Life of Gustaf
Chapter 1: The girl of your dreams is exactly that, a dream
And then it hit you like an ant falling from a plane. You were never in love with Josephine at all. Never ever had you been in love. You were simply in love with the idea of being in love with her. You loved her infectious ‘everything is great and the sun is shining and I’m walking on sunshine’ smile. You loved her ‘oh my god that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard even though it’s not that funny’ laugh. You loved her ‘huh what did you say? I was daydreaming’ gaze. You loved her ‘louder than Hawaiian shirts, larger than life’ personality. But for some reason, you couldn’t bring yourself to love her. Perhaps you just weren’t used to the idea of loving someone so completely and totally in an ‘I don’t want to sleep and I can’t because you’re not breathing next to me’ sort of way. Or maybe you had somehow convinced yourself that ‘love’ was something that really didn’t exist except in the strange and vacant reality of your unreal imagination. And the latter would probably be the more likely of the two since Josephine really was a figment of your imagination and in reality you were actually engaged to Anastasia. Anastasia was also a fantastic person and you actually loved her more than you loved your imaginary Josephine. Even though her smile wasn’t nearly ‘everything is great and the sun is shining and I’m walking on sunshine’-ish and her laugh wasn’t quite so ‘oh my god that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard even though it’s not that funny’-ish and her eyes weren’t quite ‘huh what did you say? I was daydreaming’-ish and her personality wasn’t nearly as loud as Big Kev or as large as life. But you loved her all the same because she was Anastasia, she was with you, you could sleep because she was breathing into your ear and (most importantly) she was a real, tangible human.
Chapter 2: It’s alright to be alarmed when you’re in deep shit
Unfortunately, I can’t sleep while the alarm clock is going absolutely ape shit next to my ear and Ana wasn’t there to turn the damn thing off. I stuck my arm out and took a blind swing at it. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! I picked it up and threw it through the door and into the ensuite. BEEP BEEP BEEP SPLASH! Must have got it into the toilet bowl in one shot. It was going to be a good day. Okay, where were you in that semi-homo-erotic dream of yours, Gustaf… no good, you’re already awake. No sense going back to sexy sexy dreamland now. I scratched my ass with my left hand and rubbed my eyes with my right as I rolled out of bed. It’s absolutely disgusting when people scratch their asses first thing in the morning… and then rub their eyes with the same hand. For some reason the ensuite was totally soaked. Okay, perfectly reasonable for the floor to be covered in water considering I had just got a hole-in-one with the alarm clock. But where the hell did all this shit come from?!? Remember, you had one too many burritos last night. Why did I not flush the toilet? We’re in the middle of a drought and you thought you’d save a bit of water. That’ll teach me to be a tight arse when my arse was feeling a tad loose. Have to find a new way to shut the alarm clock off. Let’s see… Tried the snooze button. Kept going off every five minutes. Tried putting it under the pillow. That blocked out most of the noise but wasn’t particularly comfortable. Tried hurling it at the television. The TV came off second best. Tried throwing it into the toilet. Ended up with shit-coated bathroom. Note to self: buy hammer and keep on bedside.
Chapter 3: Her favourite flower is not self-raising
One should never forget what one’s girlfriend, fiancé or wife tells one. Every detail of every discussion must be kept in one’s memory. Every minute detail down to exactly what both parties were saying, what both parties were wearing at the time and the expensive restaurant at which said conversation took place. Because one day one’s better half (or perhaps worse half, depending on how lucky one is) will ask one a question as meaningless as the sand on Pluto and as random as being hit by an ant falling from a plane. A question such as “What is my favourite flower?” And if one is not giving one’s other half the fullest attention at all times, one will not know about this Plutonian grain of sand and shall respond with something stupid like “Self-raising?” One will then be in much strife. And when one tries to redeem oneself by buying one’s better half a bouquet with every flower one knows except for the one flower one should know, one is then in very deep shit indeed. It is at this point that one’s better half refuses one sex and then one wonders why Gustaf was such a fool to begin with and why Gustaf does not pay attention when Ana is speaking. And then one realises that Gustaf is used to loving Josephine whose favourite flower is whatever Gustaf happens to remember on any given day and that Gustaf has the memory of a goldfish with alzheimers. It is at this point that one wonders why Ana is still with Gustaf after so many years. And then one finds out that Ana never told Gustaf what her favourite flower was and that asking Gustaf what Ana’s favourite flower is is Ana’s way of saying “I feel like having flowers in the house”. It is at this point that one feels like a fool.
Chapter 4: There is no such thing as being fashionably early
I’m usually not a very punctual person. I’m the guy who turns up to work fifteen minutes late because my alarm clocks seem to stop working every second day. The kind of guy who would pick up his kids from school at 5pm because he was getting busy with certain magazines. The kind of guy who turns up to a wedding an hour late on Sunday morning only to realize that the wedding was on Saturday. And that’s if it’s my own wedding.
My life is based on being late. It runs on a time system similar to that used by City Rail. Nothing is ever on time because something is always failing or it’s other people’s faults or “a passenger at Berowra is sick and is affecting the whole network”. And like Shitty Rail, I was constantly telling people that I wished “to apologise for any inconveniences caused”. And like Shitty Rail, I never really meant it. And (also) like Shitty Rail, people knew this and were constantly pissed off with me and demanding my head on a chopping block. Of course, they never really meant it in a literal sense. Not the first hundred or so times anyway.
But my neck never ended up on a chopping block for being late which is a lot more than I can say for my jobs. Can you say “a job a month”? But the one time I decided to make an effort to be punctual and on time was one of the worst experiences of my life. “Meet me at the station at 7am” he said. “And you’d better be on time” he said, “I’m sick of always waiting around for you”. So, on time I was. And guess what? He was late. Because he thought I was going to be late so told me to arrive half an hour before we needed to be there. The lesson to be learned here is that you can be fashionably late. Not that I ever was. I was always irritatingly late. But that’s beside the point. There are two morals to this story. Firstly, stick to habit. If you always turn up late, keep doing it. Secondly, and more importantly, there is no such thing as being fashionably early because nobody’s there to witness how early (and thus how fashionable) you are.
Chapter 5: You can have the cake and eat it as long as it isn’t mine
Women. The most important thing to know about them is where the term ‘woman’ is derived from. Now, when I was in year nine at high school we studied Latin and the first thing they taught us was how to best find the meaning of a word by breaking it down into component parts. Applying this knowledge to the word ‘woman’, we can see that the key components are ‘wo’ and ‘man’. ‘Wo’ is how the word ‘woe’ was spelt in Old English (well, in all truth, Old English spelling pretty much let anything slide so long as it was pronounced the way it was written. Much easier than today’s bullshit. Anyway, I digress…) and the word ‘man’ refers to the target of all this misery and evil. And that’s the other thing to know about women. If a man is ever upset, depressed or in so much shit he’s drowning in it, odds are it’s a woman’s fault. Or if the man is very stupid, the fault of women (all of whom he simply could not resist taking home and making like rabid goats with).
That said, the biggest problem with women is not that they are the real life dementors who suck joy out of reality (although they evidently are). The biggest problem is that they want to have their cake and eat it. And then have your cake and eat it. I’m not talking about cake in the literal sense. Women are far too fickle and over-obsessed with whether or not their bums look big in everything to eat their own cake, let alone yours. More likely that they’d have you eat their cake. Anyway, back to the point. We’re looking at cake of a different sort. What I’m talking about is all this ‘equal rights for both sexes’ (mmm… sex….) fiasco. Firstly, they want to be treated like men. They want to be treated equally when it comes to their role in the family. They want to be treated equally in the sorts of jobs they can get. They want to be treated equally when it comes to the wages they get in these jobs that they are treated equally in getting. And they want to be treated equally in terms of the respect they gain. Of course, this respect also includes things such as having seats offered to them by men on public transport.
But not all women are like this. And that’s the problem. How is a man to know whether a woman is a hardcore feminist who wants to be a man (and in some cases is androgynous enough to be more manly than most men. Williams sisters. Fucking cannibals! ) or one of the womanly women (or a man who is androgynous enough to pass as a woman. Go baby, go go!)? This is why men avoid eye contact and pretend not to notice the woman (very difficult when she’s wearing a short short mini-skirt (or belt whenever appropriate) and has cleavage the size of… well, the hot ass visible under the short short mini-skirt) and why all women are declaring that “chivalry is dead” and how much they “want to be swept off my feet by a knight in shining armour” (besides being really impractical to be wearing armour in this day and age, coming to rescue her from thieves in a piece of ass car (bloody corolla) isn’t nearly the same as mounting a white stallion and slaying a dragon). Get up for the androgynous woman and prepare to cop several mouthfuls of “chauvinist pig”. Stay seated for the androgynous man and cop a shit load of “where are your manners?”.
I recall this one instance in which I had both in front of me. Hiding behind my newspaper and pretending not to see either of them, I got a bit of “where are your manners?” from the hot chick in the micro belt/skirt. So I apologized and tried to explain that I didn’t see her to which she rolled her pretty blue eyes (with enough make up on them to make her look like a damn raccoon. Clearly an Avril fan). And then the UGLY (not a typo, she was ugly enough to warrant capital letters) ogress thing behind her starts telling me off for being a “fucking chauvinist pig. The kind that makes society such a shit hole”. To which I responded to with some eye-rolling of my own. It was one of those ‘hung if you do, shot if you don’t’ moments.
So, what have we learnt here, kids? That women are evil? Damn straight they are! Eve was evil (there’s another word derivative for you, the word ‘evil’ and the name ‘Eve’ and a word meaning to be sick). She ate the damn apple from that damn tree and fucked all of humanity since then (in a non-pornographic way, of course. Fucking chauvinist pigs). Pandora was evil. She opened up a whole crate worth of whoop ass. Which we now call Pandora’s Box even though the damn thing wasn’t hers to open (the Greeks must have been fortune tellers to know that everything belongs to women these days). And after all that they expect to be forgiven even though they can’t forgive a man for checking out that chick in the short short skirt?
Please, go have your cake. Do whatever you please with it. But don’t touch mine (unless you’re name happens to be Anastasia. In which case you can touch anything of mine you want *insert horny devils here*). That said, I’m sure you’ll do an Eve and take whatever the hell you feel like anyway. Eve-ill biatches!
Chapter 6: Some stories just should not be told to small children
There is nothing at all correct about political correctness. It is absolutely pointless to encourage people to call things by something that they aren’t by using over the top and excessive euphemisms to the point where a fat person is ‘horizontally enhanced’, a black person is now to be referred to as ‘melanomally gifted’ and short people are now ‘vertically challenged’. Of all the politically correct terms, the only one that I partially agree with is to refer to perving as ‘new age espionage’ or, to borrow a term from Seamus Heaney, ‘artful voyeurism’. Its fine to try enforcing these terms on adults because we all know just how damn stupid these things sound and use it as an endless source of humor fodder. For example, an office discussion may now run like this:
Office worker 1: Damn it, the boss is such a fag.
Office worker 2: Didn’t you hear the news? You can’t call people fags anymore because it’s politically incorrect.
Office worker 1: So then what the f*ck are we supposed to call them now?
Office worker 2: Politicians.
Office worker 1: That term was outlawed ages ago. Better refer to them as butt buddies.
(Both laugh maniacally)
Clearly, it’s absurd. But the problem gets even worse when we inflict (yes, it’s gone beyond the point of enforcing) this load of utter bull crap to our kids. Just the other day, I was taking my little cousin out to the zoo and when we were in the car, he was so excited because he had learnt a new song at preschool.
“Why don’t you sing it for me then?”
“Okay, Goo-stuff *giggles*. Baa baa rainbow sheep have you any wool…”
“Danny, it’s ‘baa baa black sheep’”
“No it isn’t! My teacher said its baa baa rainbow sheep!”
“Well your teacher is a lying skank”
“What’s a skank?”
“Ummmmm… never mind…”
And then when we got to the zoo we saw fairy penguins.
“I know what those are Goo-stuff!”
“Hmmm? What are they?”
“Little penguins!”
“Yes, I can see that they’re quite small. What sort of penguin are they?”
“I told you! Little penguins. Are you ignoring me?”
“They’re called fairy penguins”
“No they’re not. My teacher said they’re called little penguins”
“Well your teacher is a no good douche bag”
“What’s a douche bag?”
“To be honest, Danny, I haven’t got a clue”
And so the world has gone totally mad with politically correctness. But if it’s alright to tell kids that things aren’t what they are, does that mean that we have to change all our fairy tales and nursery rhymes to suit this absurd notion of being PC? (PC is a pretty appropriate term if you think about it. The other PC is also a god damned pain in the ass). It’d be absolutely wrong to teach kids that sheep can be rainbow fleeced. And if you think about it, calling a fairy penguin a little penguin is really just undermining the gay community by saying that they’re lesser beings. The only way the political correctness mongers can counter that argument is to say that fairy and little are not interchangeable. In which case I would say that they’re lying children and messing around with their vocabulary. This also applies to calling short people ‘vertically challenged’. To suggest that they are challenged is an insult. It’s not as if being short is that much of a disadvantage to life, much like how being gay is not a disadvantage; both points which I tried to teach children in a story I made up while I was a kindergarten school teacher.
But I got fired for telling this story because it was deemed by the Department of Education and Training to be inappropriate for young children. These kids were five years old and I figured that since kids are growing up quicker these days, it’d be good to give these kids a head start in life. After all, that’s what teachers are employed to do, right? So if it’s alright to mess around with their vocabulary, why isn’t it alright to tell them some creative stories? It’s not like they’re learning any mistruths from them and they are all good fun. Much better and less corrupt for impressionable young minds than the bullshit notion of rainbow sheep and melanomally enhanced African Americans. Anyway, I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not the story was appropriate. It goes something like this…
Chapter 7: Snow White the Thieving Tramp and Sleazy the Eighth Dwarf
Once upon a time there lived a super sexy woman by the name of Snow White. Well, okay, she wasn’t entirely woman. Considering all the plastic surgery she’d had it may have been more appropriate to call her a doll and throw her into a recycling bin when she dies. Anyway, what was I saying… oh yeah. Snow White was super super sexy and she always wore super super sexy mini mini skirts (even shorter than the one’s most school girls wear these days) and a shirt that she may as well not have worn (ohhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhhh) because with the size of her cleavage, it was poping out all over the place! Of course, she had to wear something because it’d be totally illegal not to. And she had to wear what she wore because it was part of her job. She was an escort. Escort? What the hell is an escort? A slut? A tramp? A whore? Much better.
One day she got a call from the Seven Dwarves: Sloth the slothful, Steaksauce the saucy, Greed the greedy, Envy the envious, Gluttony the gluttonous, Vanity the vain and Awesomeness the awesome. They wanted Snow White to come over and help them make another porno movie “because the last one was such a raging success just thinking about it makes me want to have an orgasm”. The Seven Dwarves were professional adult actors who were about the size of small children. That would be a very large problem if it didn’t so happen that their manly possessions were also about the size of a small child. Snow White was a bit hesitant because the last time she made a video with them she couldn’t shit, urinate or talk properly for a month. And all that turkey slapping they did wasn’t any good for her plastic nose which she had to get fixed at the toy factory. But she decided that she’d go anyway.
Despite not being a very big fan of constipation, Snow White was also a thief. Every time she had gone over to the Dwarve’s place to visit them or to make some raging hot pornography, her purse was always a bit more full when she left. In the last month alone she had stolen fourteen gold rings, twelve watches, eighteen necklaces, a diamond encrusted dildo that the Dwarves won at the adult film awards and two plasma televisions. But there was always a cupboard under the stairs that was locked every time she went over and she was curious to see what sort of things were in there and then take it all home with her.
When she arrived in her suitably inadequate uniform, the Seven Dwarves were totally ready to get it on and to bang her into next month but Snow White wanted to discuss payment first.
“Since when did you ever need payment? You always come over because you enjoy being ravaged by seven men”.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Awesomeness. I was just bored. And besides, this new pimp of mine is a real bastard. He’ll beat the shit out of me if I don’t come back with a lot of cash. Especially considering there are seven of you and we’re going to be making a video”
“Fair enough. How about we go over there right now and rough the guy up a bit?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. You could just…”
“Ass rape him? Good idea”
“Is there anything you guys don’t want to hump? You could just show me…”
“…my enormous banging stick?”
“… what’s under the stairs”
“Actually, it’s been locked for so long we’ve forgotten what was in there…”
“Let’s open it up now”
“*shrugs* okay”
Carefully, they opened the door and inside there lay a dwarf. Not a hardcore body built dwarf like the Seven Dwarves but a dwarf none the less. And he was incredibly well dressed for a dwarf. Totally decked out in Versace, Dolce & Gabba-banana and that brand with the croc on it. Lacoste? That’s the one. Greedy slammed the door shut immediately.
