The misery of The Hobbit

Yeah, so I went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  It's an event innit?  Going to be one of those films that goes down in history as a famous epic.  I think I enjoyed it but my initial one word review had been

'meh...'

...which is wrong.  I wondered why a film which had immersed me so deeply would cause such a shrug shouldery reaction in response.  Then I realised; I'd been too immersed and had gone mental (as usual). Yup, my unhelpful inner voice had ruined the whole fucking thing for me by making me over think.

On the whole, the film had too much happening, from being chased by various hoards of 'things' to being in the middle of angry fucking rocks beating ten kinds of shit out of each other.  I just know that had I been part of the adventurous group I'd have made the whole thing a hundred times worse for everyone.  That's what my brain does, puts me in the middle of stuff but not in a cool way, in an all too real way until the majesty of the thing is ruined.

Of course, after the film my freakish mind had left me feeling a bit traumatised 'cause there was SO much that would have made me mental had I been part of the company. Yeah, I'd be there fancying the arse off Thorin (Richard Armitage) and Kili (Aidan Turner) but I would have wanted them to have seen me as mysterious, windswept and interesting but then I can't do that stuff 'cause I tend to over-share pretty much EVERYTHING that ever happens to me as well as every sodding thought I have.

You can't be mysterious after you've just told a group of Dwarves that you had just had a shit which felt like it had come out sideways.  I'd like to think I wouldn't say stuff like that but y'know, I probably would.  I still tell people I found a dead squashed ant in my pubes once and that was over 10 years ago!  I won't even start with the whole being accidentally startled by my own vagina that time.

Oh yeah.  I just need to say that as a bona fide lady I don't shit or have pubes.  I have no unpleasant bodily functions and forever smell like roses.  I do genuinely go for the Kojak look nowadays so if my pubes had ant killing qualities then I am like a Goddess to them now.  Or an ant Saint.  That'd be shit wouldn't it; Saint Sket of the ants and the story tells how she rid the ants of the tangled murderous, slightly odoriferous jungle of doom and led them to peace and freedom.  Why would I even type that into a blog?  THIS is why I am destined to forever be alone. I bet that arse Samuel Pepys never wrote about dead ants in his nethers. No, he'd be too wrapped up documenting the history of his age and telling future generations about life in his day. Well, I put it to you Mr Samuel bloody Pepys if that's even your real name, the people of MY future want to know about shitting and being a moron in the 21st Century.  Oh yes.  HELL to the yes!

...back to the misery of  Hobbit.  No doubt I wouldn't have been able to find the shoes I wanted to wear and that would be another thing.  See, ol' Bilbo didn't have much warning and if it had been me I'd have wanted to know what kind of weather we'd be expecting.  I mean, who wants to lumber a big fuck-off coat around with them if it's going to be warm - we've all been there and it's a misery.  Also, I wouldn't have expected to need running shoes to escape from all the hoards of ugly stuff trying to kill me!  Who'd even think that?  I'd have put hiking boots on and they rub like all fuckery don't they? There are no blister plasters in Middle Earth, mark my words! Oh god my hair too - it's naturally curly but not in a nice way, in a tangley bird nest way.  It needs proper conditioning or else it just turns into a big horrible mess.  THAT'S not sexy and no way to pull Kili is it? I got a Cockatiel's feet stuck in my hair once and a gerbil another time. I'm vegetarian too but I don't like onions.  I'd have been a right misery just banging on and on about my arse hurting on my hairy pony, being hungry, not being able to see 'cause I didn't bring enough contact lenses with me, my hair being a mess, being paranoid that Thorin and Kili were actively trying to keep their distance from me, being borderline hysterical 'cause things were attacking us and once we'd escaped SOMETHING ELSE having a go at killing us.  I'd have shin splints from all the running and heck, I'm not fit enough for all this shit. I'd have also been the one complaining that the giant Eagles should have taken us to our final destination not just dumping us on a rock where we could just SEE the fucking mountain.  Lazy feathered bastards.  Yeah, and in Lord of the Rings, if Gandalf had access to giant fuck off eagles, why didn't he get them to give Frodo and Sam a friggin lift straight to Mount Doom? Yeah, it would have shortened the trilogy quite significantly but that's not the point.  I'd have been bloody livid.

