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.

Taking a hike

I found pictures of the hike me and Dave took in December. It wasn't much fun because I have the outdoor skills of Paris Hilton. And the fitness of her Chihuahua. Plus it rained so our idea of having a picnic by the waterfalls turned into...taking our lunch for a cold, wet walk.

"Don't touch the brown dog"

 Dave totally touched the brown dog.

The rainbow made it worth it.

Does it say Animal Shelter on my door or what?

The gay Pakistani gentlemen that lives in my complex brought dropped off a little present. His name is Panthera, and he is a three-month kitten. Apparently the rightful owners were neglectful, so he decided to give him to us. We’ve got a reputation for stealing other people’s pets because the people below us has a cat that drinks out of our toilet from time to time and also because SuperDave rescued an Alsatian and kept it in the flat while he waited for Animal Rescue. He also subsequently rescued the Alsatian after it fell in the pool in its excitement to get to the flat…At first I was nervous because you can't just allow waves of homosexual Eastern men bringing you animals and we aren't technically allowed to have pets but he is very sweet and well-behaved.

I bought him a little ball yesterday that goes “Glinga-glinga” when he swats it. He loves the sound and was absolutely adorable when started chasing it at about 5 pm when I got home.

Of course, at 3 am when all you can hear is Glingaglingaglingaglingaglingaglingaglingaglinga…the cute factor is reduced.



I'm not sure exactly what I do but it's not good

My professional goal is to figure out exactly what I do. I know my company manufactures Abcryl, ABS and other plastics. But I'm not exactly sure what that is. So I spent a day googling.

Something to keep on file just in case your boss accuses you of googling porn at work

See, it was perfectly innocent :)

Volunteerism: Fuck it.

I surprised and disgusted everyone when I failed to volunteer to go to Johannesburg for a conference next week. I know they all expected me to, but I didn’t.

BOSS: “…and there will be a conference next week, and I need one of the marketing people to go with me. Estelle?”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “Don’t you want to be a jetsetter?”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “Don’t you want to meet the CEO?”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “It’ll be good for your career.”

ME: “They always say that. But it never comes true. And then you are overworked and underpaid and also in Johannesburg.”

BOSS: “Come on…”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “Wouldn’t you rather see the world than be stuck in the office?”

ME: “I would rather grow testicles and have midgets repeatedly punch me in them before I go to Johannesburg for no goddamn reason.”

OK, I didn’t actually say that last part. But I hate air travel. Here’s why.

1. Getting at the airport 2 hours ahead of the flight as advised, checking in within 2 minutes and then spending the other 118 minutes aimlessly milling around the deserted airport, buying overpriced drinks from stores you do not like.
2. Lady sitting next to you talking to you for the entire duration of the flight.
3. Lady sitting next to you breastfeeding for the entire duration of the flight.
4. Fat man arm on your shoulder.
5. Removing your laptop and shoes and belt and change and cellphone and chucking it in the little bin while impatient people crowd up behind you.
6. Crappy movies. The last time I flew the TV broke and Prince of Persia started playing and I had to sit there helplessly while it happened to me.
7. Being unable to get my shampoo and deodorant into 30ml bottles and having it leak over my clothes in my luggage.
8. The four in-flight food groups: white meat (of some kind), hard rice, powdered something (just add water to enjoy your delicious eggs/mashed potatoes/chocolate milk/soy burger), and that juice in a plastic tub that will never expire, no matter what you do to it.
9. People who stand up in the window seats when the plane lands EVEN THOUGH there is no way they are leaving the plane within the next 10 minutes.
10. Possibility of death in horrible fiery crash.

What do you hate most about flying? Or Johannesburg? Either one is fine.

Top Ten Lies My Mother told me as a Child

If you are in your 20s, you’ve probably figured out that your parents have lied to you your whole life. I’m not even talking about Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. These are mere trifles. My mother has come up with brilliant, gypsy-like, oddball wisdom over the years which surely – had I been any less stable-minded than I already am – would have resulted in a total nervous breakdown/school shooting/bombing of some kind as an adult.

1. “If you don’t wash your hair, pumpkins will grow in it and it will get too heavy for your head and will fall off.”
2. “If you sit on a table, you will never be able to get a husband. Well, I don’t care what you think. I never sat on tables and I have a husband.”
3. “Chewing gum is made out of old, melted tyres. If you swallow it, they will knot your guts together. And you will STARVE.”
4. “Don’t pull faces. If you pull faces and someone rings the doorbell, it will stay like that forever. Seriously. I know people like that.”
5. “If you fail your English test, the government will make a record of it in your permanent file and you will never be able to get a job. You’ll have to work in a sewage plant for ten hours a day and sleep in a box. I’m just saying.”
6. “Don’t swallow the pips [of the watermelon]. It grows into a plant in your stomach. Its your choice, but those plants get pretty big.”
7. “Wash your hands after you’ve been to the store. People spit on the cans and then you touch them and get germs.”
8. “Just put half a potato on your wart and bury it at night. It’ll fall off…no, I don’t know how it works. It just does.”
9. “I don’t know where babies come from. You weren’t a baby. You were a baboon your dad and I caught and shaved. Why?...I don’t know why. But doesn’t it explain a lot?”
10. “Lock your car door! If you leave it unlocked, a hobo will grab you out of the car and run away when we stop at the traffic light.”