“What’s wrong?” asked Snow White.
“Dahhhhhlings! Let me out won’t you? You’re all so terribly dressed. I simply can not allow it…” came a voice from inside the closet.
“Holy shit! How long have you guys kept him in there?”
“We don’t know. Mama Dwarf, bless her soul, must have locked him in there when we were small…-er. She told us to never unlock the cupboard and now I know why”
Snow white opened up the door and let the well dressed dwarf out. “What’s your name?”
“Me? Oh, Mama named me Sleazy the sleazy at birth but then she changed my name to Fruitcake the fruity when she realized I wasn’t interested in having sex with women”
All the dwarves gasped. Gluttony fainted on the spot. They had unleashed the eighth dwarf. Fruitcake the fruity was a shame to the family and needed to be locked up before he ruined the good name of the family. But Snow White had other ideas…
“So you’re gay then?”
“Dahling, gay is such an offensive word. I much prefer the term ‘homosexual’”
“Okay. Let me show you something.” She took out a picture of her pimp boss.
“Ohhhhhhh… he is soooooo hottttt”
“He’s a bit of an asshole but how would you like to give him a good f*cking over?”
“That is absolutely fabulous! I love banging assholes!”
“Well, here’s his address and this is his phone number. Don’t tell him I sent you, I want this to be a surprise”
“Of course, darl. Whatever you say.” And then Fruitcake the fruity was on his fruity way to go make some fruity love with Snow White’s asshole of a boss who was soon to develop an asshole the size of a small child.
“I hope you realize what you just did”
“Yes, I do, Envy. It’s called revenge”
“Trust me, it’ll be more like cruel and unusual torture”
And with that, they all unzipped their pants, started the camera rolling and banged Snow White until she had cream coming from every hole imaginable. They called the video ‘Sweet Revenge’ and it went triple platinum and won the Dwarves another crystal encrusted dildo which is now inside Snow White.
And they all lived orgasmically ever after.
Chapter 8: These stories should not be told to older children either
So you think that story’s also inappropriate for small kids? Where the hell have you all been living all these years? Kids have violent video games, horror movies, terrorism, foreign movies which try to pass off graphic sex as art, the discovery channel and politicians. And if all these things have as great an effect on our kids as the media makes out (let’s face it, it’s probably the media that does the most damage to the minds of children anyway) then I don’t think a little story like this is going to do much comparatively considering that their already totally brainwashed, warped and depraved. But apparently its perfectly alright for media to do it because then its indirect brainwashing but when it comes from a teacher, it suddenly becomes a big deal, like the teacher is so totally vital to the development of a child. All I ever learnt from my teachers was how to avoid being caught doing things I shouldn’t be doing, how to avoid being caught having a workplace relationship and how to avoid having to ever do any real work. Admittedly, these skills are all very important but not exactly necessary to succeed in life if one is able to apply one self and avoid all the snares and wickedness of the devil. Of course, should one feel the urge to do something illegal, one is also privy to a lawyer and that is also a fine way out.
Anyway, back to my point which was (what was it…?) that while children may be easily impressionable, surely by the time they reach adolescence, they would know well enough to make up their own minds on these things right? I mean, adolescence is all about rebelling against the system and coming up with your own ideas and then blaming all your thievery, arson, gang rape, pot smoking and other illicit behaviour on your raging hormones (which everybody knows is a bullshit excuse because hormones don’t rage, they just get a bit aggravated and grumpy from time to time).
Anyway, after all the hype and media coverage about ‘the teacher who was training children in acts of sex’ died down, I received a job at a high school teaching English. I was never that good at English because I found it to be endlessly boring and Shakespeare wasn’t exactly the greatest ambassador for ‘excitement’, not as far as an adolescent was concerned anyway. And do you know what bored students do? They don’t pay attention to the teacher and sit there listening to those god forsaken ipods, do the crossword puzzles, make a mess eating mandarins and just sleeping in class. The class I was teaching was particularly bad. They were constantly making a lot of noise, interrupting all the time and throwing paper all over the place.
How to get their attention… sex! No, I didn’t take my pants off and start threatening to rape them if they didn’t behave. In hind sight, that blonde girl in the back was pretty cute in her short short mini mini skirt. Remember how I was saying how hormones don’t rage and that Shakespeare was boring? The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Shakespeare is boring because of ‘raging’ hormones. Raging hormones make the opposite sex more interesting. So instead of Shakespeare, I told them ‘the story that launched a thousand parent complaints’.
“Class, pay attention! I’m going to tell you the story of Snow White the thieving tramp…”
“Sir? What’s a tramp?” said Vicky, the one girl in the class who wasn’t a total pain in the ass who also happened to be totally oblivious to all things adult and had an absolutely pure and uncorrupt mind.
“It’s another word for slut.” As soon as I mentioned that word, the whole class shut up and suddenly looked interested. “As I was saying, I’m going to tell you the story of Snow White the thieving tramp and Sleazy the Eighth Dwarf. Once upon a time there lived a hot hot chick named Snow White… Seven Dwarves… porn star… dildo… under the stairs… Fruitcake… came out of closet… lived orgasmically ever after.”
At the conclusion of the story, the room erupted into loud applause. Some students were even crying. “That was the greatest story EVER! I loved the bit where Fruitcake goes and ass bangs Snow White’s boss!” And that’s when the head teacher for English came in. Right. On. The. Words. Ass. Bang. Of all the times to walk into the room, she had picked the perfect moment to hear the most obscure thing.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!? Watch your language! How dare you animals behave like this?!?”
“But Miss, Gustaf told us the story.” Vicky may have been a good student but she was also a dobber.
“Miss Vicky Hamil, you are to respect your teacher and to refer to him as Mr. Sonovavitch, not Gustaf. And how dare you accuse him of telling such a tale.”
I poked my tongue at Vicky while the head teacher wasn’t looking.
“It’s true, Miss. Mr. Sonovavitch really did tell us that story because he thinks that Shakespeare is boring.”
“Right, you are all on detention. Until one of you confesses to starting the story, you are all going to spend every lunch time in my office.” RINNGGGGGGGGGG! End of period. Thank god for that.
A week into their detention, my desk was overflowing with complaints from parents. Apparently they were all double crossing finks. Most of the letters ran along the line of:
To whom it may concern,
My son/daughter *insert name of brat here* is currently on detention because a particular pornographic story was told in your English class and the head teacher has placed all the students on detention because nobody will admit to having told it. While I encourage children to confess to their actions when they have done wrong, I fear the children may be on detention indefinitely because my son/daughter has informed me that you told the story in order to maintain interest and to keep them focused. However, it is a very inappropriate thing that they are focusing on and I would suggest that you resign before you are taken to court over the matter.
Yours sincerely,
Mr/Mrs Snotnosedbrat
Fortunately, the letters could not possibly have been addressed to me because I certainly wasn’t concerned about it. Not until the parents got sick of me not replying to their mail and calling my phone non-stop at all hours. And when it wasn’t parents threatening to get me fired it was kids ringing me up threatening to cut off my balls with barbed wire if they weren’t off detention within the next week. After a month of being bombarded with complaints and threats, I decided I’d call it quits and confess. But how does one go about telling the head teacher (who looked as though she could crush my head between her thighs) that I told the story to the children after denying it for one month?
“I told the story.”
“I know you’ve been receiving some threats from the children to confess and those children will be punished severely”
“No, really. I did tell the story”
“Its okay, Gustaf. Whoever told the story will crack some day…”
No kidding, he’s cracking in front of you right now. If only you would believe him.
“Thanks for the confidence vote. Is it alright if I head home early today? I’m not feeling very well”
“Of course”
When I got home, the phone was ringing and I had over forty messages on my answering machine. I disconnected the phone line, took an aspirin and vowed I would never work as a teacher again. It was far too much trouble and the pay was shit. Then I vowed never to tell the story of Snow White the Thieving Tramp and Sleazy the eighth dwarf ever again and went to sleep.
Chapter 9: I’ve been talking to my imaginary friend and we’ve decided that you’re crazy
When I was a little kid, I had a friend named Barney. Barney was the coolest friend a little boy could hope for. He had a big shiny motorbike, the slickest and most perfect hair (in hindsight, it was a little too perfect to be normal) and the most uber funky leather jacket ever. And best of all, he was my best friend. In fact, he was my only friend. You see, my parents were really really weird. They didn’t trust our neighbours or any of the kids from school because they were adamant that this country was full of evil and that everyone was always up to no good and had it in for us. I guess you could call them paranoid. In fact, that’s exactly what the psychiatrist called them. Paranoid. But they preferred the term ‘cautious’.
And because they were so cautious, I never had a chance to get to know any of the kids because I was never allowed out of the house and nobody was ever allowed in. And because my parents never really believed in toys (god knows why, it’s not as if a toy is going to get a knife and go around stabbing people like it did in those ‘Childs Play’ movies) I was pretty much at home by myself most afternoons with nothing to do. And so I invented an imaginary friend to keep me company and his name was Barney. I don’t even know where I got the name Barney from, it’s hardly a name that screams out “DAMN, I’M COOL!” but I suppose I called him Barney because I didn’t know anybody else named Barney and I wanted him to be unique. And boy was he unique. He was so unique he wasn’t even actually human. I remember at one point he had 3 heads, 5 arms and only one foot. He was really good at doing impressions, especially impressions of aliens like the garfloobian farglesnort from Omega 13. Of course the impressions would have been good, you imagined those aliens too. So every afternoon, after school I would come home and play with Barney. But my parents didn’t know about Barney and when they did find out they thought that either I was going absolutely stark bonkers insane or that I was sneaking those untrustworthy spies/kids into the house without them knowing.
One day my dad came into my room and started saying something about birds and bees that sounded really boring. And then he asked me if I wanted to invite Barney over for dinner.
“Are you sure, dad? Not worried he might go and steal all the cutlery and plant marijuana in our backyard?”
“Marijuana? Have you been smoking?!? What have you been smoking?!?”
“Nothing, dad. Relax, it was just a joke.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely”
“Good. Now about this friend Barney of yours, invite him over for dinner tomorrow night”
“Okay”
And with that he left my room while I pondered how to introduce Barney to my parents. I’m pretty sure they would not have been impressed with the fact that he rode a motorcycle because “those things are death traps and the people who ride them are idiots”. That was mum anyway. Dad used to deliver vodka to outer villages on a motorbike and had quite a fascination with them. That said, he wouldn’t be too impressed about a seven year old boy who rode a motorcycle either. I think he said he was at least twelve years old before he started riding. I asked him if I could have a motorbike and he said that I could have one when I was Angus’ age. Angus was my older brother and he was a bit of a douche bag. He was also a real smart arse. Not I the sense that he was a genius or anything. He was more like one of those insane evil super villain types who came up with insanely elaborate plans to kill their arch nemesis which give them hours and hours to escape and subsequently foil their plan and get them arrested. Angus was one of those smart arses.
The next day at dinner, mum and dad were busy cooking up a category seven storm in the kitchen (and making a mess equivalent to a category seven too) when the doorbell rang. Well, they didn’t hear it ring but that’s because they were busy.
“I’ll get it!” I ran to the door. “Oh, hey Barney!”
“Alright kids, just go keep yourselves entertained. Dinner in an hour.”
“Alright mum. Come on Barney, we’ll hang around my room”.
An hour later…
“DINNER!”
Barney, Angus and I ran down the stairs and sat at the table.
“Gustaf, where’s Barney?”
“He’s right here. Next to me.”
“Honey, we don’t know how to tell you this but, your friend, Barney, he’s…”
“A bit pale? Yeah, he’s been a bit sick lately.”
“No no, he’s…”
“…got the best hair you’ve ever seen?”
“No… that’s not what I was saying. He’s…”
“For God’s sake! Barney’s f*cking imaginary! He’s not f*cking real, boy!” That was dad for you. As subtle as a nuclear bomb being dropped on a major city. Barney got really upset and ran off.
“Great, now you’ve hurt his feelings. Barney! Come back, dad didn’t mean it!”
“The hell I didn’t!”
I ran off after him and found him sitting in a tree crying. I climbed up to join him and we talked for a few hours. When I got home later that night (after an hour of lecturing from my parents about how the world was unsafe and how I should never go out by myself) I told mum and dad that I had been talking to Barney.
“Oh, for f*ck’s sake, Gustaf. Pull your head in, boy”
“Let the boy speak, Vlad.”
“As I was saying, I’ve been talking to Barney and we’ve decided that it’d be best if we ended our friendship”
“About f*cking time you came to your senses. It’s not healthy to have imaginary friends, boy”
“We had a talk about that too. He’s real and we’ve decided that you can’t see him because you’re insane.”
“YOU. TO YOUR ROOM. NOW!”
Chapter 10: Putting the sensual back in non-consensual
You may have noticed that I seem to have a rather unhealthy obsession with sex and all things pornographic. Or you’re also so totally obsessed with sex and pornographic stuff that you’ve just accepted this as being normal. Or you’re really not reading this at all and just skimming through. Or you have selective vision and you’re reading things such as “the thieving tramp” as “the pretty pink flowers on the hillside”. Whatever it is, I feel as though I should justify my obsession with sex and pornographic material by saying that it really isn’t my fault. It’s entirely my brothers.
Remember what I was saying earlier about young children being impressionable? Well, I was the most impressionable little thing on the block. In the suburb. In the country. Possibly in the universe. And I was hell curious too. So it probably didn’t help that my brother was a serious weird ass. Like really. I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother and we’ve got this whole sibling rivalry thing going where we’re still hating each other even though we’re now both fully grown and both engaged and should know better than to act like the children that we’ll be raising very soon. And I’m not just saying it because it’s my own fault and I’m just not enough of a man to admit that I left the toilet seat up let alone admit to my sex addiction being my own fault. I’m saying this because it is the honest truth. Angus is the reason I am totally obsessed with sex and otherwise totally f*cked in the head.
Anyway, I should explain. Angus is ten years older than me. So when I was eight years old, he was going through his final high school exams (amongst a range of other things like those not quite raging hormones) and was starting to take an interest in girls (he was always a bit of a late starter because his hormones were somewhat more tame than everyone else’s). And because he was drop dead ugly (I’m talking Medusa, the hydra, frogs, toads and your grandmother’s underwear all rolled into one great, bug, ugly package). Oh and did I mention he had the worse pick up lines in the history of history? The best he could muster was something like “was your father a thief? Because he must have stolen a star and put it in your eyes”. And that was one of his better lines. They got worse. A lot worse. I don’t even know where he got all those lines from but it sure as hell wasn’t my dad. My dad’s approach didn’t involve going around the long way with roses and chocolates and bullshit pickup lines. He was straightforward. His idea of a pickup line was something like, “You. Me. Bedroom. Now.”
One day, my brother came home looking somewhat more dejected and depressed than his usual emo self.
“What the f*ck is wrong with you today?” asked dad. Although ‘yelled’ would have been a more accurate description.
“Don’t hassle the boy, it’s that girl, Ally isn’t it?” Mum, the voice of reason.
“How did you know?” Angus, the voice of confusion (at least for the time being).
“It’s a mother’s job to know these things, dear.”
“Oh…”
“You just have to be sweeter, Angus”
“F*ck that sweet talk bullshit. Boy, if you want a girl, you gotta be blunt and brutal about it.”
“Dad, I don’t know what sort of bizarre world you grew up in, but in these days it’s wrong to beat women”
“Who said anything about beating her? Just f*cking grab her by the haunches and hump her into submission.”
“That’s called ‘rape’, dad”.
“Yeah, well it worked damn well for me. Never got turned down once.”
“Just out of curiousity, how hard do you have to hit someone on the head to knock them out cold?”
“Why in the f*ck would I know a thing like that?”
“Because they’d have to be unconscious to not flee in terror from a line like ‘You.
“Yeah, they were unconscious alright. But it wasn’t from me belting them on the head. What the f*ck do you take me for? A f*cking woman beater? Haven’t you ever heard of drink spiking, boy?”
“Drink spiking, eh?”
“Don’t go giving him ideas like that! Honey, your father’s only kidding. Weren’t you, dear?” The voice of reason.
“Errr… right… kidding…”
“Well, it’s not as if I’m stupid enough to go and do something illegal like that anyway.”
But it just so happened that he was stupid enough to try something like spiking Ally’s drink. Just goes to show you that just because you’ve grown up doesn’t mean you stop being impressionable. It just means that you’re only impressionable when you’re in a desperate situation. Like Angus was in.
A week later, he came home with a girl thrown over his shoulder. I was only eight years old at the time but even I thought she was very pretty. So pretty, in fact, that she was giving me a nosebleed and a hard on at the same time.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“This,” said my insane and maniacally smiling brother, “is Ally”. Obviously, my mother was listening from the kitchen.