So yeah, I think, between you and me, my Wizardly and Dwarven companions would have turned on me themselves after a day.

...and that's why I didn't enjoy The Hobbit as much as I should have

Anti-Christ Kettner

The conversation kinda went like this:

...Oh, I need to say there is a bit of over-sharing at the beginning and for that I apologise.

...back to the conversation.  It kinda went like this:

ME: Oy, I'm late for my [insert female monthly biological process].  I'm never late so clearly I MUST BE PREGNANT!

Colleague: ...but you haven't had sex have you?

Me:  Well, no but there can be no other explanation can there? Blimey, I'm actually going to be a Mother!

Colleague: ...so are you telling me it's the Second Coming and that you are in fact carrying the new Messiah or something?

Me: Faaaack, yeah I'll be FAMOUS.......hang on though, isn't the Second Coming supposed to be the anti-Christ?

Colleague: ....erm, I dunno.

Me: I'm almost certain that the Second Coming is supposed to be bad in some way.  It's supposed to herald the end of the World or something........do you think I'd still qualify for Child Benefit?

Colleague: ?

Me: Well,  if I gave birth to a kid who heralded the end of the world I'm guessing everyone would be massively pissed off and I might get denied my rightful entitlements!!!

Colleague: Erm, I don't think the Benefit Agency would be allowed to discriminate and, well,  it would be up to them to prove that your kid was going to bring about the end of the World as we know it.  I'd be inclined to not offer up that kind of information if I were you.

Me: YEAH! ....and if it turns out he's red or something I might be able to qualify for some kinds of disability benefit for him.  How funny would it be to push yer red kid about in a pram and watch all the other mothers and old ladies recoil in horror.  Oh God, I hope he has head horns too, that would be hysterical.

...Of course, at this point I got lost in thought at the prospect of my bald red child.  I kinda hoped he would get the head horns.  Oh God, what if he had HOOVES!  Where would I even be able to get shoes for the poor little fucker, I'd have to get him shod but then Children's Services might have something to say about me getting someone to nail metal onto his feet.  I'm a bit of an old hippy and I'd want to dress my child 'Anti Christ' up in tie dye and ecologically friendly clothing but I guess that'd be a bit of a piss take if he's going to end everything.  There'd be no point in following any worthy causes.  Then again,  me being me I'd probably accidentally instil in him a cracking sense of procrastination and inherent laziness.  I mean, who can be arsed to bring about the end of the world when there are pyjamas to be worn and beds to slob around in.  Ending the world sounds a whole load of energy, planning and evil.  I can do the evil (I had to sack my Lettings Agent recently and I could hear myself being a bastard to him - actually I'll tell you about that in a minute).  So yeah, for all my personality faults I'd actually become the ultimate heroine who does genuinely save the entire planet!  Let no one diss my extreme slobbery, lack of motivation and ability to convincingly look dead when I don't want to do something.  All of this will be YOURS my son!  I hope my inevitable worshippers embrace my bed based philosophy.

*****Ok, quickly - the idiot Lettings guy - let's call him Jonathan, has taken 2 months to tell me that people like the size of the upstairs of the house but think the downstairs is too small.  He didn't seem to get it when I pointed out they are exactly the same fucking size.  Anyhoo, I returned to the house which is on the other side of the country to me only to discover huge spots of black oil all over the newly cleaned carpet.  I called him up

"Jonathan, I don't know who you've been showing around my house; the fucking Tin Man or some kind of leaking Android but there is black oil all over the carpet and I'm actually livid"

"Erm, it was probably a bird which had flown down the chimney"

"What, and then it flew vertically back up again?  Stop shitting me Jonathan"

The upshot was he tried to blame some mystery person who might have had keys to the place.  That person could only have been me as there were no other keys out there.  Why do people try to treat me like I've had a brain injury?  Sorry, did I pull up in a Sunshine Coach and start licking the windows?  No, so take your fucking sign down and give me the keys back.  The new Lettings company have found someone within a week.  (shakes head in wonderment)


and that's it.  Oh yeah, I wouldn't REALLY call my son 'Anti-Christ'  He'd definitely get beaten up every day at school and that might fill him with a feeling of rage and vengeance which might undo my laziness training.  I'd probably call him Trevor.  I don't like the name but you would NEVER read about an evil entity called Trevor