Please share your favorite parental bullshit memories below.

Happy Valentine's Day

So far the day has been surprisingly unsucky...I received roses and a card, a chocolate heart and a depressed looking teddybear impaled on a plastic rose. (That last one was a gift from the receptionist, who wanted to do my astrological chart this morning. I would have totally let her do it but I want to work her for at least three months before letting them all know how strange I am.)
Managed to move in over the weekend with the help of SuperDave. Actually, he didn't so much "help" me as "totally do the whole thing while I slept." (He tried piling boxes on top of me in protest, but I didn't wake up for that. But that explains why I've been having weird dreams about being a hobo.) I even managed to de-virus my computer but now it keeps bringing up this weird pop-up asking me "Do you want more privacy?" which makes me suspect that the computer suspects I am viewing copious amounts of porn at work. And that it's judging me.

If your Valentine's Day is more sucky, here's a lovely vintage card for you which proves that gay people have been around since the 20s:

Yes. Nothings says I love you like a fat cop waving a dildo threatening to cop a feel. Happy Valentine's Day!

My drunk accounting face looks sad...

So, I went for an interview at this company that works with rigid plastic sheeting and apparently got the job. Rigid plastic sheeting sounds boring but I was so desperate for employment I literally read up everything there is to know about things like polyprophalyne and how to use plastic roofing to let natural light in through your ceiling and had a long, animated discussion with the interviewer about it but then he stopped me short by asking me about Kanji.

PS. I had forgotten I put "speaks basic Japanese" on my resume.
PPS. It's true.
PPPS. Well, it used to be true. In addition to forgetting I had put it on my resume, I had forgotten how to speak it. Damn.
PPPPS. Then I realized that the interviewer doesn't speak any Japanese so I just made up a lot of bullshit to impress him. I apologize to the Japanese people for misrepresenting your culture, etc. If you are Japanese and feel raw about it, call me and I'll take you out for sushi. You guys like that, right?

Anywayyyyy, I took Dave out for a beer cause it was hot and he was my begrudging navigator ("So where exactly is your interview?" "Um...I dunno." "What's the company called?" "Um...Plastic...Something?") and then the recruitment agent called me all excited and told me that the job was 99,9% mine and the guy loved me. 99.9% is good odds so we decided to get 99.9% drunk and celebratory.

Eventually I got home but I spent the entire night yacking up my celebratory liquid diet and only got to sleep at 4 am. Dave was not impressed. ("Are you asleep?" "I was. It's 3 am" "I need you to drive me to the hospital" "You are FINE! You're just drunk!" "I never get drunk. This is serious. I probably have cancer!" "GO TO SLEEP" "FINE! BUT YOU WILL BE SORRY WHEN YOU ROLL MY DEAD CORPSE OUT OF BED TOMORROW!")

Side note: Dave was right. I was just drunk. Who would have thought.

Anyway, I got woken up at 8 am by my prospective employer, who said that in order to secure the remaining 0.01% needed to secure the job, all I had to do was prepare a report on the accounting theory of constraints. As in, now.

Drunk accounting at 8 am

Full of bravado at having mastered the plastic industry in under 24 hours, I immediately responded with "That's no problem. There is literally nothing I don't know about the Theory of Constraints."

Looking back, this was not an accurate representation of what I remember about the theory of constraints (nothing).

But I managed to do it. And now know more about costing and management accounting drunk than most people do sober. If that doesn't impress prospective employers, I don't know what will.

Visit Dave's site. Or he'll shoot you.

SuperDave has started up his own blog - http://www.camelmandave.blogspot.com/. It's a blog for butch manly men who like manly pursuits. Like driving around in nature in a big Landrover. And log-throwing. I don't know. But you should read it. Your man card points automatically increase by 5 if you do.

Weedie died

SuperDave killed my cat Sweeney's best friend.
It sounds bad, but it isn't, considering that Sweeney's best friend is a weed growing in our porch. (Yes, even my cat is a loser.)

He did it to avenge our new leather couch, which Sweeney maliciously destroyed for NO GODDAMN APPARENT REASON. But later he felt bad and replanted it.

You know you are treating a pet like a real, human child when you feed him, cuddle him, buy him his own toys and when he grows up - you take his weed away.