“See,” she said as she was walking out of the kitchen, “all it takes is to be nice and a bit of good HOLY SHIT! Please… do… not… tell… me… that… is… Ally… hanging from your shoulder…”
“Ummm… okay. That is not Ally hanging from my shoulder”
“Good, for a moment there I thought you might have taken your father’s advice and drug her and kidnap her”
“I did”
“But you just told me it wasn’t Ally hanging from your shoulder”
“Only because you told me not to tell you it was Ally hanging from my shoulder”
“ANGUS! GO TO YOUR ROOM AT ONCE!”
“Can I take Ally with me?”
“You might as well. You sure as hell can’t leave her in the hall way!”
And so Angus took Ally, passed out from God knows what it was that Angus put in her drink, into his room and carefully lay her on his bed while he sat there and wondered what it was he should be doing. That probably wasn’t the best time for my father to walk in, so that’s exactly what he did.
“Jesus f*cking Christ! Where the hell did you get that?!?”
“I took your advice and spiked her drink and took her home”
“I was kidding you bleeding idiot. That’s called kidnapping. Although, she is a damn good looker. Well, what are you waiting for Romeo? Do your thing”
“Ummm… what do you mean?”
“For f*ck’s sake, son. Do I have to explain everything to you? Weren’t you listening when I was explaining about the birds and the f*cking bees?”
“What? Dad?!? No!”
“Well then what in f*ck’s name did you bring her home for?”
“I don’t know… I was going to take her for a stroll down the beach but I forgot that she’d be totally unconscious”
“F*cking Einstein, you are”
“Maybe I should read her poetry?”
“What the hell for?!?”
“Because that’s what girls like. Right?”
“Let me tell you something, son. You’ve just drugged a girl who’s barely legal, kidnapped her and taken her to your house. Besides the fact that unconscious people don’t hear a lot of what’s said to them, I don’t think it really f*cking matters what she likes. Do you?”
“Well, I think I should make up for that”
“You’ve got a drop dead gorgeous girl on your bed, who for all we know could very well be f*cking dead, and you want to read poetry to her? Why don’t you just feed her f*cking chocolates while you’re at it, you f*cking queer?”
And with that he stormed off downstairs to rant about Angus’ “f*cking gay behaviour” to my mum while I carefully walked into my brother’s room.
“So you’re reading her poetry eh?”
“Yeah... I suppose so. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
“You want my honest opinion?”
“Yeah”
“I’m with dad on this one.
“Oh? And what the f*ck would you do then Goose Stuff? Huh?”
“I’d put her in a glass cabinet and put her on display.”
“Great. That’s just f*cking great!”
“Well, it’s better that reading her poetry!”
“Well, it’s the right thing to do. I’m just… putting the sensual back in non-consensual”
And that’s when it crept into my impressionable eight year old mind that it was alright to drug girls and take them home with you, so long as you treated them nicely while they were there. I took this idea with me as I grew up until I realized that it wasn’t the right thing to do. But by that stage I was already a walking hard on and it was too late. Of course, I never actually kidnapped anyone and took them home. Mum would have killed me if I had done that and dad would have called me a “f*cking faggot”. Just how stupid do you think I am?
Chapter 11:
Getting back to the story, I should probably tell you what happened when Ally finally came to. She woke up at about midnight in Angus’ room while he was half way through reading her Shakespeare’s sonnets and the first thing she asked was:
“Where am I?”
“You’re in my room.”
“Oh… did we…”
“No. I’ve just been sitting here reading you poetry for the last five hours”
“That’s sweet of you…”
“It’s the least I could do”
“I’m just happy that you didn’t take advantage of me while I was out cold. Most guys would have just gone ahead and did their business anyway.”
“Well, if I had listened to my dad, I’d have more than a business. I’d have an entire business conglomerate by now”
“It’s not very nice to talk about your dad that way. I’m sure he’s not that perverted”
“Oh, you don’t know my dad. He really did say that. ‘What good is kidnapping a f*cking girl if you’re not going to f*ck her, boy?’”
“Wow…”
“Yeah, he really is per…”
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
“Ummm… okay…”
“You kidnapped me?!?”
“Well, I’ve had the biggest… never mind.”
“You’ve had a crush on me forever haven’t you?”
“No… I mean… how did you know?”
“Everyone at school knew about it, silly. I’ve known for a while now. I was just waiting for you to say something to me so I knew it was real”
“Well, it’s not very easy for a guy like me to impress a girl like you. I mean, look at what you’ve got. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’ve got everything going for you. Why would you want to date a loser like me?”
“You’re not a loser. You’re a really nice guy. You’re sweet and you’re unique”
“Unique?”
“How many other guys would kidnap a girl and then read her poetry while she was unconscious?”
“Ummm… well, I kind of got that idea from my dad as well”
“You’re dad sounds like a sweet guy”
“So sweet he’ll make your teeth rot”
“Did I mention you were really funny too?”
She pursed her lips and closed her eyes as she leant in towards Angus.
“Is something wrong, Ally?” She obviously didn’t hear his question because she help her lips pursed for a while and then,
“What’s wrong, Angus?”
“Nothing… nothing at all. Everything is just perfect”
And they kissed and they both lived happily ever after…
You didn’t really believe that did you? Gullible fools. This is what really happened:
She woke up at about midnight in Angus’ room while he was half way through reading her Shakespeare’s sonnets and the first thing she asked was:
“What in the f*ck are you doing? Where the f*ck am I!?!”
“You’re in my room”
“How did I get here? The last thing I remembered was being at the dance party having a sip from my midori and the next thing I know I’m here and you’re reading me… what the hell are you reading me?”
“It’s Shakespeare.”
“I hate Shakespeare. How did I get here again?”
“Well, remember that midori you were drinking? I kind of spiked it”
“Oh my god… please don’t tell me we… did you…?”
“No, I’ve just been reading you poetry for the last five hours”
“Bullshit! Who the hell drugs a girl, takes her home and then reads her poetry?!?”
“No, I’m serious. You can ask my dad, he told me I should have had sex with you but I didn’t think it was right”
“You’re father’s in on this as well?!? Your entire family is f*cking sick!”
Rather than pursing her lips and closing her eyes, she frantically wiped at her lips with her hands and checked to see that she was still dressed. Then she promptly wound up her left hand and unleashed an absolute whopper of a slap on Angus. I’m not talking about your regular ‘I’m pissed off’ big slap. Oh no, this puts that to shame. This was like being hit by a sledgehammer and a pneumatic drill at the same time while on fire and having your kidney removed without anesthetic. It was loud enough to wake the entire household and when dad came over to see what was going on, the first thing he said was:
“Ah, I see you’ve finally woken up”
“Dad! Tell her I didn’t sleep with her!”
“What? Don’t lie, boy. You were making out like f*cking wildebeests for hours and hours”
SLAP! This one was like being whipped repeatedly in the nads while vinegar is being applied. Doesn’t sound quite as dramatic as being hit by a sledgehammer, but I assure you (and any guy will vouch for me on this point) that being hit in the nuts with anything is not a pleasant experience. The only thing that would be more painful would be giving birth.
And with that, Ally stormed out of Angus’ room, slammed the door and walked home. The lesson to be learnt here: no matter what you do after you kidnap someone, they’ll still be mighty pissed off with you regardless. And more importantly, never read poetry to a girl who doesn’t like poetry. It will only get you abused physically (SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!) and verbally (“I F*CKING HATE SHAKESPEARE! Why don’t you f*ck off and die?!?”). Not sure which is worse, but remember this: never kidnap a girl and then read her poetry. You’re wasting your time and effort. And like my dad said, if you’ve already got her drugged and in your room, you may as well “make out like f*cking wildebeests”.
And just one more time for the people who are really thick: DO NOT KIDNAP A GIRL AND READ HER POETRY. (You’d be surprised how many people will still go out, kidnap a girl and read her poetry after this. Honestly, some people are seriously warped. Bring on the hormones and let them have their cake!)
Chapter 12: The most important thing to know about girls is that they are always right (especially when they’re wrong)
One of the other important things to remember about your girlfriend (regardless of whether she is a super model or a dog ugly old granny) besides the fact that her favourite flower never was, is not and never will be self raising (not unless she suddenly develops a baking fettish anyway in which case you should dump her before things get really weird and she starts calling you ‘Soufflé baby’) is that she is always right. No matter what the argument is, she is always right. This rule is particularly important to note in any argument because even when she’s wrong and contradicting herself (for example, in the morning she says that your car would look best in red and then changes her mind in the afternoon and then says that it’d look best in blue and then changes her mind again by dinner and says that it’d look really hot in yellow), she’s still right on all accounts. In fact, she’s most right when she’s wrong (for example: “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is by TS Eliot” even though everyone knows it’s written by Samuel Beckett). Never debate the accuracy or correctness of what she has just said because she will always be right and you will always be wrong (for example, when she says that the average car has seven wheels or that Paris Hilton isn’t a rampant whore). Even when you agree with her and she is absolutely correct you will still be wrong (for example, when she gets an offer for an overseas scholarship and says she wants to stay with you until you say that you want her to stay at which point she decides to go because she can’t possibly stay just because you want her to and that you’re a greedy, self-centred as for even suggesting it). In any argument, the man will always lose because the woman will always have the last word in any argument and anything said after that is the beginning of a new argument.
So how do we apply this system to real life? Well, the simple answer is that we do not apply this system to real life. We just take it as it is (which is what any real man would do because we’re too damn chivalrous for our own good), nod in agreement at everything she says and throw in the occasional, “yeah, that’s great” (without any sarcastic tone attached to it because that would be equivalent to suicide). All the while, we’re staring at the ceiling and counting the number of holes in the air vent while trying desperately to refrain from making any sort of noise that may be mistaken for a yawn or snoring (because that would lead to something worse than death: *dramatic music* sexual abstinence). Let’s face it, there’s no real point in offering your real opinion because if she wanted your opinion she would have told you what it was. If she so much as gets a sniff of something that even remotely sounds like an original thought coming form you, she will automatically deem it wrong. Even if she had just had the same thought a few seconds earlier. Especially if she had just had that thought a few seconds ago.
This “whatever I say is right and whatever you say is wrong because I’m a girl and you’re a guy” rule is the number one reason guy’s hate shopping with their female counterparts. Recall that women are all evil and think of shopping as a form of ritual sacrifice. What’s being sacrificed? Small animals? Worse. Small, live animals? Worse. Humans? Worse. Live humans? Worse. The sacrifice is money. While human life is a very valuable thing, what we must realize is that we are living in an age in which the dominant religion is moneism; the religion in which money takes precedence over all else (unless she says otherwise because she is always right). The majority of devout moneists are men because women are too easily tempted by the snares and wickedness of the store manager. The store manager and the corporation he represents (it has to be a he because women are evil and incapable of following simple instructions like “don’t eat the apple”, let alone run a large business) know the greatest weakness of the woman. Women have but to hear the words “fifteen percent off” and they suddenly forget all the important values they were raised with.
Chapter 13: The history of moneism and what it means to you
The religion of moneism has existed since humans have been around. Today, over 60% of the world’s population subscribe to the moneist religion. 70% of its members do not realize that they are part of the religion. Of those members that do realize it 99% of them would not admit to being part of the religion if asked, preferring to state ‘Jedi’ as their religion. Of the 60% of the population who subscribe to moneism, five sixth of these are women. And 40% of statistics are made up on the spot.
The popularity of the religion of moneism comes mainly from the fact that it can easily co-exist with other religions and there isn’t any real idol as such which reduces the “thou shalt not worship any other idol or be condemned to eternal hell” clause of most religions into a redundancy. The other reason that makes this religion so popular is that there aren’t really any rules to follow. None of that “love thy neighbour” and “thou shall not bang thy neighbour’s wife” nonsense. The only rule is that money takes precedence over all else.
Devout Moneists have been known to let family members die at the hands of kidnappers because they deemed $50,000 to be worth more than the life of their mother-in-law. To be honest, it may have been worthwhile to pay the kidnappers $50,000 to kill her because mothers-in-law are the epitome of evil. They’re like Eve and all of the things in Pandora’s box rolled together with a sprinkling of Adolf Hitler for good measure.
Anyway, I digress. Back to the point. Moneists value money over all else because that’s what the religion is all about, as illustrated in the ten commandments of non-cents (because only the dollar is worthy):
- Thou shall covet thy money over all else.
- Thy worldly goods art thy life.
- Thou shall water thy tree because thy money doth grow on thy tree.
- Should thy tree fail to flower, thou shalt borrow from thy neighbour’s tree.
- Thou shall not fear to use they credit card for thy credit card art thou greatest friend in times of need.
- Thou shall not show weakness and falter in the face of thy credit card debt.
- Thou shall defend thy money and worldly possession even at the cost of life and limb
- Thou shall sacrifice the life and limb of thy neighbour in place of thy own whenever possible
- Thou art thy clothes, thy house and thy car keys.
- Thou shall keep up with the Jones’ because to falter in spending art a sin punishable through life without thy credit card.
It’s pretty obvious why moenism is such a popular religion, especially amongst women. Not only does it promote the thing women love to do most (i.e. shop like there’s no tomorrow) it also makes it alright to steal from your neighbour so you can keep up with him. In fact, it promotes it as being one of the most virtuous of acts.
Recall that five sixths of the world’s moneists are women. While this may seem like an excessively large and perhaps incorrect figure (unless she says it’s correct of course), a little bit of general knowledge, some logic and a few simple calculations allow use to show that this statistic is not one of the 40% that are made up. It is a well known fact that women have a genetic predisposition to shop. It’s programmed into their heads from birth and geneticists believe that there may be a gene particular to women that compels them to think of everything in terms of shopping in much the same way that the porocreation gene (often referred to as the ‘everything revolves around sex’ gene or the Freudian gene) compels men to think of everything in terms of sex. Need proof? Here is an example that clearly illustrates my point.
· A man and a woman go to a park and they see a bench. The woman’s first thoughts are “I think I’ve seen that bench at Ikea before on sale for a hundred and ninety nine dollars ninety five”. The man’s first thoughts are: “Wonder what it’d be like to have sex on that bench”
Still not convinced? Here’s another one for good measure
· A man and a woman are at a swimming pool and they see a lady in a bright pink bikini on the spring board. The woman’s first thoughts are: “That bikini is so last season! I bet she got it at that clearance store down at Birkinhead Point”. The man’s first thoughts are: “That spring board reminds me of my penis…” then “I would so do her right now!” and closely followed by “I wonder what it’d be like to have sex on that spring board”
Now that we’ve established the fact that women are genetically inclined to shop, we can make the relatively safe assumption that there are roughly andequal number of men and women in the world. After all, people are either male or female (regardless of what they may look like, androgenous males still count as males and androgenus females still count as females). They can’t be neither and they sure as hell can’t be both (there are, of course, some rare exceptions but they’re not quite human so we’ll leave them out of this equation). So if half the world’s population are female and all females are genetically predisposed to shopping, that means that 50% of the world’s population are genetically predisposed to shopping and they are all women. The other 10% is made up of gay men (“because, dahhlingg, that shirt is soooo you”) and metrosexual men (who are here, not quite queer but almost there). And that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Chapter 14: What ‘do I look good in this?’ really means
Men and women have never really understood each other and many people think that this is because men are from Mars and women are from Venus. This statement is a downright blatant fallacy. Men and women are not from different planets. No, they are from totally different universes. Usually, when a man says something, he’s relatively straightforward about it and the woman always over-analyses it and makes it into something it isn’t. Examples include:
· He says: “I’m hungry”
· She thinks: he’s telling me to get him food, the no good lazy sob
· He means: “I’m hungry”
· He says: “You’d look good in that”
· She thinks: he’s been perving on that girl and wishes he was with her because she looks so much prettier than me… woe is me… *demands divorce* etc.
· He means: “You’d look good in that”
· He says: “I like my job”
· She thinks: holy shit, he’s having an affair with his secretary
· He means: “I like my job”
· He says: “You look good tonight”
· She thinks: tonight? Does he think I look ugly every other night? I’m so ugly!... woe is me… *slits wrist* etc.
· He means: “You look good tonight”
· He says: “You. Me. Bedroom. Now”
· She thinks: what? You’re not making any sense without the verbs. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Unless he found all those shopping bags and wants to start an argument upstairs.
· He means: “You. Me. Bedroom. Now”
As you can see, men say what they think and women always read between the lines and find meaning that isn’t there and overcomplicate things (as women do. In fact it’s what they do best besides shopping. There’s probably a gene for overcomplicating things as well, we just haven’t found it yet). This over complication process also happens when they’re speaking to their inter-universal counterparts. For example:
· She says: “Do I look good in this?”
· He hears: “Do I look good in this?”