Star Trek and other inappropriate musings

So, I share a house with a sci fi 'anorak' which translates as  sci fi dork.  She particularly loves Star Trek Next Generation and it has become apparent that I have absorbed some of her 'anorak-icity' through some sort of osmosis. I'm guessing I've accidentally seen too much and have already started to worry and concern myself with stupid crap.  My concerns/thoughts include:

• Worf the Klingon - I was looking at Worf's head arrangement and in particular the great fucking crack thing down the centre of it.  C'mon, that HAS to attract dirt and debris   How does it get clean? It's a pretty tight face crack and well, I guess it can't be easily cleaned which would suggest it spawns bacteria and therefore stinks.  The thought of it and the face-cheese which must grow in it actually makes me feel a bit sick.  He's a big bloke and I've already inappropriately thought about the enormous Klingon dick he probably has but hell, who wants that when his face stinks like sour milk?  Klingon's? They can fuck right off!

• Deanna Troi - a right bleedin' liability!  If anyone is going to become possessed, and she is pretty much possessed every week,  and try to kill the rest of the crew it's going to be her.  I'd tell her to fuck right off if she tried to counsel me. Her boobs are too hard and sticky out any way.

• Being a general pleb on board - Every. Single. Epsiode the ship ends up going to red alert with all the alarms going off.  I recently got lost in thought wondering how I would feel as just a general worker pleb type crew member wandering around doing shit low level work on board.  Every other fucking day the alarm goes off - you'd be a nervous wreck wouldn't you?  I'd be weeping like a shitty baby, my hand would be a claw, I'd be bald and I'd be too terrified of the Ship's possessed counsellor to get any therapy.  I suspect I wouldn't be cut out for Star Fleet.  I could hear my pitiful voice whining  "....fucking hell, the alarms are going off again" and then picturing myself running up and down the corridor screaming that we were all about to die. Of course, I'd have been wrong - the new bloke on the Bridge would die and everyone else would be safe.  Fuck, that's one promotion you wouldn't want isn't it?

In other inappropriate musings, I was advised, at 8:34am that I had dried dinner on my clothes.  There's nothing like caring about your appearance eh?  Later on, as I was fuelling my car, I noticed the CCTV and started to worry about how I would look on the news if this was the last sighting of me.  The sci fi anorak would have to give a description of me to police which would include food stained clothes and an over-sized Parker coat which makes me look like I'm off on a polar expedition.  When they find my body they'll also discover I am wearing Cookie Monster drawers.  I would go down in history not as a sexy young thing but as a fucking Crazy Cat Lady in the making.  I then worried about what the Coroner would list as my stomach contents and wondered whether it would be read out in the Court - I'd chewed up a false nail and eaten the dried glue, I'd also eaten part of a plastic robot, crisps, goats cheese, cake, sweets, diet coke (how dare I?) and some porridge.  Fuck me, if it's found that I hadn't been murdered it would most likely be registered that I'd died of fucking Scurvy or Ricketts.  A shameful and pitiful diet.  When I got home I ate some lettuce just so they'd find SOMETHING green inside me.  Of course, I hope I don't end up murdered or dead in a weird and bizarre manner but you have to be prepared.  I'll tell you about my hiding places should an armed madman burst into the house next time.....

IT LIVES

Yes, it's been a while hasn't it?  A bloody long while but heck, here I am back like a bad penny.  What is a bad penny any way?  Don't answer that, I just Googled it and apparently it's a counterfeit penny that you need to try to dump on someone else sharpish.  There you go, bet that nobber Pepys was never as informative as this!  Then again, he'd have been on the ball and given an accurate historical account of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.  I can't be arsed - we've got telly now; Future People - watch that!

