prepare whenever I have to drive somewhere. This week, Dave and I are going to some adreline-weekend-4x4 event that requires you to drive off-road and hike places. (I’ll be spending the day in the beer tent. Thank you for asking.)
I printed a map at work and gave him the directions. He glanced it at vaguely. “Thanks.”

“Keep it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I know exactly where it is.”

“Have you been there before?”

“No, but I’ve already committed the map to memory.”

“You didn’t even look at it!”

“Don’t need to.”

(Pause) “Did the government implant a chip in your brain when you were in the military?”

Glare.

“Are you sure you don’t remember a time when you maybe woke up in a lab with bandages wrapped around your head and no recollection of where you’ve been the day before?”

Glare.

“OK, but just THINK about it…”

NOTE: I’m always messing crumbs around the house and yet when I get home they are GONE. The only logical explanation is that SuperDave is in fact part homing-pigeon, part-man.

NOTE: Or maybe someone sweeps.

NOTE: Paranoia isn’t so bad. At least I’m PRETTY sure I have all of my own brain. Of course, if someone erased your memory, you wouldn’t remember. So we have every REASON to be paranoid.