· She means: “Is the colour right? Does it match my shoes? Does it match my handbag? Which belt do you think goes with this? Do I have anything at home that matches? Does it make me look anything like Elle Macpherson?”
· She says: “When will you be home?”
· He hears: “When will you be home?”
· She means: “Where are you going? Who are you going with? You’d better not be going to a strip club. If you’re not home by such and such a time, you are going to be in deep shit and I’m going to withhold sex from you for a week because I can and to teach you to stop thinking with your penis”
· She says: “I’m going to pick up the kids”
· He hears: “I’m going to pick up the kids”
· She means: “You go pick up the kids for once you lazy bastard! I don’t give a shit if you haven’t slept in 3 days. You think I’m telling you I’m going to pick the kids up just because I feel as though I should report everything to you?”
· She says: “How was work?”
· He hears: “How was work?”
· She means: “Where the hell have you been? You’re home late again, the kids haven’t seen you in ages, I haven’t seen you in ages, we hardly talk anymore. You’d better be late because you were working overtime for extra money to buy me jewellery and not becauseyou’ve been banging that bimbo secretary of yours because I will kick her scrawny Barbie ass and scratch her f*cking eyes out”
· She says: “I feel like visiting cousin Doris”
· He hears: “I feel like visiting cousin Doris”
· She means: “I don’t really like cousin Doris that much but I know she gives you the shits so you’re coming with me whether you like it or not. And when we get there, you’ll sit there and smile and nod and converse because otherwise I am going to withhold sex from you for a month and you’re not going to like that at all.
· She says: “I’ve got a headache”
· He hears: “I’ve got a headache”
· She means: “I don’t really have a headache. I am just not in the mood to play your stupid kinky ass sex games today and if you even start with the foreplay, you’re going to know exactly what a real headache feels like and then we’ll see if you still feel like kinky games”
· She says: “I’m pregnant”
· He hears: “I’m pregnant”
· She means: “Now I have to go through that f*cking pain all over again just because you couldn’t keep your god damned penis in your pants and accept that I once in a while when I say ‘I have a headache’ that I really mean it and I’m not just using it as an excuse not to have sex with you”
· She says: “You. Me. Bedroom. Now”
· He hears: “You. Me. Bedroom. Now”
· She means: “You go up there first and wait for me while I get dressed just so you can undress me I five minutes time and while I get dressed (which is going to take forever because I can’t decide if my ass looks fat in this or not) you can sit there and wait in eager anticipation until you go flaccid and then when I get there you won’t feel like sex anymore and then we can have a fight about how you don’t appreciate me”
See, they say about four words but really mean about four full length sentences with commas all over the place, effectively making it about eight sentences. Men don’t cope well with subtlety. We come from a universe where everything is as blunt as possible and tact is frowned upon. This applauding of bluntness is what made my father such a bad ass alpha male character. He was about as blunt and straightforward as they came. Blunt to the point where he’d often leave verbs out in sentences just to make it simpler, clearer and quicker. When he said, “You. Me. Bedroom. Now” he meant, “You. Me. Bedroom. Now” like any man would mean. If mum said “You. Me. Bedroom. Now” what she’d really mean was like most women would mean.
So to answer the question, posed in the title of this chapter, what does ‘do I look good in this?’ really mean? It depends if you ask a woman or a man. If you ask a woman, ‘do I look good in this?’ would probably contain enough meaning to fill an entire set of encyclopedias and define the meaning of life four times over. If you ask a man what ‘do I look good in this?’ means, his translation would get about as complex as “do I look good in this?”
The moral of the story? When conversing with a species from a different universe, be sure to have a translator on hand so that there’s some sort of mutual understanding.
Chapter 15: Gustaf’s life philosophy – ‘if all else fails, eat chocolate!’
Life is not an easy thing. Nobody said that it was and nobody expects it to be easy. In a dog eat dog world, everybody’s looking out for themselves and that is precisely why one must look after one self as best as possible even if it means the damnation and treading on of others. Even if it means kissing the asses of those pricks who you work for because they’re higher up on the food chain than you. Even if it means giving up your hopes and dreams so you can just stay alive.
But what if you’ve done everything you could to make it to the top and still fall flat? What if you never get to drive your dream car because your pay rises aren’t matching the rate of inflation and because the price of petrol simply means that driving a quad turbo charged V12 utterly out of the question? What if you never get to live in your dream house and can’t afford anything bigger than a broom closet in the city (which you have to share with somebody else)? What if you’re dream wife turns out to be nothing more than a plastic doll with shit for brains? What if those kids you always wanted don’t exist because your shit for brains Barbie wife had to make herself infertile during those years she spent as a porn star? What if every single one of the dreams that you’ve ever had since you were a small child never came true because you were never fast enough, never strong enough, never smart enough, never hardworking enough, never lucky enough?
The answer is simple: if all else fails, just eat chocolate. Sounds too simple to work, doesn’t it? How will it solve all the problems in my life if I just eat chocolate? Well, it won’t. The point is, it makes you feel better. Doesn’t alcohol have the same effect? Well, yes, alcohol does have the same effect. But think of chocolate as a cheaper (and more importantly an infinitely happier) alternative to drinking yourself silly. Sure, you don’t get the whole bartender pretending to listen to you and pretending to actually care that your whole life is utter shit, but think of what you do get. Sugary. Cocoa-ey. Sweet. Pimple fueling. Goodness.
Still driving a shit box twenty year old
Still living at home with your parents at twenty five? Just eat chocolate! Your parents won’t suddenly cark it and leave you the house in their will, but think of how little chocolate you’d be able to afford if you had to pay mortgages and rent and food costs and all that jazz? Is it really worth giving up the sugary goodness for a house? Just eat the chocolate and be merry.
Finally moved out of your parents home after they survived a dozen heart attack scares each but now living in a half bedroom apartment? Just eat chocolate! Living in a shit hole apartment has its advantages. Like being able to eat so much chocolate that you throw up all over the place but not notice the smell of the vomit because you’ve grown accustomed to the smell of death anyway. Just eat chocolate!
Married to a very hot girl who’s understanding of ‘back humour’ is Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy? Just eat chocolate! The advantage of living with a supermodel is that she doesn’t eat. Nothing at all. That includes chocolate. So what if she can’t tell the difference between a monk and a politician? She doesn’t eat the chocolate which means there’s more for you. Just eat chocolate!
Already forty five and still not a single mini-you in sight? Just eat chocolate. If you had kids, you’d have to share the chocolate with them because it’s the only way to shut the little monsters up. And then you have to change the diapers, play games with them and go through high school all over again because your kid is too dumb and/or lazy to do the assignments himself. Oh, and did I mention that raising kids costs a fortune? Not only will you have to share the chocolate, you’ll have less to share as well. Just eat chocolate!
See, chocolate is a wonderful thing. Every time you’re feeling down on yourself because you’re life sucks ass, just remember to eat chocolate because it will always make you feel better about yourself.
The only exception to this is if you’re feeling down on yourself because you resemble a pregnant beached whale. In this case eating chocolate is likely to do you as much good as bombing
So if you’re feeling depressed about being bigger than Ben Hur, do anything, just don’t eat chocolate!
Chapter 16: Life is like a box of chocolates if you’re allergic to cocoa
Forrest Gump is a brilliant movie. It’s one of the great movies of our times because it is by turns comic and sad, thoughtful and frivolous, lighthearted and passionate, but always sublimely appropriate. Except for one line. You know the line I’m talking about. That one line spoken by Forrest himself from the park bench. That one immortal line. “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”
Now is it just me, or is there a seriously big flaw in that argument? Whenever I buy a box of chocolates, I sure as hell want to know what I’m going to get. And so do a lot of other people. And that is precisely why Cadbury, Lindt and all their confectionary manufacturing compatriots have lists of what chocolates are in the box written on the box (a very appropriate place if you think about it, not that any great degree of thought is needed to process the logic of it all). So first of all, the stupid line is flawed because you know exactly what you’re going to get in a box of chocolates.
Even if we were to assume that for whatever reason, every single box of chocolates our dear friend Forrest has ever bought in his blissfully ignorant life is by a freak coincidence (as in about as likely as somebody winning the lottery and then being killed by a falling coconut on the same day) missing the label that tells you what’s going to be in it, life is anything but a box of chocolates (unless you’re one of those lucky bastards that happens to be born with an entire silver cutlery set in your mouth and an inheritance worth more than a small island). Life is a box though. But what kind of box is really entirely dependent on what sort of day, week or year you happen to be having at any given time.
There are those bitter times in life. You know, like all those times I were rejected by girls at high school, when I finally got with a girl I’ve had your eyes on forever only to find out she’s not all I thought she was cracked up to be (although she was ‘cracked up’ in a white powder sort of way) and that I’ve wasted the last year of my life, those times when I spilt your milk as a little kid, every time a pet has died or run away because I were too reckless, too negligent or too loving, that time my father came home from the pub totally drunk and sodomised me and my brother (kind to think of it, that might be the reason I’m so f*cked in the head today. Maybe it wasn’t my brother’s fault afterall…). And it’s times like this when life is like a box of licorice. Because everybody knows just how damn gross licorice is and nobody likes it but it’s somehow the best selling candy and is all over the place (much like how the bitter shit in life happens too frequently).
There are times in life when life when everything is just great and the sun is shining and I’m walking on sunshine. You know, like all those days I spent on the beach with Ana while we watched the sunset and stayed up all night just to see the sunrise, those days where I’ve woken up and just know that everything is right in the world (even though the world has never been quite right and will never be quite right so long as humans are on it), the mornings where I’ve woken up to the smell of Ana and the coffee that she’s making (two sugars, no milk. Just the way she knows I like it) and every day that you’ve ever spent with Ana because she’s the most wonderful and loving and amazing person you’ve ever known. You’re forgetting about Josephine your dream girl with the ‘everything is great and the sun is shining and I’m walking on sunshine’ smile, ‘oh my god that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard even though it’s not that funny’ laugh, ‘huh what did you say? I was daydreaming’ gaze and ‘louder than Hawaiian shirts, larger than life’ personality. Well, in case you forgot, Gustaf, Josephine isn’t real which means you’ve never really met her as such. You only invented her. Details. Anyway, it’s times like these (you learnt to live again and love again) that make life like a box of jellybeans.
Sometimes life is really funny and there’s just so much irony you could sink an entire fleet with it. Like that time my best friend took a wild swinging kick at a tennis ball as he yelled out “RONALDO!” only to have his shoe fly off his foot, travel further than the ball did and end up on the roof (a moment that will forever be immortalised as William’s famous Ronaldo projectile shoe). I were laughing so hard I was on the floor that time. Or that time when that little kid from the seventh grade was annoying my friends to let him join them in cards and was standing so close to Jeffery that he told him “get your foot out of my ass” which Brook (the goody two-shoes from the grade below) remarked was “so mean” to which Jeffery replied “well what do you want me to say? Shove it up further, it feel great?” I was on the floor laughing that time too. And who could forget that classic one liner from Ben. “Get out of the way, you’re blocking my shade”. I was on the floor doubled over in pain from all the laughter. It’s times like these that life is like a box of sour gummy worms. And not just those run of the mill gummy worms. I’m talking about those ultra crazy uber sour gummy worms. The kind that make your face suck itself inside out from the sourness and make you wish you hadn’t eaten them but at the same time making you want more.
Then there are the lonely times in life when you’re all alone and it feels like there’s nobody else in left in the world who gives a damn about you or realises that you actually exist. Like the entire twelve months that followed dad’s death. Mum didn’t cope with it very well and pretty much kept to herself and Angus was always out with his girlfriend as if nothing had happened which pretty much left me alone with nobody to talk to because I wasn’t a very sociable kid. Never was because of mum and dad’s paranoid theory about the world (which included the kids at school, especially the kids at school) being out to get them. Or ever time I’ve ever been dumped because then I went through that emo stage where nothing has any meaning and I go through the whole ‘woe is me, if there is a god up there may he strike me down this very instant, smite me and end my misery’ period. It’s times like these where life is like an empty box, just waiting for better things to be put into it but at the same time not really expecting these things.
And then there are those times of bitter sweet agony where things are oh so right and yet oh so wrong, all the while being irony in its purist form. Like when my grandfather won the lottery, which was fantastic because he had lived a hard life and had waited a long time for his ship to come in. The next day he was headed towards the boat floating on the river
So the conclusion? Life is like a box. We don’t know what’s in the box and the contents may vary from time to time. We don’t know what life is going to throw at us next, but odds are it’s not going to be something good. Life is like a box of chocolates. But only if you’re allergic to cocoa.
Chapter 17: It’s true that hard work never killed anyone but why take the risk?
I’m allergic to hard work. Ever since I was a child, I was never cut out for anything that even resembled real work. Fortunately, I was a pretty bright spark when I was a young lad so I could pretty much get away with not studying for exams and still doing very well (occasionally topping the exam and beating all those other people who poured blood, sweat and tears into it) as well as leaving assignments to the last minute and still managing exceptional marks in most of them because I had enough raw talent to get me through. Anything resembling real work made me break out in boredom and fatigue. In fact, my work allergy was so bad that even the thought of real work made me break out in boredom, fatigue and apathy. In some really bad cases (such as the idea of working overtime as a stock filler at a local supermarket) it even caused seizures.
My first ‘job’, if you could call it that, was at a tutoring place in one of the dodgier western suburbs. Not that you’d call tutoring a real job by any means. If anything, it’s just a very handy way to impose your ideas upon the minds of the next generation and shaping their ideals while you’re in the process. The main task of a tutor is (amazingly enough) to tutor. I was supposed to be tutoring kids in maths (all that algebra and fraction stuff) and English (William ‘son of satan’ Shakespeare, essay writing and proper grammar). In reality what I was teaching them was how to gamble and how to cheat the educational system and get away with plagiarising. Sure, it was somewhat immoral and highly irresponsible of me to be teaching young kids how to play poker and scam free marks but it was interesting for me and interesting for them. It’s impossible to teach kids anything that they don’t want to learn and not too many kids voluntarily give up their Saturdays to learn about Pythagoras (because we all know he was a fag who died from HIV. Well, he should have anyway) so in exchange for half an hour of working at Pythagoras and friends, I let them have half an hour of free time. It was a mutual agreement that we had going and I thought it was a pretty fair trade. Half an hour of work for half an hour of play. Besides, planning anything more than half an hour of work per week would be bordering on being real work and I just wasn’t ready to risk my life on that.
I was never that great a teacher anyway because I couldn’t make the classes interesting without digressing onto other things. Remember that story about snow white the thieving tramp and sleazy the eighth dwarf? That was what came to fruition after years and years of thinking and plotting and diabolical evenings of maniacal laughter. That was my grand plan and my secret weapon. My equivalent of a nuclear bomb. And if snow white the thieving tramp and sleazy the eighth dwarf failed me, then the terrorists had already won. Did I say terrorists? I meant children. On second thoughts, it’s the same thing really.
I think this allergy to work might be a genetic thing too. My father was never much of a hard worker (unless you count drinking beer as work, in which case he was the hardest worker in the history of the universe. The male universe anyway because ‘work’ probably has a different meaning in the female universe). My grandfather wasn’t much of a worker either. He enlisted in the armed forces because he thought it would be a good way to get himself a vacation from work. When he found out that he was expected to kill people and dig trenches and all that, he ‘accidentally’ shot himself in the foot to get himself out of trench digging duties and into the medical ward. I mean, his allergy to work must have been really really bad if he shot himself in the foot to get out of it. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced it before but shooting yourself in the foot hurts like crazy so if he shot himself in the foot to get out of work, the allergy must have been immensely painful. Perhaps even more painful than giving birth.
We may all be lazy work intolerant bastards but we were also all utterly diabolical to the nth degree and pretty clever cookies to boot. I think that ran in the family too. Of course, nobody in my family ever died from hard work but why take the risk, right?
Chapter 18: Everything she did was so dramatic and flamboyant it made me want to set myself on fire
Yvonne. My first ever ‘love’ (assuming love really does exist and that a ten year old mind can actually grasp the concept of ‘love’ and differentiate it from the evil of lust). You know how every class at every school always has to have certain people? Like the class clown who is forever cracking jokes that are so absurdly lame that it makes everyone want to laugh? The nerd who nobody really likes at all (because he’s got the correct answer to everything every single time without trying while everyone else is struggling to get the answer) but respects anyway (because he’s got the correct answer to everything every single time without trying while everyone else is struggling to get the answer). The slightly retarded klutz who was really a nice guy but provided endless humour fodder for the rest of us because he was forever saying stupid things, getting things mixed up, tripping over things and walking into poles and glass doors. Then there was the drama queen who pretty much made a big deal out of everything. Your average drama queen is master of making a mountain out of a molehill. Yvonne was the queen of all drama queens. She could make an entire mountain range out of an ant hill. And to add to that, she was totally out there, absolutely hyper and quite possibly insane. But that’s why I ‘loved’ her (not that I really knew what love was back then or know what love is now, but it’s whatever feels good right? In which case masturbating could be considered love but that’s just getting a bit too wrong (even for this story) so we’ll just move on…). She was flamboyant and dramatic and I was quiet and pretty much kept to myself. I couldn’t admit to liking her because then all the guys would give me hell for being in love and then they’d start that childish song.