So, where have I been? Well, I sort of went totally mental and had a break down complete with medical intervention.  Yay me - I guess we all have to lose our minds at some time.  Fortunately I've now swapped the Prozac for this:

-  Derek

 Yeah, Derek.  I am currently in the process of re-launching the ol' stalled due to madness comedy career with this bald freak as my partner. Here's the plan; I'm learning ventriloquism so we can argue and he can voice a re-jigged version of my inner arsehole posts from over here.  I figure your pets see the stuff you wouldn't want anyone to know and if I can get him to wear a foil hat with an antenna we'll be cooking on gas!  This plan is almost as good as my worm farm one.  Yeah, that was the plan to have a Sketty's Eco-Worm Emporium bucket of worms in EVERY household.  Problem was, when my own worms arrived I very nearly shit myself - they weren't the passive lovely brownish calm English worms I was used to - they were ANGRY looking red things from Australia.  Fuck me, I almost had nightmares, and so ended my dream of becoming a millionaire worm farmer...

So, I'm guessing you nosy bunch of buggers want to know what caused the ol' breakdown.  Well, I'll try to tell you in such a way so as not to sound too much like a drag.  In fact, let me quickly post another picture of Derek to make you laugh first:

...Well, I went back home at Christmas knowing my Mother was feeling a bit tired and crappy so it would be a quiet affair.  She was dead within a month.  Shocking enough in itself but we'd been to Niagara and New York visiting rellies in October and she'd been fine.  Cancer.  So that left me with no parents, no siblings, no bloke or kids of my own.  It's a sobering moment to realise you are, in essence, totally alone in the world.  Hang on, before this gets too maudlin let's have a Derek break...

Greedy thieving little bleeder

So, here we are - a diary of comedic musings and I've just killed the mood.  Ok, I am happy to share the funny side of the death of my Mother with you.  I tried to do this before now but at last I am ready and I hope people can appreciate that whilst death is tragic for those left behind, in all darkness there is humour to be found.  My top 3 moments of misery laughter, in reverse order:

3.  When I was finally told that the end was near myself and 3 of my cousins held an overnight vigil.  We'd been told there were probably only hours left so we sat alert around the medical bed which was downstairs in the living room.  We were waiting for the end to come and so spent hours reminiscing about funny family shit to pass the time. As the night drew on and we all got more and more tired the talk ran out until we were all just sitting in the semi darkness in silence.  It was tense, detecting every change in her breathing and holding her hand.  Suddenly the silence was punctuated by the sound of THE most enormous fart I've ever heard.  There was a gasp of horror as the other 3 people in the room looked from my Mother to the only guy in the room who was looking sheepish. 

"Oh my God, RAY!"

"Erm, I don't even know what happened, it just sort of came from nowhere.  I almost feel I was possessed"

"Possessed by a fart?"

"Well yeah, perhaps Grandad's spirit is here and took over my body....."

Not only was that THE single worst excuse for a fart that I have ever heard, if true, it is one possession they never experienced on Most Haunted.  After the solemn atmosphere had been broken,  one by one the remaining Watchers felt able to let off gigantic farts of their own.  We prayed that my Mother was in a sleeping state and could neither hear nor smell the room in which she lay.  It was terrible, our eyes were stinging, our nasal passages were burnt and we had been laughing at each and every arse trumpet that came out.  It was like a scene from Blazing Saddles.  Farts are so funny, even during tragically sad times. My Mother would have loved being heralded to the next life by a host of heavenly farts.....

2.  Just before things got too bad my Mother spent a lot of time sleeping on the sofa in the living room.  I'd lay sprawled on the floor lost in my own misery watching TV.  One night the comedy channel I'd been watching ended and I couldn't be bothered to reach that extra few inches to grab the TV remote control to find something else to watch.  To my horror an 'Info-mercial' started and I was trapped and forced to watch it!  Here's the thought process of a grieving person watching an info-mercial:

"Fucking Zumba........Zumba can fuck right off..........?........hmmmm they're dancing like they're in Dirty Dancing......fucking Zumb-that's quite cool actually........she used to be FAT?.......wow, look at her......it tightens your core muscles and pulls in your stomach?......AND it lifts your tits?......doing work out DVDs at home is sad....then again, what else do I have to do all day?....Awwww, look at my poor Mom sleeping.....Y'know, I could do this stuff 'cause she sleeps pretty much all day....(lost in reverie at visions of myself moving like the staff kids in Dirty Dancing when Baby first sees them....hell, I'm so thin!  I'm smiling!  I'm HOT).......what, if I buy it tonight I get loads of extra things?......weights.......A BHANGRA dance work out?........."

