Don't make eye contact

I went downstairs to the showroom and was confronted by three women and Gay Colleague*, sitting around the reception desk looking slightly mischievous. Women in groups make me nervous, especially when they look at you like you are a good example of whatever it was they were just talking about which is invariably either men in general or men in particular.

SJ: How are you ladies?
*general snickering*
GC: What do you mean ladies? You mean me?
SJ: Look GC you were perched up on that desk like the head girl at the slumber party.
GC: Fair enough. (turns to New Girl**) You see what I have to put up with? All the abuse. Horrible, he is.
NG: *smiles uncertainly*
GC: NG is going to start riding with us in the mornings ok?
SJ: Sure, if she can stand the horribleness.
GC: Hmm. Good point. Can you?
NG: Continues to smile aimlessly, certain this is a joke, not positive though.
SJ: Good answer. You appear wise.

At this point it is best to carry on your way before you talk yourself into a corner. People are watching, the receptionist is gearing up to say something, a sales dude stops on his way to do sales… no best to get going. Let them discuss it among themselves.

*his actual name, with an asterisk
**also her real name, no relation.

Ode To A Sales Dude:

Oh Sales Dude Sales Dude
Go and do your sales
With your voodoo markup secret language code
And blonde-tipped hair

Go in your car your
Mobile Sales Unit full
Of blue-tooth mumbo jumbo
And sales literature

of course

Oh Sales Dude Sales Dude
Just fuck off.

Purgastralia

The spiders told me. Always spinning their shit where I walk like they know my times. Strong as 10 pound test line, across the path, feel it stretch then WRAP itself around your head. In the morning, or evening, across the doorway out the back where I smoke, on all my paths. In my car. Silken lines want to wrap me up and the spiders thereby told me

this isn’t Australia. It is a bizaro-world, alternate-reality, sun-drenched purgatory that looks like Australia.

I put this to Mrs. Joe, a (supposed) natural born Aussie, and she only shrugged and said “well. yeah.” and went back to sorting bills.

I mean, you get on a plane with a ticket to Australia, with stops in Hawaii and Fiji and you just sort of expect they’d tell you if it was actually a flight to Purgatory with stops in Hawaii and Fiji. “Attention passengers, please confirm your tickets are for Purgatory not Australia because a lot of people get them mixed up.”

I imagine they have the same wildlife. Hopping things, biting things, spiders. They both have enchanted forests and bauxite mines. They don’t like Paul Hogan much, they don’t know who Bob Barker is. You can’t explain Happy Gilmore to them.

So of course, they must be one and the same.

Purgastralia, where everything’s either poisonous or has a pouch, light switches go the wrong way, bills require sorting, and spiders have the ambitious aim of capturing humans for some seedy purpose not yet determined. I can only assume they wish to devour me, or make me their bitch. Their, uh, spider-bitch… oh dear, I don’t like the sound of that.

I hadn’t thought of that.

Woe, what hath become of me? How cometh I to be in this beguiling spider-land? Oh what foul sin have I committed? Where doth we keep yon bug spray? Also, who puteth the ice-creameth backeth empty excepteth for one dried-upeth spoonful?

Release me.

remember kids, hitting yourself in the face with a hammer is for losers. Every time.

Things I found out today:

1) Paint, even super epoxy enamel (black) does not stick to nylon. Why did I think it would? It certainly does not.

That’s all.

One thing I was wondering while I watched paint not stick was if the guy at the ball bearing factory, the little thing that rattles around when you shake a spray can is a ball bearing, this kid at school cut one open once and that’s what it was, I wonder if the guy at the ball bearing factory, who’s job was to check the ball bearings for defects, like dents or devil horns, ever suggested to his boss that all the defective ball bearings could be marketed to the spray can industry as Paint Grade Ball Bearings and they could then double the price, and if he did suggest that did he get a raise or did his boss just look at him blankly and back quietly out the door to ring the Authorities? I forgot to say the ball bearing inspector was screaming and waving a sack of ball bearings (not Paint Grade™, good ones) over his head at the time.

That sort of job would get to you.

Things I will find out tomorrow:

1) Will clear lacquer stick to nylon?
2) Will super epoxy enamel (black) stick to clear lacquer?

Try to get some sleep, I’m handling it.

Volcanic kittens and the war on telephone poles

Just chatting volcanos with P4. Volcanos are hot, the boiling point of rock being probably greater than the boiling point of water, which as we know is pretty hot already. Then we wondered if boiling alcohol would burn you if, for some reason, someone boiled a pot of alcohol and threw it on you. Perhaps in revenge for something, but still, it would be an odd thing to do. We didn’t know the boiling point of alcohol though, so we worked out in our heads 1/7 + 1/8 which we took to be 15/56ths. All things considered, it was the best we could do.

One of our cats did an amazing thing. It issued forth 6 more cats, but smaller. Now there are 8 cats. P4 wonders if she has told the father yet. SJ remembers saying something like “yes, I guess you can get another cat, if you absolutely must, but TWO is the limit and don’t get a female.” Eight.

What’s the father going to do? Bring over ½ a mouse now and then and take the kits to McDonalds? Of course not, feline paternity laws are lacking at best.

To prove a point I went outside, cut off the top bud from my marijuana plant which is grown for purely ornamental reasons (good feng-shui, or however the fuck you call it), cut it up right there and then and smoked it in my little brass pipe given to me by my lovely wife whom, as you know, I hardly ever think of strangling. Smoked it wet and green. And you know what? I got as stoned as I do from that shit they try to sell here for 3 bills an ounce.

Illidge if you say one fucking word about what you get back in Canada I’ll…be depressed. And then you’ll be sorry. Bastard.

Bloody fascists. Government pamphlets implying pot causes schizophrenia, use hydroponic equipment and you’re classed as a drug-lab for fuck sake. I never heard of anyone smoking a joint then… doing anything, really. Maybe draw a doodle, or play a video game. But I know a guy (Illidge) who, when drinking vodka, picks fights with telephone poles. Hasn’t beat one yet, far as I know.

That’ll do for now.