Gustaf and Yvonne, sitting in a tree
K-i-s-s-i-n-g
First comes love, then comes marriage
Then comes a little baby in a carriage.
How do I know with the utmost certainty (so sure that I would have bet my brother’s car on it (and hence my life if I was wrong)) they would have done that? Because they were childish and as a child at the time, that’s exactly what I would have done. (Of course, boys will be boys and Angus started singing that song once he found out about Ana). So I had to find a way to tell her how I felt about her without drawing the attention of everyone else to the fact that I was in love and/or in lust, both concepts which my feeble ten year old brain had trouble grasping at the time.
The mind of a ten year old is a very imaginative and creative place. A place of chocolate covered rainbows and cotton candy skies, new toys and fluffy animals. Well, that’s probably what it would have been like “back in the good old days” (as Grandpa Sonovavitch would have put it). These days it was more like a battlefield of guns and mortars, terrorists and FBI agents. Blame it on the media. Blame it on violent
So my mind went to work and as I mulled over the idea of drawing her attention to me, I discarded a lot of ideas along the way because they were either impractical, impossible or just plain counter-productive to making a girl notice you and like you. But I wrote them down anyway because a lot of them might have proven to be useful should anybody disagree with me when I became ruler of the universe (ideas such as strapping somebody’s testicles to a rocket). And then it hit me. Set her on fire!
She was forever standing out from the crowd and she had always set my world on fire. Besides, my ten year old mind thought that ‘flamboyant’ meant ‘liking to be on fire’. So thought it’d be good to set her on fire as a token to show my appreciation for what she does for me. Of course, setting one’s love interest on fire isn’t the easiest task for a ten year old child to undertake (or for anybody else for that matter seeing as how it break a few laws including assault, attempted murder and arson, not that my ten year old mind knew it was illegal at the time). What made the task harder was that it had to be a surprise. So one day after school, I followed her to the swimming pool and when she wasn’t looking, doused her clothes in methylated spirit. When she was done swimming, she got changed and left the pool. Just as she walked out the gate, I jumped in front of her and yelled out “Surprise!” and promptly lit a match and threw it at her. She began screaming and running around. I knew what that screaming meant. I had heard my mother screaming like that before while she was pillow fighting with dad. My ten year old self then knew she was happy and she was so flamboyant and dramatic at that moment that it made me want to set myself on fire. So that’s what I did.
A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived and took her away. I had only sustained minor burns because I had run out of methylated spirit and only managed to burn my left sleeve off. I never saw her again. I think she moved out because a month later a girl moved into her house. It was kind of weird because the new girl’s parents looked exactly the same as Yvonne’s parents and the girl sounded just like Yvonne. But it couldn’t possibly have been her because the new girl was covered in bandages from head to toe.
Chapter 19: There are more novel ways to kill yourself than writing a novel in a month
I’ve been through rough times in life (those times when life is like a box of licorice). And during those times, I’ve often contemplated suicide as a means of escape from the cruel harsh world of reality. Luckily, there was always someone there to help me through it, otherwise I wouldn’t be here to tell you about my life experience now. Although I never actually got around to killing myself, I did manage to think of a few very creative ways to do it. I mean, hanging yourself or shooting yourself seemed like such an unoriginal and stock standard way to kill yourself. If I was going to go down, I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory (although not quite the same blaze of glory that Yvonne left town with) so I came up with some innovative ways to kill myself that would be certain to inspire future generations of suicidal teens to greater heights (in terms of coming up with unique, spectacular and novel ways to kill themselves, not in terms of jumping off higher buildings. Once you get to about the ninth floor, the splatter you’ll make upon impact will look about the same no matter how much higher up you go). So, without further ado, I present to you (
At number five we make use of our good friend correction fluid. Anybody can tell you that sniffing liquid paper isn’t good for you. But just how bad is it for your health? Bad enough to kill you (or so I thought anyway. Apparently, it was more likely to cause severe brain damage than hemorrhaging). But the idea was basically to sniff liquid paper until you bled to death through your nose. That way you’d leave a great big pile of bloody mess all over the place. The best thing about this form of suicide is that it takes a long time so should you change your mind half way through, you can always bail out. But since sniffing liquid paper wouldn’t quite have the dramatic effect I had thought, I had to come up with another way to use it as a tool of suicide because it was just too novel to give up. And then I remembered about another property of liquid paper: it was highly flammable. So instead of bleeding yourself to death from your nose, you could drink a few bottles worth of the stuff so that it coats the inside of your mouth then throw a lit match in. Then you can burn to death from the inside or just bleed to death through your mouth from the burn wounds. Not nearly as novel as bleeding to death through your nose, but much more spectacular and messy. Anything involving fire is going to be spectacular.
At number four we have the ever popular ‘high pitched music torture’. Inspired by the Chinese water tortures in which people were tied to chairs and had water dripping onto their foreheads periodically until they went insane or until they starved to death, this torture basically involves a chair, a few chains and the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees are able to hits notes that not even the most testicle-less of men would be able to hit, probably because they’re not actually men but women disguised as men, much like Hanson (who at least sounded kinda like guys). The basic principal behind this is that high pitched noises break stuff. This stuff is usually made of glass and it’s been proven that it is possible to break glass with the human voice at the right pitch and volume. Now, since being thrown through a glass window causes pain and high pitched voices cause a great deal of pain to glass, it serves to logic that high pitched voices would do a lot of damage to the human body. This suicide method basically works like this: you chain yourself to a chair, throw away the key and put the Bee Gees on full blast on repeat. If all goes to plan, your testicles, bladder and head will explode in no time (although not necessarily in that order. Hopefully the testicles go after the head because erupting testicles would be painful as hell and no head basically means no experience of pain). One of the best ways to send the message across to the living that you were ready to die while also leaving a huge mess for them to clean up.
Coming in at number three is the favourite amongst medical school drop outs. Attempting to castrate or circumcise yourself with a kitchen knife. No pads. No anesthetic. Nothing but balls (and possibly not even those if you somehow succeed in castrating yourself). For those of us who aren’t med school failures, this basically sends the message to the living that we don’t need our reproductive organs in the afterlife because we sure as hell can’t get sex in this life. Not only that, when they find your dead body sans testicles and penis, it’ll resemble something out of a seriously deranged pornographic horror film. And just in case you do somehow manage to remove your own balls without bleeding to death, you’ve already got the knife in you hand. Kill yourself the conventional way.
Number two is a very amusing one. Force a bowling ball into your mouth and then proceed to swallow it. Or in either case, attempt to force a bowling ball into your mouth and then proceed to try to swallow the thing. This works in several ways. Firstly, you’ll be so amused by trying to get it into your mouth that you’ll put off the suicide attempt until you can manage to fit it into your mouth just to prove that you’re not entirely useless and you really do have something to contribute to society (and fitting a large heavy ball in your mouth benefits humanity, how?). Secondly, you’ll probably die from old age before you manage to get it into your mouth. Think of it as the longest attempt at suicide possible. And if you should somehow miraculously (we’re talking about a miracle greater than a politician who doesn’t lie and proof that military intelligence really isn’t as big of an oxymoron as everyone thinks) fit the bowling into your mouth and then manage to swallow it, you’d eventually tear a hole in your anus the size of a bowling ball shitting it out and then die from bleeding to death through your ass. Way to go, eh?
And the number one novel way to get yourself killed? Well, it involves a lot of make up, a red wig and a dress. No, I’m not talking about dressing up as a clown and embarrassing yourself to death. I’m talking about dressing up as racist fish and chip shop owner turned politician turned dancer, Pauline Hanson. And then walking into Cabramatta, the centre of all things Asian (not to mention all things cocaine and triad related) in
See, there really is a suicide method for everyone. And if none of these ideas suit you, feel free to give me a call and we’ll think of a suitable suicide method that suits you and conveys the message you want to convey. Famous last words are overrated after all. My going rate is a hundred dollars upfront then fifty dollars per hour during the consultation. Remember the golden rule when attempting suicide: succeed or die trying.
Chapter 20: It’s easy to quit smoking, my father’s done it a hundred times…
And while we’re on the topic of novel ways to kill yourself, let’s compare these methods to some of the more popular and unoriginal methods. The most popular way to pull the curtain on your own life is to fabricate a noose out of whatever you can find lying around the house and then hang yourself in your own bedroom. This is a very popular method because it’s cheap, easy and a good clean way to kill yourself. But most importantly, it’s quick and painless. No waiting for hours and hours while the blood slowly seeps through the bowling ball sized hole in your ass. The other popular method of self execution is the highly unoriginal and somewhat messier ‘bullet in the head’ method. Basically, this involves getting a gun (handgun, shotgun, assault rifle, grenade launcher… doesn’t really matter so long as it makes a big kaboom and a big hole), putting it into your mouth and then pulling the trigger. Despite the relative ease of this method, it’s practicality is dependent upon the firearms laws of the country of residence. Which is why it’s very very popular in America where guns are a part of every household and not so in countries like Australia in which guns are illegal to possess unless you’re a policeman or a security guard (the people who are allegedly responsible enough to possess and use a hand gun, despite constantly shooting innocent people). Personally, I find this to be the most irksome of all suicide methods. It’s the midway point between being perfectly clean and making a huge spectacular mess.
A more spectacularly messy and graphic method for terminating your life is to jump off the roof of a building or to jump into an oncoming train. Very messy. Very spectacular. And very traumatising for the people who are there to witness it. Nothing says “I hate life” quite like painting the footpath with your blood and splattered intestines. And nothing quite says “I hate city rail” like splattering your brain all over the front windscreen of one their shiny, new (although never on time) trains.
But the most popular method of killing yourself of all is also a method that many people don’t recognise as a form of suicide. Smoking. Research has shown that smoking causes all sorts of nasty things to happen to you. Your lungs get seriously f*cked over, your veins shrivel up and your leg turns a very disturbing shade of green right before they hack it off you and you lose all sex appeal because you smell like tobacco very day of the week and everybody knows just how nauseating the smell of cigarette smoke is (except for cigarette smokers, of course because another one of the side effect of smoking is that you lose your sense of smell). Despite all this, smoking is still a very popular way to pass time. Perhaps because it’s a lot more fun and far more stress relieving than slitting your wrists or stabbing your head with a fork (repeatedly). But whatever the reason is, the fact remains that smoking is a damn stupid thing to do. And smoking isn’t just a form of suicide either. It’s also a good way to kill off the people around you as well. In essence, a smoker is nothing more than one of those crazy Muslim radicals who get on a bus with a bomb and blow themselves up to kill everybody. Only smokers are far less gracious. They’re inconsiderate enough to make the process a slow and painful one. They are true terrorists.
And there is evidence to suggest that smoking not only causes cancer, but also kills off brain cells at a very rapid rate. In particular, the parts of the brain which control logical thought are crippled to the point where the smoker is unable to put forth a reasonable argument. I have here an example of a letter written by a smoker to the local newspaper regarding a proposed increase in cigarette taxes.
The government keeps increasing the price of cigarettes.
I started this habit at 15 years of age not knowing the seriousness of it.
Many times I have tried to give it up but i can't so I'm forced to pay a high price for cigarettes.
I don't drink to relax or relieve the stress that life throws me.
I don't see how giving up smoking is going to give me immortality nor the people around me.
We are all going to die eventually and no death is easy.
So incresing the price of cigarettes just causes people more hardship than what they are already going through.
If making us smokers stop smoking is the answer to cancer realted deaths then why doesn't the government ban sexual intercourse - that will stop AIDS from sprading?
I've never heard of people breaking into houses to steal money for smokes.
Maybe for heroine. All the smokers I know certainly don't steal their fags.
The government should let people have cigarettes at a lot cheaper price because the young won't stop taking up smoking.
Young people like to do what is not wanted by others, like drugs - it's a thrill.
So maybe it will encourage more of the young people not to smoke if it wasn't a "taboo"
Smoking is a human right.
Cheryl Johnson, Bonnyrigg
[SIC]
Clearly, there is something very wrong with this woman. I mean, “let’s make cigarettes cheaper so kids will stop smoking because kids just like doing what people don’t want”? Maybe that’s the way her retarded tobacco coated brain works but I assure you, the youth are not that juvenile and single minded about these things. There’s a reason these things are taboo. And say we did make the price of cigarettes cheaper so that it isn’t “taboo”. Then kids stop smoking because they’re all so single mindedly rebellious that they’ll stop smoking just because there isn’t anything saying they shouldn’t. And then all the single minded adults (like Cheryl ‘the pot head’ Johnson) will start smoking because we all know that all adults are socially responsible and want to do what’s right. If the government’s endorsing something, it must be good right?
She says she didn’t know about the risks of smoking when she picked it up at fifteen and uses this ignorance to justify the fact that she smokes. Okay, fine. So you picked up smoking at fifteen because you didn’t know it was bad for you. But how are you going to know it’s bad for you if it’s not a social taboo? By making it cheaper, it’s like saying “it’s alright to smoke” (which is something Cheryl also mentions) and this totally contradicts what she has said about not knowing how dangerous it is.
Her argument is basically saying “make it cheaper for those of us stupid enough to smoke and so that people who don’t can pick it up without figuratively paying an arm and a leg for it”. But many smokers literally lose an arm and a leg because they were fifteen when they started and didn’t know any better.
She’s tried many times to quit but can’t and so she’s “forced” to pay a high price. And it’s so totally the government’s fault that you don’t have any self control. Lowering the taxes on cigarettes means that the government will have to find funding for it’s war against terrorism elsewhere (or god forbid, withdraw the troops from
Making cigarettes cheaper is not going to discourage anyone from smoking and it sure as hell isn’t fair on the responsible citizens who realise that death is inevitable but can be postponed for a while longer by not smoking. Rather than making them cheaper, we should force everyone to stop smoking by driving the prices of cigarettes through the roof so that nobody at all can afford to smoke. Problem solved. Besides, it’s not as if it’s that hard to quit smoking. My father did it a hundred times before he died.
Chapter 21: I don’t condoning murder; I’m just saying we should just let the problem solve itself
One of the things that annoys me most in life (besides smokers who don’t give a rat’s ass about the health and welfare of others or are just too damn ignorant to know better) are labels. I’m not talking about labels that make sense are help people in day to day life (take the label on the chocolate box that tells you what’s in the box. Very useful label that one). I’m talking about those labels that state the bleeding obvious and offer warnings not to do things that any sane person wouldn’t try anyway. Some classic examples include:
- A label on a knife that said “This device is not designed for cutting up small children”. Of course you wouldn’t use a knife to cut up small children. That’d just be cruel and morally wrong. Knives should only be used to trim the fat off large and obese children.
- A sticker on a super hero cosplay costume that said “This cape will not allow you to fly. DO NOT JUMP OUT ANY WINDOWS”. Wow, who would have guessed that a regular cloth wouldn’t grant you the ability of flight. They should be sued for misleading consumers. Shame on them for producing capes that don’t let little kids fly and crushing their dreams.
- A sticker on the side of a computer monitor that said “This device is not intended to be used as a projectile”. Well, of all the things to tell me I can’t throw at someone. Next thing you know they’ll be telling me that printers and computer towers aren’t meant to be thrown at people either. I feel as if I’m having my freedom to express my anger is being suppressed.
- Tag on a chainsaw that said “warning: do not hit live people with active chainsaw”. Well of course you wouldn’t use an active chainsaw to hit people. Anybody would have the common sense to turn the thing off before throwing it at a live person (seeing as how computer monitors shouldn’t be used as projectiles and all). Everybody knows that active chainsaws should only be used to hack apart the bodies of deceased people who you’ve dug up from their graves. I mean, what sort of sicko uses a chainsaw on live people?
And last, but certainly not least,
- The instructions printed on the side of the packaging for the complimentary peanuts given to passengers of American Airlines. “1. Open packet. 2. Consume peanuts.” Surely even Americans (as stupid, dense and illogical as they may be) would be able to figure that out. It’s not like anybody’s going to attempt to swallow the packet whole.
While these things may seem very obvious to a lot of people, there are people out there who really do jump out windows with cosplay capes, run at live people with active chainsaws, stick knives into small children, regularly throw computer monitors at disgruntled employees and swallow packets of peanuts whole. The majority of them are illiterate and unable to read the labels and these people fall into a category of humans known as ‘idiots’ (coincidentally, smokers also happen to fall into this category).