That simple offer ended the reverie for me.  My Mother had become much more intolerant of many things - especially racial as she got older.  I  was struck by a vision of  her waking from the peace of the sleep her poor body had provided only to find her daughter enthusiastically bhangra dancing in the house - doing the whole arm and hand movement stuff!  She'd have thought she had died and gone to her own personal hell or was having some sort of morphine induced nightmare!  I still laugh at the thought of me - so white and without rhythm - dancing with real enthusiasm and a big smile all dressed up in brightly coloured clothes from the Punjab whilst my mother watched on in horror.

...I was bloody good too (in my own mind)

1.  Ok, this is the ultimate nightmare death of a loved one scenario but you know something?  I can laugh now.  We're going back to the vigil group.  The nights were made up of the 4 cousins and the days had other family members coming and going.  Despite having been given just hours to live my darling Mother lasted a few days.  This toe curling nightmare happened at her death.  Oh God, WHO would be a family member or pet of mine...... 

The core group had their places and as the tiredness grew we all, at certain times dropped off to sleep but tried to ensure that someone was always awake should the end come.  There were bars on the bed and I fell asleep with my face on the bar and woke up looking like I'd been in some sort of industrial accident at one point.  This wasn't the nightmare, just something I remembered.  My cousin Lisa had bought a sun lounger in from the garden shed to lie/sit on at one side of the medical bed.  We'd also got dining chairs and other bits of stuff to sit on.  No one could really get comfortable but we didn't care.  Day had come and the core 4 refused to leave.  Of course I was one of them and so I was going nowhere but the other 3 had invested so much time and emotion into staying up with Mom that no one wanted to go anywhere in case the time came.  That said, we all got up and stretched our legs etc. when other people turned up.  It was about mid-day and a few people were there.  I came back into the room and noticed that my Mom's eyes were opening very slightly.  Letting out a gasp I  loudly told everyone that I thought she was waking up.  Everyone in the house came running over to the bed but the second I'd called out I realised that her eyes were opening a little because her muscles were relaxing as death took her.  I ran straight to the side of the bed and leapt onto the sun lounger. 

...only, I landed knee first with my full weight at the edge right where the spring is attached to the frame.  The spring shot away from the frame and I was catapulted head first into the face of my dying mother.  As this happened I screamed

"FUCKING HELL!!!!"  

Yeah, I shouted 'FUCKING HELL' right into the face of my Mother as she was gasping her last.  I then burst into tears, held her hand and wept loudly (and comically) "I'm so sorry I shouted fucking hell at you Mom, I didn't mean it".  It was like something out of a bad comedy.  She then died, the peaceful atmosphere everyone had striven to create with pleasantly scented oil burners and the comforting music of Andrea Bocelli in the background being drowned out by an idiot Brummie with a voice like a fog horn screaming profanities in the poor woman's face just as she left this mortal plane.  Nothing like moving on to the next life in peace is there?

Like I say, WHO'D be a relative, friend or pet of mine eh?  No wonder I went mental.

Bye Mom, I miss the fuck out of you......

BTW: There have been many things which have amused me over the past 7 months of which I'd wanted to write only I felt I had to explain my absence first and I didn't have the strength to do it.  Now I've got all this off my chest I can resume normal business.  Hope I haven't depressed the shit out of you.

The Rules of Prostitution

I'm going to apologise for this blog entry in advance.  I've done some quality over-thinking in a sort of 'out of the box' kind of way and it has lead me into a bizarre and inappropriate direction.

Again, sorry.....

Basically I am absolutely stony broke at the moment.  Depressingly broke in fact.  I had somewhat of a tantrum this morning as I left the house, and yelled up to my Tidiness Nazi of a house mate that I may just have to become a prostitute.