This post is long but I am unemployed and have nothing else to write about except daytime TV and crippling depression. Trust me, this is better

Recently I've been watching this show called Army wives. It's a bunch of bull. The dialogue is completely unrealistic. It's just normal people that wear camo gear and talk about their feelings. In real life, it's very different. For example: Whatever minute crummy thing happens to me, has already happened to SuperDave twice...but with Nazis shooting at him. Not to mention living with his overwhelming COMPETENCE at 8 am when I am still sitting on the foot of my bed surveying the room with bleary eyes trying to gather up enough willpower to drag the slippers closer with my big toe and he’s already jogged 20 km and saved his second busload of orphans teetering over the edge of a cliff. Or something similar - I wouldn't know, I never get up before 10 am.

Anyhoo, this is how I would re-write the dialogue to make it more realistic:

ARMY WIFE: “So what was the army like?”
ARMY GUY: “That’s classified.”

ARMY WIFE: “I’m having a problem with my friend. She’s being mean.”
ARMY GUY: “Someone in my unit was mean to me once. I shot him.”

ARMY WIFE: “Got you a Colonel Burger.”
ARMY GUY: “That burger is at the very best a sergeant-major.”

ARMY WIFE: “You don’t know what it’s like being stabbed in the back...”
ARMY GUY: “Yes I do. With a bayonet. See, I have the scar RIGHT here. But no, your friend telling everyone at the party that you were the one who threw up over the rosebushes...that’s awful.”

ARMY WIFE: “Have you ever travelled abroad?”
ARMY GUY: “The official statement I am required to give is...no."

ARMY WIFE: “I cut my finger!”
ARMY GUY: “I once had 10 pieces of shrapnel in my legs while I was carrying two legless men through a minefield...then I floated above my own body towards the blinding white light. You have a papercut. Stop whining.”

ARMY WIFE: “Oh, no, thank you, I don’t eat pork.”
ARMY GUY: “I once had to eat my own foot to survive. But you’re right. Pork sucks.”

ARMY WIFE: “My trip sucked. It rained all weekend.”
ARMY GUY: “Yes, I went to that country once. Killer ninjas fired at me, and put bamboo shoots up my fingernails. But no, I’m sorry the hotel overcooked your eggs in the morning. That’s MUCH worse.”

ARMY GUY: “What are you doing?
ARMY WIFE: “Blogging.”
ARMY GUY: “Stop putting classified information on the Internet!”
ARMY WIFE: “Well, all the GOOD stuff is classified.”

(Ok, that last one was a direct quote from SuperDave.) Kudos, Army friends.

Oh let them eat cake...(and by "them", I mean "me"!)

I am still grievously unemployed. Apparently no one is yet ready to behold the marketing glory that is me. Let me summarize the extremely frustrating interview experiences thus far.

EMPLOYER: "This job only pays R6000 per month...it says here you've already earned more than that?"

ESSIE: "Yes, that's right. I am willing to work for less."

EMPLOYER: "I am sorry, we cannot accept your application."

ESSIE: "Why not?"

EMPLOYER: "You want too little money."

ESSIE (long pause): "Um...isn't that my problem?"

EMPLOYER: "If we hire you, you will leave us to earn more money. You should just find a job that pays a salary closer to what you are used to."

ESSIE: "The whole reason I am APPLYING for your shitty low-paying job is because I can't find ANY form of work that pays what I'm used to."

EMPLOYER: "We do offer wonderful unpaid internships."

ESSIE: "How is NO money better than a little bit of money?"

EMPLOYER: "If you accept this wonderful unpaid internship, you will work with us 5 days a week plus overtime and will learn a lot with the possibility of advancement to management. Eventually."

ESSIE: "I don't want to be a wonderful unpaid intern. I want to pay my rent."

EMPLOYER: "It is a wonderful growth opportunity."

ESSIE: "If you want someone who will work hard for free, you should have changed your ad from "Marketing Assistant, 3-5 yrs experience wanted" to "Gullible idiots who believe they will actually be promoted and given real grownup money soon apply here"."

EMPLOYER: "We cannot hire you. You look prone to violence. Please leave."

The good news is, I have virtually no standards left and will literally take any job I am offered. My unique skill set includes yoghurt making, cat grooming, garden gnome sculpting and the ability to destroy virtually any electronic device I am given, much like a human EMP. Oh, and 5 years' worth of marketing and PR experience and a degree from a substandard university. Let me know!

Once again yeast infection medication makes me laugh

I was in the bathroom at the Paarl Mall this morning and noticed this piece of advertising brilliance: Yeast Infection? Don't beat around the Bush...

I wish I had become a vagina medicine marketer. I would have such...POTENTIAL for greatness.