These idiots will have children some day (once they find their idiot wives who jump out of windows after donning a Wonder Woman costume) and they will educate their children in the way the world works and what is and isn’t safe. Is it really such a great idea to let people like this have children? Do we really need anymore idiots in the world to supplement the idiocy we’re receiving from the current generation and our politicians? The next generation should be bright and innovative. Not dense and haphazard. How are we to expect the continued survival of the human race when we have idiots endangering our lives at every turn?
But there is a simple solution to this problem. We should find a way to sort out idiots from ‘normal’ people and then kill all the idiots so that they don’t reproduce and spread their madness onto the next generation. I’m not suggesting that we should go on a genocidal rampage. That would be murder and it would make us no better than the idiots themselves. We should just remove the warning labels from things. By doing this we are killing not two but three birds with the one stone. Firstly, those of use with the common sense to realise that knives should not be used to cut up children (no matter how annoying they get and no matter how tempted you may be to just cut off an earlobe to teach them a lesson) will finally be rid of those irritating stickers that are an eyesore and leave a sticky residue on the products when we try to remove them. Secondly, it allows us to find the idiots (or psychopaths in some cases) easily because they’ll be the ones sticking knives into small children and doing other things like that. Thirdly, it lets the idiots kill themselves by splattering themselves all over the pavement (with a cape on of course).
The solution is so deviously simple. It’s not genocide. It’s not even murder. By removing the warning labels from things we are simply letting the problem solve itself.
That said, there are some things that should have warning labels attached that don’t. One such thing that comes to mind are women. They should all come with full instruction manuals and a warning label that says “Warning: this device is highly aggressive and will cut you up into small pieces. It is not designed to be used as a projectile”.
Chapter 22: I hate to spread rumours but what else can you do with them?
“Hi. My name’s Gustaf”
“Hello Gustaf”
“And I’m a rumourholic”
*applause*
“I guess it started when I was about twelve years old. I heard a rumour about this girl in my grade liking this other guy and I just couldn’t help but spread the rumour around because it seemed like such a good idea at the time. I exaggerated the story a bit saying that she had told me she thought he had a sexy body and that she had had a thing for him for a while now. And then the next time I heard a rumour, I just had to spread it as well. I was addicted. Before I knew it, I was not only spreading rumours, I was also starting them”
Yes, if there was ever such a thing as a Rumourholics Anonymous society and if I was to ever join said society, that’s probably how the first meeting would go. With me standing in front of a large group of people confessing my addiction to starting and spreading rumours. And these people would not judge me because they all had the same problem. They would not judge me because they too knew the temptation and urges that I felt so often. They would not judge me because they did not want to be judged. And that would have suited me just fine. I would not judge them because I too had the same problems they did, I too knew the temptation and urges they felt and I too did not want to be judged.
Of course, there’s no such thing as Rumourholics Anonymous so I’m pretty much stuck with this little problem of mine. And I call it a little problem because that’s what it really is. Sure, I was absolutely and hopelessly to spreading rumours and gossip but it’s not as if it ever caused any harm (that one girl who committed suicide after hearing a rumour that her boyfriend was cheating on her doesn’t count because she’s an absolute anomaly to the system. Besides, her death wasn’t the direct effect of the rumour, it was her own insecurities that killed her). And as long as it didn’t cause any harm, what reason was there for changing the habit? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
That said, the habit of spreading rumours is interfering with my life. Every waking hour of every waking day is spent thinking about who should be having an affair with who, who should be eloping with who and who had had sex with who at the last party after one too many glasses of champagne. It wasn’t a very good thing to be thinking about. Especially not when you have actual work to do that wasn’t writing gossip for one of those trash tabloid magazines. You know the ones with the totally nonsense and bogus headlines about people nobody cares about doing things nobody cares about. ‘BRITNEY DRUNK AT THE WHEEL AGAIN’. ‘LINDSAY ADMITS SHE HAS A PROBLEM” (well, she has many problems that really need to be addressed but at least she’s making progress, right?). ‘SCIENTIFIC PROOF THAT PARIS REALLY HAS NO BRAIN’ (it’s been known for a long time that she’s got no brain. All the stupid things she’s done and said should be proof of that but it’s nice to have some scientific evidence to boot).
It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even talk to someone without thinking about who they should be having an affair with. It was that bad. And what made it really bad was that I sometimes thought out loud. Not a very good thing to be doing when you happen to be contemplating who your co-workers had been sleeping with that week. Imagine the conversation…
“Gustaf, have you heard about the new rules the boss is implementing?”
“Hmmm?”
“The new office rules. Have you heard about them?”
“No, I haven’t actually. What sort of draconian things are going down this time?”
And more importantly, who have you been sleeping with…
“He wants to enforce a uniform and a no eating rule during work hours. And on top of that, he wants to remove the coffee machine from the café. We’re office workers damn it! How are we supposed to function without coffe?!?”
“I don’t know…”
… who you should be sleeping with this week.
“I was thinking of starting a petition. What do you think?”
“I am thinking that Nicole should be sleeping with Robert this week”
“I’m what?!?”
“What did I just say?”
*Nicole promptly pours hot coffee all over Gustaf*
See how troublesome this habit is? It’s dangerous to my life. I mean, it may have been coffee up until now but some day somebody is really going to crack and stub out a cigarette in my eye. Actually, that’s probably not going to happen. One of the new rules that my ass of a boss implemented was that we weren’t allowed to smoke inside. Which was good for me on two accounts. One: it meant that I didn’t have to deal with all the cigarette smoke screwing around with my lungs, thus giving my brain more oxygen so it could function properly and churn out believable rumours. Two: it meant that any cigarette stubbing to be conducted on my eye would be unlit cigarettes only. Sure it’d still hurt to be poked in the eye with an unlit cigarette (hell, it hurts when anything is forcefully rammed into your eye) but it’d hurt a hell of a lot more to have a lit cigarette forcefully stabbed into your eye (or eyes depending on how pissed off and violent the person was feeling that particular day).
I don’t want to start rumours. I don’t want to spread rumours. But I just can’t help myself. I need there to be a Rumourholics Anonymous. Maybe I should start a rumour about there actually being a Rumourholics Anonymous society and subtly drop a hint about a meeting place and time. Then the rumour will spread like wildfire and people will being turning up and we can help each other out of the habit. Or maybe we’d just start a huge gossiping and rumour spreading session. The latter would probably be the more likely. And then I’d have a whole bunch of new rumours to spread. Not that I enjoy spreading rumours. But what else can you do with them?
Chapter 23: McIncomprehension, McWrist-tapping and other things about people that drive me insane
There are a lot of annoying people in this world. Some of them annoy me because they overachieve. Some of them annoy me because they don’t show their true potential. Some people annoy me just because they’re the total opposite of me and stand for everything I don’t like (most of these people are evangelists who threaten me with eternal damnation, more on that later). Some people annoy me because they stand for the same things I do and remind me too much of me (if I weren’t me, I’d want to kick my ass. Kind to think of it, I am me and I still want to kick my ass…). And some people annoy me for no particular reason other than the fact that I find their mere presence to be annoying.
But there are some things that a lot of people do that really annoy me. I don’t know whether people do these things out of habit or instinct or if they do them because they see everyone else doing it, but they are very annoying.
Things like pointing to their wrists when they ask me for the time. Why would you need to do that? I’m not deaf. I can hear what you’re saying and I’m not so stupid that I need you to hand signal it out for me so that I understand what you’re saying. And I sure as hell know where my watch is. Why do people find it necessary to tap at their wrists when asking for the time? You don’t see me directing your eyes towards my crotch when I ask you where the toilet is so stop pointing to your wrists when asking for the time. Unless of course you point to your crotch when asking for directions to the bathroom as well, in which case you’re a tactile communicator (pronounced ‘total retard’) and it’s perfectly okay (pronounced ‘still annoying as hell and bordering on morbid’).
Another thing about people that annoys me is when people say things like “Oh, my eyes aren’t what they used to be”. So then what did they used to be? Ears? Rubber boots? Pom poms? Before you start getting all high and mighty and start telling me that it’s a figure of speech and that I’m taking it too literally, let me ask you this: if it is figurative what point is it trying to convey? Surely your eyes have always been eyes and your ears have always been ears. Unless there is a deep and purposeful meaning to your eyes being gum boots in their former mutation that I am totally overlooking because if that is the case, I’d like to apologise profusely for my ignorance in the matter. Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ll be doing much apologising.
People who constantly claim that their things are all “new and improved”. Does anybody else see a slight contradiction in this? If something is “new” then there has never been anything before it. If something is “improved” then there must have been a previous version on which to make the improvements. How can something be both new and improved? It’s a huge oxymoron like ‘military intelligence’ and ‘democratic obligation’. Actually, it’s not at all like those two because the terms in them are at least debatable in definition and at times ambiguous. No, “new and improved” deserves a category of its own. On a scale of one to ten for being a stupid oxymoron, it falls squarely in the category marked ‘craptastic’.
I’m sure I’ve already mentioned this but when people tell me with the smug and condescending look that all grumpy old people are equipped with “you just want to have your cake and eat it too, don’t you?” Well, of course I want to eat my cake. What the hell else am I going to do with it? Use it as a shoehorn? Apply it to my face and hope that the pimples go away? (Although if I stopped eating so much cake, they probably would go away… hmmm… there’s an idea). Use it as a doorstop? Cake is meant to be eaten. Which is why it is usually given to people on a plate with a fork. What good is having freaking cake if you can’t eat the freaking stuff?
There are a lot of things women do that also annoy me. I’ve probably already mentioned some of these but they’re so annoying that they warrant a second rant. Firstly, they should know that if they ask a question they don’t want an answer to then they should be expecting an answer they don’t want to hear. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t want to be told that you’re fat, don’t ask us “Do I look fat in this?”. If you don’t want to be told that your mother is annoying, don’t ask us if we’re getting along with the bitch. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you want to be discussing things like navel lint, the shotgun formation, monster trucks and how much hotter the girl next door is than you are.
When we say something you don’t like or forbid you from going to that shoe sale because you already have more shoes than you’ve had breakfasts and you start crying, that is also very annoying. Crying is blackmail. Use it if you must, but don’t expect us to like it. At all. Men do not negotiate with terrorists.
But you know what’s really annoying? What annoys me more than anything else on earth? People who pretend as if they didn’t hear you or as though they have heard you but that they don’t understand you because you’re speaking a foreign language when you order something at McDonalds without putting ‘Mc’ in front of everything. This is strictly limited to McDonald employees but let’s face it, with the number of McDonald franchises opening up all over the place and spreading like the plague (only a lot nastier and with nastier side effects. Can you say ‘obesity’?) about fifty percent of the world’s population are McDonald employees. The next time some McNoob asks you if by “chicken burger” you meant that you wanted a “Mc Chicken” promptly take a McStraw and repeatedly McStab them in their McRetarded Mc Eyes. That’ll teach the McBastards to look at you as if you’re speaking McArabic.
So there you have it. The things about society that annoy me a lot. Naturally, there are a lot of other things that annoy the shit out of me on a regular basis, but these are the things that annoy me the most. If I were to make an exhaustive list of all the things about people that annoyed me, I’d need this lifetime, the next lifetime and the better part of the one after that to complete the list. Other people are annoying. Other people is Hell. And if you ever do any of these things in my presence, watch out. I’ll got my McStraw ready.
Chapter 24: Doing nothing is a lot more fun when there’s something that needs to be done
I am a bludger. There, I’ve said it. I’m a slacker. I’m the kind of person who sits on his ass all day and does nothing because I can get away with it. I’m the kind of person who never studied for an exam in his life because I could get away with it. I’m the kind of guy who skipped classes at uni to play pool (although a more appropriate way to word it would be to say skipping pool at uni to attend class seeing as how I was spending more time playing pool than attending class and attending class was a deviation from my timetable). I’m the kind of guy who complains about there being “so many fish in the sea and not enough sickies”. The doctor’s office was like a second home for me. Not because I was always sick or anything. I was pretty healthy for a guy who spent so much time on his arse. I was there a lot because my doctor was dodgy and signed medical certificates for me whenever I couldn’t be bothered attending work. But after a while, even my doctor started getting a bit sick of me spending so much time in his waiting room just to get a doctors certificate when he had other patients to see (and prescribe rest and Panadol to regardless of whether they had a minor cold or were dying from cancer).
Anyway, while sitting on the pier fishing on one of those days when I was too sick to turn up to work and needed the fresh sea breeze to make me feel better, I suddenly and explicably just got bored of the whole thing. I was bored with skipping work. I knew then that something was wrong because the sky looked a bit lower than usual. It was one of those days when everything was perfect. The weather was lovely, I was sitting on a deckchair on the pier, I had a fishing rod in one hand and a beer in the other, I had an entire esky full of beer next to me and I had the day off from work. But somehow, I was bored. It was then that I had an epiphany (for those of you who don’t know what an epiphany is, it’s basically a moment at which you suddenly see everything clearly and come to a sudden realisation of something). I was bored because the fish weren’t biting. Okay, so it wasn’t quite an epiphany, but it was realisation anyway. And so I moved to a place where there were more fish and miraculously (as though Jesus himself was standing there on the water), the fish started biting.
The next day, I turned up to work to find that my workspace was totally empty (this was back in the days when I was working as an accountant. I miss those days of fabricating figures and number crunching… the same way that I miss having chicken pox).
“Hey, boss. What’s going on?
“Hmm?”
“My desk. It’s been cleared.”
“Oh, that. Well, you’re fired. You’ve been taking so many sickies that you’ve spent more days off this month than you’ve spent at work.”
“But I’ve really been sick”
“People do not get sick for three day stretches, get well and then fall ill again for the next three days after that.”
“Well, that’s true. But I’ve got this disease. It’s called… umm… ephemeral bronchitis”
“Ephemeral bronchitis? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Yeah… that’s because it’s a very rare disease. Only three people in the world have it so I don’t think you’d find it in any medical books or on the internet”
“We’ve called up your doctor”
“Good, he’ll tell you just how sick I really am.”
“He told us that you’ve been spending a lot of time in his waiting room…”
“Well, there are a lot of sick people. Seems the flu’s going around again”
“…waiting for him to sign a certificate even though you were never sick”
“Oh… I see… I should be going now”
“Catch some nice big fish, alright? I hear that live bait works best”
And so began my search for a new career. I went through just about every single newspaper and internet job site I could think of but I couldn’t find a single job that I was even remotely qualified for besides process worker which I wanted to avoid at all costs because I was never cut out for real work. And lifting several tonnes worth of goods in a god awful warehouse was definitely real work. Real physical labour. No way was I going to risk my allergy on something like that. So after a month spent jobless and searching for a job, I decided to just quit altogether. Obviously somebody didn’t want me to have a job, so why fight it? I decided that I’d just spend my days fishing.
After a month of fishing on the pier and getting shit faced on beer, I was beginning to get bored. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t catching any fish either. I had probably caught every fish in the harbour two or three times each by that stage. I was so bored that I actually fell asleep and was snoring when a fish bit. It was a pretty big fish too. Well, I wasn’t awake to see it but I’ll assume it was a big fish because it pulled the rod out of my unconscious hand. When I awoke and saw my rod floating half way out to sea (my eyesight was still pretty good back then, proof that having a girlfriend and being in ‘love’ is what causes blindness and not masturbating) I had an epiphany. I needed to get a job. Even if I hated the job. In fact, it’d be even better if I hated the job. I’d work as a teacher again, I’d even work as an accountant again, I’d even be willing to work as one of those McRetards who look at you weird when you order “chicken nuggets” instead of “McNuggets”. Whatever it was, I needed to find a job to take sickies from. It wasn’t nearly as much fun doing nothing day in day out when there wasn’t anything to be done.
Chapter 25: Like running with one foot nailed to the floor
Sometimes in life the days feel like hours. Sometimes in life the days feel like minutes. Sometimes in life the days feel like seconds. Its days like this when time flies at the speed of light and it feels as if there isn’t nearly enough time in the world to do everything I wanted to do and to be everything I wanted to be. And yet even though everything was flying by faster than a dog chasing an ice cream truck, it still felt like I was going nowhere. It was as if I was running with one foot nailed firmly to the ground.
I was going nowhere but I was sure going there fast. I had so many dreams that were unfulfilled. I hadn’t been overseas in my entire life. The furthest I had ever been away from home was the Gold Coast (whose slogan was “sunny one day, perfect the next”. In reality it was more like “Shitty one day, even shittier the next”). I had never met the girl of my dreams. As great as Ana was and the way she made me feel, she wasn’t quite as perfect as my Josephine (who is perfect in every way except for the fact that she’s not real). Those ambitions to have a book published never came about. I had never gotten to writing the end of any of my novels because the characters were always too one dimensional, the plot were always too predictable, the whole concept of the book too unoriginal and too much like another novel and the title always too cheesy or meaningless or unoriginal. I never got the chance to go to church on Christmas Eve because I was always off getting drunk or at another crappy family gathering where my Aunts would constantly harass me about getting a steady girlfriend, getting married and finally moving out of home. And it was too late for me to go now. I had become so cynical about the world these days that Christmas no longer had any meaning at all and had lost whatever magic it once held for me.