I've said it in grumpy jest before but today, in a full on grumpy mood and driving to work, I started to over think the implications of the major life shift I'd so casually bandied about in conversation.   How does one just become a prostitute any way?  I reflected that I could just hang around the docks, only the local ferry workers will have only been at sea for half an hour.  I'm guessing that this wouldn't therefore make any of them desperate enough to want to pay the likes of me.

...and how much would one charge any way?

I am a Stand Up so am hardly naive but I really don't know how much prostitutes charge and whether they have a going rate which adjusts to being down South.  I mean, I'd expect to charge one thing for a bit of a fiddle and something completely different for something more, erm..... 'involved' but y'know, you've gotta be competitive within the market.

How would one carry out market research into the working operations of one's competition?  I mean, I couldn't just go up to random blokes in the street and do a survey. I guess it would be even worse if I approached random women to ask if they were or had ever been a prostitute.  I was talking to my 'mental health twin' work colleague about it and was strangely comforted when she said she had considered and worried about the same issues (we're so alike it's frightening, it really is....)

...actually, I have to say - my mental health twin work colleague horrified me recently by getting cured!  There I was enjoying a bit of  hypochondria expecting her to join in with stories of lying awake in the wee hours just waiting for death due to some random and bizarre head twinge or something but she didn't!  She'd had CBT and had been taught to stop 'CATASTROPHISING' everything!  How rude - the biggest part of my existence is made up of over thinking pretty much everything to one of two final ends - my death or eventual ruin.  I am comfortable with these fears and actually once had a jolt when I realised I had nothing in my life to worry about.

...fortunately this only lasted for about 12 seconds before I remembered something.

So, back to becoming prostitutes.  Mental Health Work Colleague (MHWC) said that she thought she'd be able to do something with the 'Yummy Mummy' type market.  Being short, strange and a bit shit I reflected miserably that I'd have to try to appeal to a more specialised market.  My former Gym Buddy work colleague (of the headless, 3 legged cat skeleton) said that I could advertise that I was new to the game and therefore 'clean'.

Erm, cheers....

I then added that as I hadn't been able to pull for bloody ages I could advertise the non-bucketness of my 'love tunnel'.  The three of us nodded in agreement that this was a definite plus point when working out my potential prostitute tariff/advertising campaign.

With a face twisted with disgust I quietly asked MHWC whether we'd be expected to (cough) give oral sex to strangers.  Leaning forward she contemplated the prospect

MHWC:  ...well, if it was clean looking I might.

Me:  Would we be allowed to spray it or wipe it over with anti-bac hand gel or anything?

MHWC:  That'd sting it wouldn't it?

Me: Well you're the one with the boyfriend - can't you road test it with some and report back the results?

MHWC (uncertain): Erm......dunno really, I'm not sure he'd like it.

Me: Would we be expected to......y'know...

MHWC: What?

Me: Y'know!

MHWC (oblivious): No, what?

Me (whispering and with a traumatised expression): SWALLOW?


MHWC: I guess so, if that's what he wants.  I suppose you charge extra for that

Me: Sounds like we need to design some sort of comprehensive menu or something.  Is that what they do?  I really don't get it.  I mean, it's difficult isn't it?  If some old ropey slag does all that for 10 quid, is anyone going to pay for my prime, sort of unwanted, practically healed up 'lady garden' facility?  I keep it pretty neat but saying that, I did nick it shaving a few nights ago so it might look a bit damaged and scabby in parts...

MHWC:  The only problem is, you'd have to talk to people and take your clothes off and we all know that those are two things you hate doing.

Me (lost in thought): Yeah, 'cause remember that time I had my own aromatherapy business that I closed down?  That was because I didn't like people enough to touch them.  I really don't like people that much and if my punter wanted to chat or touch me in any way I'd probably go a bit strange and get that appalled look on my face, a bit like the shrunken headed hunter in Beetlejuice.  Me screaming, smacking his nob and running off would no doubt ruin his prossie experience and would prevent me from getting some extra dosh to see me through my current financially embarrassed state wouldn't it?

Former Gym Buddy:  I guess you could just do some more gigs and make some cutbacks.

Me: .....