That’s just the story of my life, I suppose. I had always been the dreamer in the family. I made grand plans and everything in life would turn out perfectly. But I never got around to fulfilling any of these grand plans of mine and they’ve always remained nothing but grand plans. People always tell me that it’s not these things that matter and that I should look at the bigger picture and all the things that I have achieved rather than all the things I didn’t. My response is always the same and it was always dry, bitter and cynical (like so much else about me these days). That I was getting old. That I had failed to achieve more than I had achieved. What had I achieved? I had been through more occupations and vocations than anybody else. But that wasn’t because I was forever on the move and wanting to further my abilities. I was forever being fired for being late or for being irresponsible. I had managed to stay away from alcohol and not become a violent masochist like my father. That may be true, but I still often drink until I’ve hit the floor and fall asleep in a puddle of my own vomit. I just happen to be fortunate enough to be a happy drunk. I had represented my state in a sporting competition. A lot of people know that I’ve represented
But sometimes I wonder. Even if I had achieved everything I had wanted to achieve, dreamt the impossible dream and proved that it wasn’t impossible, would I be any happier today? So what if I was a published novelist? So what if I was at church every Christmas Eve instead of reminding all the aunts what my name was? So what if I owned a penthouse apartment? How much would any of that mean if nobody was there to witness it? Nobody there to share the moments? Nobody to laugh with you and cheer at the successes? Nobody to laugh at you and offer you a shoulder to cry on during all the failures? And then I realised that the world would always be there for me. Even though I am forever complaining about the sad and sorry state of society, it’s having that sad society there to criticise and try to make better that gives meaning to my life. Hell is other people. But without a Hell, there can’t be a Heaven either. No matter what I achieve, if I don’t live the way I want to everything would mean nothing at all and if I live the way I want to, it doesn’t matter how much I fail to achieve because there will always be so much more that I can achieve.
Chapter 26: She dreams a champagne dream; strawberry surprise, pink linen on white paper…
And meanwhile, he’d take a highly amusing trip through the bowels of hell, Dante Alighieri style as he dreams a black rose dream; flaming fields of Hell, blood spraying with the fire…
Gustaf: Where the hell am I?
Guide: Funny you should ask that. You’re in Hell, Gustaf.
Gustaf: Well that would explain the jets of fire, the tortured screaming and the river of molten brimstone then.
Guide: Well observed. Do you know why you’re here Gustaf?
Gustaf: Because I was a real pain in the ass in life and refused to go to church and frequently called god a f*cking apathetic asshole?
Guide: Well, that might come back to bite you when you actually die. But you’re still very much alive. I’m just here to take you through hell to show you the wrong of your ways so you’ll change.
Gustaf: This storyline sounds familiar somehow…
Guide: It’s from that story about the scrooge who’s visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.
Gustaf: I knew it sounded familiar!
Guide: Anyway, let me show you around.
Half an hour later…
Guide: …and that’s how to make mango pudding. Any questions before we visit ‘his’ home?
Gustaf: by ‘his’ home, you mean God’s palace in Heaven, right?
Guide: Don’t be ridiculous! We don’t have time to go all the way to Heaven, it takes seven years to get there from here. We’re going to go swing by Lucy’s house.
Gustaf: I thought you said we were visiting ‘his’ house. Isn’t Lucy a girl’s name?
Guide: It’s what we call Lucifer down here. He’s not nearly as scary if you think of him as Lucy.
Gustaf: Fair enough. Now I’m picturing him in a blonde wig with ponytails and wearing a white dress with red polka dots.
Guide: Umm… well, that’s not too far away from the truth… It’s actually a red dress with white polka dots.
Gustaf: you’re kidding me right?
Guide: Yeah, I’m just messing with you. He’s a real bad ass.
Gustaf: sounds more like it.
Guide: anyway, let’s go.
Forty five minutes later…
Gustaf: …and that’s how you setup a wireless network.
Guide: I see, so that’s what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time. Anyway, we’re here now, so let’s go in.
[Gustaf and guide enter Lucy’s house]
Gustaf: Jesus Christ, it’s freezing in here!
Guide: Lucy doesn’t cope very well with the heat so he’s always got the air conditioning turned on in here and he’s lined the walls with bags of ice.
Gustaf: I see… Is that Lucy over there?
Guide: Shhhh! Never call him that in his presence. The last person who did that was forced to swim in the lake of molten brimstone. If the scorching heat doesn’t kill you, the foul stench will make you wish it did. But yes, that’s Lucifer.
Gustaf: He’s got three heads…
Guide: What, you thought he just had horns and a pointy tail? You’ve seen way too many
Gustaf: What are those things sticking out of his mouths?
Guide: Oh, they’re the three greatest sinners in the history of man kind.
Gustaf: And why are they kicking?
Guide: They’re still alive.
Gustaf: He’s eating them alive?!?
Guide: Not eating them. Lucifer hates the taste of humans and they give him heartburn. This is just punishment for their crimes against humanity.
Gustaf: So who are they?
Guide: Well, the guy on the left being chewed by the white head is Judas Iscariot. The guy in the middle being chewed by the pale yellow head is Adolf Hitler. And the guy on the right being chewed by the blue head is Bill Gates.
Gustaf: Bill Gates is here?!? What’s he doing here?
Guide: I think I’ll let them explain it. [pokes Judas with staff] He’s got a question for you, Judas.
Judas: Yeah? What is it?
Gustaf: Umm… what did you do that was such a huge sin?
Judas: You’re kidding me right? Don’t you read the Bible?
Gustaf: No, I gave up on it ages ago when I stopped believing in God.
Judas: You don’t have to be Christian to read the bible, you illiterate. It’s the greatest piece of fiction ever written. Anyway, I’m here because I betrayed Jesus to the Romans for a bit of gold.
Hitler: And I am here because I tried to protect the name of Jesus. Those filthy Jews claimed to own
Gates: Would you just shut the f*ck up Adolf?!? I am sick to death of hearing this bullshit of yours about being the one true lord. If you were the one true lord, do us both a favour and use your f*cking lordly powers to get yourself out of here.
Gustaf: Why are you here, Bill? You didn’t kill millions of people did you?
Gates: Well, no, I’m not that barbaric…
Hitler: How dare you call me barbaric! I shall have your head ripped off so I can shit down your neck!
Gates: Shut up Adolf! You’ve had your turn. As I was saying, you know that clause in the ten commandments that says ‘thou shalt not worship any false idol’ or something like that? Well, I broke that rule. I worshipped several billion other idols.
Gustaf: I never even knew there were that many other religions.
Gates: Who said anything about other religions? I was talking about my money. To me, money was absolute and I worshipped it. All three hundred and thirty two billion, forty three million, five hundred and sixty three thousand, eight hundred and twenty two dollars of it. I don’t know why I’m here.
Gustaf: [whispers to guide] How did they all get like this?
Guide: Got any popcorn handy?
Gustaf: Why would I need popcorn?
Guide: Because we’re going to go back in time. Back to the moment in time at which these poor souls turned to the dark side of the force. And Gustaf…
Gustaf: Yes?
Guide: I am your father!
Gustaf: Nooooooooooooooo!
Guide: Just messing with you. Let’s go! [shakes staff like a maraca and chants] sllab yriah ym kcus nac px swodniw!
Thirty seconds later and thirty years ago…
Gustaf: Where are we? And who’s that
Guide: Just watch.
Bully: Hey, Gatesy!
Young Gates: Y..y…y… yes?
Bully: I’m having trouble with this maths assignment. How about you do it for me?
Young Gates: But that would be cheating!
Bully: It’s only cheating if you get caught, pimple face. And as long as you don’t tell anyone, we won’t get caught.
Young Gates: Don’t call me pimple face!
Bully: Why not, pimple face?
Young Gates; Don’t call me that!
Bully: And what are you going to do about it, pimple face?
Young Gates: You can do your own maths assignment you… you… you… ugly person.
Bully: That’s the best you can come up with? I’m going to teach you a lesson you punk. [approaches Gates, grabs him by the pants and starts giving him a wedgie]
Gustaf: We’ve got to help him!
Guide: You can’t touch anything in this world and nobody can hear you. Just watch.
Other kids: Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!
Young Gates: AARRGGHHHHHHHHH!
Other kids: [flinch] oooohhhh!
Bully: [throws Gates into locker and slams it close] That’ll teach you to call me ugly. I’m the sexiest thing on this planet.
Young Gates: Just you wait until I grow up! I’ll start a multibillion dollar empire and you will all work for me some day! You will all be my slaves! [laughs maniacally]
Guide: Shall we go see what made Hitler evil?
Gustaf: Let’s go. Gates’ laughing is starting to creep me out… [shudders]
Guide: [shakes staff and chants] taht htiw seirf ekil uoy dluow!
Thurty seconds later and forty two years ago…
Young Hitler: Good evening sir. Welcome to McDonalds! How may I help you?
Jew 1: Get me a chicken burger.
Young Hitler: [looks a bit clueless] Sorry, what did you want?
Jew 1: A chicken burger.
Young Hitler: Oh, you mean a Mc Chicken!
Jew 1: No shit, Einstein.
Young Hitler: Oh no, I’m not Einstein. That’s my friend.
Jew 1: I don’t care. Just get me my chicken burger.
Young Hitler: Would you like fries with that?
Jew 1: Would you like me to fry your balls? I ordered a chicken burger, now go get it. [to Jew 2] If this country were run by Jews it’d be so much better. These f*cking Germans are all incompetent idiots. They can’t even do something as simple as getting me a chicken burger…
Young Hitler: [jumps over counter at Jew 1] YOU TAKE THAT BACK!
Jew 1: [makes choking noises]
Young Hitler: NOBODY INSULTS THE MOTHERLAND!
Jew 2: [grabs Hitler and throws him to ground]
Young Hitler: [screams like a madman and thrashes about]
Jew 1: F*cking [coughs] punk! [kicks Hitler]
Jew 2 and Jew 1: [kick Hitler in groin]
Young Hitler: AARRGHHHHHHHHHH! My ball! My beautiful left testicle! What have you done to Maria?!? AARRGGHHHHHHH!
Gustaf: [stares in disbelief] Woah…
Guide: See why he hates Jews so much?
Gustaf: Hell, I’d hate them too if they ruptured my testicle.
Guide: What are you talking about? He hates them because they kept calling it a ‘chicken burger’ instead of a ‘McChicken’
Gustaf: But he said not to insult the motherland.
Guide: That’s what McDonalds employees were told to call McDonalds back in 1930.
Gustaf: I never knew that.
Guide: You don’t know a lot of things do you? Let us go see the moment at which Judas turned. [shakes staff and chants] yob ybab sti snoitargnoc!
Thirty seconds ago and two thousand and twenty one years earlier…
Gustaf: Why is it all dark in here? And why is it all sticky?
Guide: This is the moment when Judas turned evil.
Gustaf: Wait a minute… we’re inside…
Guide: That’s right. We’re inside Judas’ mother’s stomach while she was pregnant. Judas was born evil.
Gustaf: [faints]
Thirty seconds later and two thousand and thirty one years later…
Gustaf: [wakes up] Where are we?
Guide: We’re back at Lucifer’s house.
Gustaf: Oh I see… wait… is that a fourth head?
Guide: So you finally noticed. Want to guess who’s there?
Gustaf: If I had to guess, I’d say… Saddam Hussein?
Guide: Nope. Guess again.
Gustaf: George Dubya Bush?
Guide: Not quite… close though…
Gustaf: I give up. Who is it?
Guide: It’s God.
Gustaf: No wonder they could never find Godot, he was here this whole time!
Guide: No, not Godot. God. You know, ‘him’…
Gustaf: What’s he doing here being chewed by Lucifer?!? Don’t tell me that Lucifer finally took over Heaven and overthrew God!
Guide: [laughs] Where would you get such a ridiculous idea from? He’s here because he told the biggest lie ever and did so in vain.
Gustaf: What did he say that could possibly be so bad?
Guide: He claimed that he created the universe.
Gustaf: But then who created him?
Guide: That’s exactly how Lucifer figured out it was a lie.
And then she’d dream of lavender and cream, fields of butterflies. Reality always escapes her. And meanwhile he’d be dreaming of… well… other really weird ass things involving devils, staffs and handcuffs… Stuff that isn’t entirely appropriate for anybody under the age of eighteen.
Chapter 27: There’s nothing more worrying than somebody who says “don’t worry”
People are by nature worried creatures. We love nothing more than to be worried about things (besides complaining about things but when we worry about things we love to have a good whinge about how these things are causing us grief). When we are children we constantly worry about where our next meal is going to come from, why the bogey man hiding under our beds is so keen on eating us, where Sir Fluffalot (teddy bear of the round table) had disappeared to and where mummy and daddy are when we wake up from an afternoon nap. As teenagers we worry about whether our girlfriends are cheating on us, where our next girlfriend will come from, whether or not we will ever have a girlfriend ever again, whether having a girlfriend is going to affect our exam performances, etc. Well, those aren’t so much our worries as much as our hormones’ worries (those annoying raging ones that refuse to shut up). Our worries as teenagers are more about who we are and how badly we’re going to fail our exams. There is no phrase more common during exam period for just about every student than “Oh my god, I’m dead. I’m going to fail!” As adults we worry about our jobs, we worry about our wives cheating on us, we worry about paying for the house and the electricity bill and the fuel and the food and the education of our kids, we worry about our kids (are they being picked on at school? How come his grades are so low? How come she never talks about her friends at home? What are her friends like?) and we worry about the in laws who are forever ready to jump on our asses and ass rape us for being poor fathers or for being poor husbands.
I’m not going to lie. I’ve worried about all of these things too (except for the whole failing in exams thing. My ego’s always been too big for my own good). I’ve worried about Sir Fluffalot. I’ve worried about the bogey man. I’ve worried about finding a girlfriend and I’ve worried about my current girlfriend cheating on me. I’ve worried about not being nearly worried enough during exam time. I’ve worried about all these things and right now I’m worried about paying off my apartment, finding another job and I’m worried that I’m not good enough for Ana. But nothing worries me more than when I tell somebody about all my problems and they reply with a superficially chirpy “Don’t worry, it’ll all be okay”. “Don’t worry”? There is nothing on earth that I find more disconcerting than somebody telling me to ‘not worry’.
What exactly is ‘don’t worry’ supposed to mean anyway? If you want me not to worry, offer me a solution damn it! Offer me an alternative. Hell, pray for me (so that God can hear all about my suffering and laugh at me. We have a hate-hate relationship going). I don’t care. Do something to try to make it better. Or do something to make it worse. Laugh at me for being such an idiot for getting into this situation in the first place so that I don’t feel so bad about laughing at you when you were complaining to me about these things. Laugh with me because life is just one great big irony trip that we’ve all got to survive because that’s what we do best (except those suicidal types who do nothing better than be emo).
“I think my wife’s cheating on me…”
“Don’t worry!”
That’s just great isn’t it? So what if your wife’s cheating on you? It’s not as if she’s sleeping with another man right? Oh, you think she is? Well, it’s not like he’s got herpes or anything like that. How do I know? Well, I’d certainly know if I had herpes!
“How the hell am I going to pay all these bills...”
“Don’t worry!”
Don’t worry about paying off your bills. That’s what credit cards are for. If you don’t have the cash to pay off an electricity bill or a water bill or your home loan repayments, just charge it to a credit card. And then when that credit card has reached its limit and payments on the card are due, just open up another card and use it to pay that one off and when that gets full get another credit card to pay that one off and so on. What if you run out of credit cards? You could always start forging money or fake an accident and collect a handy insurance pay out. And if all else fails, you can always do a Skase and flee to
“I’m worried that Edward isn’t doing very well at school…”
“Don’t worry!”
Why should you worry about how Edward is doing at school anyway? It’s not as if having a formal education is important to succeeding in life anyway. There are plenty of people who have succeeded without making it to university. Some people even succeeded in life and died before they had a chance to start any sort of schooling. And if people ask about how your young Edward’s schooling is coming along, just tell them that it’s not going well at all. And then promptly blame it on the sheer incompetency of the teachers. Like Mark Twain said, “God created idiots. This was for practise. Then he created teachers”. It’s a well known fact that the standard of education is slipping these days because the kids are often smarter than the teachers and because there are more and more idiots being introduced into the system to corrupt the minds of kids like Edward who are natural born geniuses. Besides, it’s not like Edward’s your biological child anyway. Your wife’s been cheating on you since before you were married. I should know, Edward looks a lot like me don’t you think?