Sigh, how much do prossies charge any way?  I'm still wondering.  It seemed such a good idea when I was in a bad mood this morning.  Hell, I even had my business logo planned.  Of course, a big part of me suspects the punters just jump on and have a good bang.  I don't think they'd appreciate me discussing my menu no matter how nicely set and printed it was.  I guess they'd appreciate the feedback form even less.

DIE CAT DIE (The Tale of the Zombie Cat)!!!!

Dramatic title, eh?  Thought you'd like it.

Gonna share a couple of stories related to cats today.  The first is a cautionary tale and the other is bloody BRILLIANT in a horrible way but it happened to one of my colleagues and therefore it would be wrong of me not to share whilst laughing horribly behind her back.

 

Ok, first the cautionary tale:  My advice to everyone is, even if you think it's dead, NEVER poke a cat with a stick near a main road and some potentially cat loving children.  That's good advice - possibly the best advice you'll be given all day.

What happened?  Well, a colleague and I had to attend a community event with representatives from the local authority and police.  We were all sitting in a specially adapted vehicle with seats and a table awaiting the arrival of 'The Community'.  

No bugger showed .  

After a bit we were all a bit bored, bloated on tea and sick on biscuits.  Oh yeah, how's THIS for hurtful - I ruefully told the gathered agencies that the last time I'd been to this area my beautiful 1971 VW Beetle had tried to kill me by randomly bursting into flames as I drove it.  The police all laughed and advised that they'd 'just' been talking about it!  I'd never met any of them before so they'd just been laughing about it in general without knowing that me,  the poor driver, was about to show up.  They bizarrely stopped laughing when I told them I'd had an anatomically correct skeleton dressed as Santa Claus in the vehicle at the time which I'd had to pull out.  Laughing, I told them I'd been upsetting children by telling them Father Christmas was dead.  

[SILENCE]

I'm sure that's not a crime. I thought it was hysterical - how can you NOT laugh at that; miserable bunch of bleeders.

Anyhoo, one of the guys told us that there was a cat in a blanket around the corner and it had been there for hours.  My colleague and I went to have a look expecting to find a dead cat.  I did sort of look for a stick - if there's the chance of finding anything dead you HAVE to poke it with a stick just so you can scream and run away (no, I don't know why that's important either).  As we slowly approached the tatty looking thing  it did stir and look up but it certainly did not appear healthy.  I inched closer trying to display a  facial expression which would reassure a potentially sick/dying cat.  Clearly, my features didn't quite do it; the cat suddenly leapt into the air, across the car park and into the path of a speeding car. All I remember is the screaming of the child....

So, all we actually did for that community on this day was to force a child to watch it's beloved pet get killed horribly!

...Ah, I'm kidding - that was the FASTEST dying cat on 4 legs.  He made it to the other side of the road by the skin of it's teeth. 

Ok, here's the Zombie Cat story.  It's both horrifying and brilliant at the same time.

A work colleague (and former gym buddy) shared this with me and it's sad so we must read and digest this next bit with dignified expressions on our faces, ok?

It starts off with 'Gym Buddy' (GB) and her daughter discovering that their beloved cat had been run down in the street. They went to collect him in a blanket and, crying, bought him home in readiness to bury in their garden.  GB decided to dig the hole in the lawn so that the cat would be under the grass and in an area which would never be disturbed/dug up accidentally.  They buried him deep.

Next morning, to their horror the cat was lying on the lawn covered in shit, with it's guts liberally scattered around and it's head totally missing! 

[gag]

He was duly re-buried, deeper and with a large slab over the top.

...next day he was again on the lawn now both headless and with a leg missing.

GB put the cat back in his grave, poured bleach all over him (to mask any smell) and put THREE large concrete slabs over him.

It took a couple of days but the decomposing headless, three legged, bleach covered cat again reappeared on the lawn.  This time my gym buddy had enough and decided that they would bag up this beloved former pet and put him in the incinerator.

When her son came home he prepared said incinerator and lit it.  The flame shot up quicker than he expected which made him leap backwards

.....onto the dead cat.

Running around in horror, screaming like a shitty baby, the lad realised he'd never forget that squelching sensation for the rest of his life.  They said a little prayer and stuck the cat in the incinerator hoping that this would finally be the end of the tale and that they would never again be faced with the zombie cat who would not stay buried!

After a few hours GB asked her son whether the deed was done.

.....turns out the incinerator wasn't hot enough.  The family now have a headless three legged cat skeleton to dispose of.

Half Dead

Well, for the people who know me it's no secret that I've pretty much gone totally wrong.  Some of them even know that I've done some stupid shit to myself in the process.

I'm talking specifically about the eating disorder here.

Now don't think this is going to be one of those (whingey voice) "I've got probbbbblems, I've got an eating disorder, I've had a terrible childhood/wasn't breast fed and now I over compensate by punishing myself with food" crappy blog posts.

Fuck that.

I've screwed myself up with my obsession, see-sawed between thin-ness\being a moose and had a bloody good time doing it.  Of course, no one wants to be fat; it's the leprosy of the modern age, and so I've done some major shit to my body/system and FUCKED it over.  I'd like to say I wouldn't change a thing but clearly finding a way to eat like a bastard/contribute to Third World hunger yet stay thin would be my ultimate goal.

Well, to cut a long and frankly boring story short. My digestion is fucked and I frequently puke when I lie down.  Sexy....

For various reasons, I ended up being taken to Accident and Emergency on Sunday.  It was here that I was given 2 bags of fluids and told that my kidneys were getting a bit pissed off.  I related the story to my cousin 'Bakes' AKA my Sister from another Mother/my fellow 'Crash Test Brummie/the person I'm proud to share took it upon herself to punch a baked potato thus losing a fair chunk of skin and also felt the need to touch one of those electric fly killers which shot her across the room (a few days later she tried it again.  I don't know whether she thought something different would happen but it didn't and she again ended up on the other side of the room.  It's for reasons such as this that we really relate to each other). The conversation kinda went:


ME: ...yeah, and when the doctor told me about that, the Tidness Nazi and I had a proper Hollywood Feel Good moment.

BAKES: Really, what happened?

ME: Well, I was all wired up and with tears in my eyes I said that all this shit had to stop as I was killing myself.  With tears in her eyes she said she had to stop drinking as it was killing her.  We sort of hugged and made a pact that I was going to start eating healthily and she would stop drinking.  We're going to the gym, start swimming, take the dog for long walks and basically stop harming ourselves.  This was the wake up call I needed - that we BOTH needed.

BAKES: Cool - what are you doing now?

ME: ....eating all the Halloween sweets.

BAKES: ...and the Tidiness Nazi?

ME: Down the pub.

BAKES: Excellent. Any way, I was lying around yesterday and my legs started to hurt in a weird way.  I became firmly convinced that I'd got deep vein thrombosis and bits of the clot were breaking off and getting into my system.  I absolutely KNEW I was about to die!

ME: Faaaack, what did you do?

BAKES: Nothing.

(on the other end of the phone I was nodding in silent unity)

ME:  Well, when I ended up back in A&E on Monday they put me on another drip and when the bag was finished  they left it for a bit before attaching another one.  I was just sort of sitting there when I noticed the fluid starting to come down the tube in my arm.

BAKES: Oh yeah?

ME: Yeah, and just before the new lot went through I reckoned I saw an air bubble in the tube.  I was really worried that the bubble was heading quickly towards my blood stream, would travel up to my brain and I'd get basically cured of one thing and killed by a freak air bubble accident.  I was absolutely convinced that I was about to gasp my last and I got a bit upset.

BAKES: Faaaack, what did you do?

ME: Nothing.

(again, I imagine she was just nodding her head in silent unity on the other end of the phone)

What I learned?  It's not just me who has an inner arsehole (see previous entry) pre-warning of imminent death.  Furthermore it's not just me who, despite overwhelming evidence, simply doesn't have the inclination or self preservation skills to act on this potentially pre-cognisant spiritual tip off.  Who can be arsed?

Oh yeah.  When I was potentially gasping my last just prior to my first trip to A&E I could hear a tinkling bell ringing.  I became convinced it was the sound of the heavens opening in readiness to take me away.  When it didn't happen I became paranoid that 'whomever' had a look down at me and decided I wasn't worthy, put their stinking bell away and fucked off.  Cheers Heaven.