See what I mean? Saying something like ‘don’t worry’ is the worst possible thing you can say to someone in situations when they really are worried. It’s like telling a starving man at an all you can eat buffet not to eat. I’m not sure how that analogy works but I’m sure that it does. Saying things like “it’ll be fine” and “chillax” don’t help panicked people either. Especially when you seem all too calm when saying it. It freaks people out when you’re in the same boat they’re in (the one with ‘Titanic’ written on the side of it and heading towards that big pretty ice cube) and can be so damn calm when they’re running around like headless a headless chickens. When people are panicking, they don’t want people to calmly (and eerily chirpily) tell them that “it’ll be fine”. They want people to panic with them. They want the company of more headless chickens. And once they see that everyone else is equally stressed, they’ll realise that it’s just a part of life. And then the collective flock of headless chickens will collectively find their heads and connect them back to their correct places. When they’ve got their heads connected again, then its okay to tell them “don’t worry” because they’ll be well past the stage of worrying. They’ll be in full blown panic mode. Which means you can say anything you want because they’ll be far too caught up in their own crazy thoughts as they try to avoid the giant iceberg to hear a thing you’re saying anyway. Besides, everybody knows that “don’t worry” really means “I’m glad I’m not in your boat, buddy”.
Chapter 28: What’s so entertaining about watching people watching people eating ice cream?
Should have mentioned this in my huge rant about things that really annoy me, but I figured it was something that annoyed me enough to warrant an entire chapter worth of ranting about it. What could possibly be more annoying than McEmployees? Mc Donald’s McRetarded employees don’t even come close to what I’m talking about in terms of existing for sheer annoyance factor. I am talking about movies and TV shows without plots or any semblance of entertainment value whatsoever.
Of late,
I have no problem with there being a crappy movie coming out. Living in this day and age, I’ve become very accustomed to having shit house movies released on quite a regular basis. What I’m not accustomed to is shit house movies receiving rave reviews from a community of idiots who don’t know a damn thing about movies. One such member of said community is my idiot neighbour (who happens to be the resident geek and should know better) who went as far as calling Snakes on a Plane “the most brilliant piece of cinema I have ever witnessed”. And he didn’t say it with any degree of sarcasm or cynicism either. He honestly believed it was a brilliant movie. Am I the only one sane enough to realise that this movie is a load of utter garbage? “You’re just being too much of a pretentious fuckspore. Don’t you realise it’s a satire?” Well, yes that thought had crossed my mind. I realise it may be a satire of all those b-grade horror movies but it doesn’t do a particularly good job of it. Satires are meant to be witty, clever and sharp. This movie is nothing but blunt, trivial and as stupid wrestling. The fact that they managed to sign an actor like Samuel L. Jackson to play the lead role in the movie doesn’t really mean that the movie is going to be good either. All it’s proven is that actors’ standards have slipped to the point where they’ll do anything just to see their name up in lights again.
While we’re on the topic of slipping standards, I’d like to know if there is any limit to what people will do for their fifteen minutes of fame (or in most cases infamy)? Reality television shows exploit your average person in order to run a pointless and often plotless show without having to pay the big cash for proper actors. And what is supposed to be ‘entertainment’ is watching a bunch of people who don’t know what they’re doing attempting to do things they really can’t do at all. Shows like Idol which make people who clearly should never sing outside of the shower, let alone the karaoke bar, sing on national television. Sometimes, the singing is okay-ish and I’m somewhat bemused by the whole circus. For the most part, the singing is awful, ruins my favourite songs and makes me want to test out my ‘death by liquid paper’ theory on the contestants. And then you have shows like The Biggest Loser. Yes, we realise that all your contestants are losers because they have so little self control that they ate enough food to metamorphose into elephant-esque creatures (although to compare these idiots to elephants would be insulting their intellect and elegance. The elephants that is), there’s really no need to state the obvious. Once again, this show is all about people doing things they clearly can’t; in this case it’s running around and being active. Let’s face it, if white men can’t jump, fat white women sure as hell can’t. We see enough obese people in our daily lives. They’re hardly an amazing sight to behold. There’s really no need to put them on TV.
And then comes the biggest waste of prime time television slots ever to grace our television screens. Big Brother. From the annoying theme song to the annoying host to the annoying contestants, everything about this show (and I mean absolutely every little detail down to every iota) is annoying. Let’s begin with the general premises: after some bizarre audition process (god knows what for, it’s not like the contestants are showcasing any skills) twelve contestants are selected (based on a criteria unknown to the audience, the contestants and possibly the selectors as well) and thrown into a house full of security cameras. Not excited yet? Well, those security cameras are there… so that we can see exactly what they are doing at all times! *dramatic music*. Still not entertained? Well you will be when you hear all the idiotic commentary that goes with it. Thought that the commentary for the golf was over the top and inaccurate (the term ‘golfing action’ instantly brings to mind the word ‘oxymoron’)? It’s got nothing on the commentary for Big Brother. Ever given considered watching someone eating ice cream as being hilarious? Ever thought that watching two people sitting on a sofa playing cards was riveting? Well that’s exactly the way those sorts of activities are described on Big Brother. The only remotely interesting thing that ever happens on that show is when the female housemates take showers. By interesting, I mean interesting relative to everything else on that show. Not that the contestants are worth checking out anyway. Most of them are your average ugly mofo. Nobody knows what the selection criteria for the contestants are but we can all be sure that being attractive isn’t one of them. It’s nice to know that the selectors aren’t that shallow (although they do happen to be that stupid). And if that doesn’t have you convinced that Big Brother is must see viewing for everyone and good clean family entertainment, there’s always the host. Has as much plastic in her face as your average recycling bin. Has about as much dress sense as a recycling bin. Has about as much intelligence and wit about her as a recycling bin. So, to describe her in two words, I guess ‘recycling bin’ would be pretty appropriate. “Let’s see what our housemates got up to today…” Let’s not. I’d rather alternate between watching the paint drying and watching the grass grow.
‘Reality TV’ is pretty much the category that all these shows fall under. For what reason, I do not know. There is nothing at all realistic about these shows. People do not interact in such bizarre and sexually oriented ways in real life (actually… they might but they at least have the decency to do it in private). People do not have security cameras installed in every corner and every room of their homes. People do not have some retarded voice over a microphone telling them what to do in the same way that a drunk man trying to read a script would. And people sure as hell do not interact normally when they’re living in a house with eleven other people who are total strangers who they have never met in their lives. Hell, this lack of realism even stretches as far as the plastic face of the host (not in a literal sense, of course. I’m sure plastic faces loaded on botox wouldn’t stretch very far at all).
And yet despite all of this, millions of people tune in to reality TV shows everyday. Millions of people waste mobile phone credit voting to keep their favourite contestants in these shows (or rather least favourite seeing as how being associated with those shows must be absolute torture). Millions of people think these sorts of show constitute entertainment and are enchanted by the idiocy of these no names. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that these are just ordinary people like them and represent some sort of hope to these people. And to that, I question the sad state of these people. A state so sad that they look up to obese men, people who can’t sing and a bunch of ugly people with no discernable talent at all besides being handy cures to insomnia. What’s more depressing? Leading an average life with an average job and an average family with a wife who gives ordinary sex? Or leading that same life while watching these pathetic samples of humanity and aspiring to those depths?
Another thing about popular culture that annoys me is the quality of the music (or lack there of) that’s being produced these days by so called ‘artists’. There is nothing at all artistic about the sort of horrid shit they’re playing on the radio these days. RNB is just a poor excuse for a bunch of black people (or wannabe black people (white people trying to be black is another annoying thing)) to ‘sing’ about how terrible their lives have been and how they “roughed it out da hood” and got to be the “supastaz” they are today. And when they’re not talking about ‘the hood’ they’re bragging about how many “fat ass bitches” they’ve banged these days. And when they’re not doing that, they’re off dissing other gangstas and starting shit with them in their songs. And if bagging out their mommas don’t get them fully pissed off then they go and pop a cap in the ass of some playa fo’ shizzle. Some examples of these ‘artists’ include: Sean Puffy Pants Coombs (or whatever it is he’s calling himself these days), R. ‘the paedophile’ Kelly, Eminem (one of those white guys who want so desperately to be black because he thinks being black will suddenly make his penis bigger) and Fifty Cent (whose name is giving him far too much credit because he makes no sense at all, even when you can figure out what he’s saying). Great role models for young kids eh? And if these artists aren’t doing the RNB thing and gangsta-ing it up good, then they’re hack pop artists who can not sing if the fate of the universe depended on it and who only got the contract because they either look really really hot, they wear really really short skirts or they look really really hot in really really short skirts. Some examples of said artists: Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton (who couldn’t sing if the fate of several universes was on the line). Of course, there are male pop artists as well and we certainly can’t expect them to be look really really hot in really really short skirts. So what criteria must they fulfil? Only God knows. Or maybe he doesn’t.
Popular culture and everything it represents is a load of utter garbage. There’s no plot, no point and no meaning to all of it (well, perhaps not all of it. Out of a thousand shows there’s bound to be one with half a point to it). And I find it annoying that this so called ‘culture’ is actually popular. That people rave about these crap piles and how great they are when they are clearly bullshit annoys me. That these same people tell me that I am missing out by not watching and listening to these things and that I am a pretentious f*ckspore for criticising their taste in ‘culture’ annoy me. But what annoys me most of all is that these people make up the majority of the population (I guess one of the prerequisites for being popular culture would be to actually be popular).
I’ll say it again, POP CULTURE IS A LOAD OF UTTER CRAP!
Chapter 29: Whoever said that no news is good news knew exactly what they were on about
Ever noticed how the amount of news that happens in the world everyday fits exactly into the number of pages in the newspaper every day? And how this same amount of news always takes exactly half an hour to tell on the television? Amazing thing, isn’t it? Is it just a coincidence or are there darker forces at work here? Surely not that much could be happening around the world every day that would be of interest (and perhaps even use) to your average citizen. Are the news reporters (both written and broadcasted) fabricating stories to fill up those days when there aren’t any terrorist attacks, military casualties in Iraq, tidal waves wiping out entire islands or cars colliding into nursery schools in broad daylight? Or are they going about planning terrorist attacks (and then leaking these plans to police. It’s much more dramatic to have potential terrorists stopped. Besides, nobody needs to die this way), dressing up as Iraqi insurgents and firing off missiles at military aircraft (if they didn’t do it, the Marines would have fired a few off and called it collateral damage anyway), detonating nuclear bombs underwater in order to trigger island wiping tidal waves and cutting the brake cables of any car parked on the same street as a nursery school just so they can claim it to be factual information without being sued for lying?
Is the news, even ‘news’? For all we know it could have been in censorship for months and months on end (perhaps even years in some cases) while it was edited and refined down to a point where the government would deem it suitable to allow the public to such information. Perhaps the ‘news’ would be more adequately named ‘the stale’. Even when the events that are being reported actually happened on the day it is being repeated, it’s often stale because drivers have access to this handy little device called a radio. Basically what this device does is it gives the user the power to listen to a vast range of things form music to things that aren’t quite music but are passed as music anyway to traffic reports (so you know which roads to avoid (or not to avoid in most cases seeing as how most roads are packed most days)) to advertising (often more interesting and less painful than the ‘music’ they play) to news updates. That’s right. News updates. When you want it. Where you want it. As soon as it happens. No need to get home and wait until six o clock for those daft monotone newsreaders on the television to tell you what’s been happening in the world (or five o clock if you’re one of those people who are hooked on the commercial driven madness that is Channel Ten). No need to turn on SBS and deal with Lee Lin Chin’s hair and fashion best described as ‘ground zero’ (admittedly, she’s at least animated and seems to care about what’s going on around this crazy place we call Earth). No need to sit there for half an hour listening to previously mentioned monotone newsreader to find out what happened in the world (telling the news only takes about two or three minutes on the radio, why waste twenty seven minutes of your life?). Want pictures to go with those reports of American soldiers losing limbs in those bombing attacks gone collateral because you harbour some very anti-American sentiment? You should get the internet and look these things up online. Not only do you get the pictures they show on TV, you get millions more (including many pornographic ones that are a lot more interesting than limbless Marines. Don’t lie, we all do it). And once you have had your fill of limbless Marine, promptly book yourself an appointment with your local psychiatrist because you have major anger management issues and some other serious problems, you sick bastard.
And why is it that the things they report on the news is never happy? When was the last time they even reported something substantially happy on the news? (Those little snippets at the end about the cat being saved from the tree, while certainly happy, do not quite constitute something I would describe as being ‘substantial’). All they ever report about is death, increasing taxes, how the increase in deaths is increasing taxes, increasing interest rates, how the increase in deaths is increasing interest rates, how petrol process are going to hit the four hundred dollar a litre mark because America decided to declare war on yet another country (although what bearing America declaring war has on Australian petrol prices is really beyond me), the latest medical breakthrough in figuring out what was causing those tax increasing deaths (but that they have no idea what to do about it), the cure to said disease (but that it has so many nasty side effects that death suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad thing) and more deaths (caused by natural disasters (which in turn may have been caused by the reporters)), military planes falling from the sky for no apparent reason (I swear it was the gremlins…) and by people falling from ladders while attempting to rescue cute little kitty cats (they are cute though. The cats that is, not the splattered attempted rescuer)). Where are all the reports about flowers and freshly cut grass and cute kitty cats and dolphins? Where are all the reports about bubblegum and lollipops and lemonade? Where are all the reports about politicians being hurtled into the sun and where are the reports about the lawyers being towed along behind them? Where are all the reports about there being proof that women really are from another planet and really do speak another language to men (not exactly ‘good news’ as such but it at least means we can not feel so guilty about missing the hints she’s been dropping)? Where are all the reports about there being proof that Gustaf Sonovavitch’s brain really is the biggest and most powerful in the universe? Where are all the reports about Gustaf winning the lottery (thanks to his uber brain calculating the right numbers to pick)? And can someone please tell me, where the hell are all the reports about Gustaf being declared as king of the universe and lord of everything?
The statement “I’ve got good news and bad news” suddenly becomes superfluously tautological then doesn’t it? If no news is good news, then good news is also bad news and bad news is still bad news. But then if all good news is bad news, then it’s not really good news because there can’t be good news. But if there’s no good news, then there can’t be bad news either because everybody knows that bad is just the absence of good and good the absence of bad. So then if everything is bad news, then in the end nothing is really news at all.
So do you want the good news or the bad news first? I suppose you’ll want the bad news first like nearly every other person I’ve ever posed that question too. The bad news is that there’s no such thing as good news because all news is bad news. The good news? I’ve totally confused myself and so I’ll end the ranting on this topic… for now.
Chapter 30: If it doesn’t kill you it can only hurt like hell
Myth: If it doesn’t kill you it can only make you stronger
One of life’s hardest lessons is that no matter how hard you try, if you get hurt, it’s not going to make you stronger. That age old adage that goes “if it doesn’t kill you, it can only make you stronger” is a pile of shit. Just because something doesn’t kill you doesn’t mean that it is going to make you stronger. Think about it: being hit by oncoming traffic isn’t going to kill you (unless the oncoming traffic that hits you just so happens to be a twelve wheeled semi-trailer which then proceeds to roll over your head with each of it’s twelve tyres). But I am really failing to see how being paraplegic or being in a coma is going to make you stronger. “Look at it figuratively” you say? “It will make you mentally stronger for surviving the experience”. Somehow I imagine that being hit by a truck is going to be more traumatic than inspirational and cathartic. Unless of course you’d care to throw yourself in front of a truck, become a paraplegic, come out mentally stronger and prove me utterly wrong? No? Didn’t think so. You know better than to jump in front of traffic because you know that it is going to hurt like hell. Myth busted!
Myth: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
I’ve always wondered about the truth behind this one. Is it really such a bad thing to be hiding in your room all day and working your ass off? Everyone else is balancing out their work and play so why should Jack? Jack is an individual. Jack is a rebel. Jack doesn’t follow the crowd (no matter how advisable or good the crowd’s actions may be). If people are rushing out of a burning building, Jack rushes in. If people are saving water during a drought, Jack is hosing down his front porch. If people are staying sober so they can drive home, Jack is drinking four bottles of vodka and driving. Yes indeed. Jack is a rebel. Jack is also very irresponsible. As for all work and no play, well… if Jack had worked harder and not played during his younger years, he would have been a dull boy, yes. But if he had studied then he would be filthy rich now. Rich people have power and power is sexy. And everybody knows that sexy is awesomeness which is the opposite of being dull. As you can see, all work and no play would have made Jack a dull boy, but he would have turn into very exciting man. All play and no work made Jack more fun than a barrel of monkeys then but it would also have made Jack a homeless man. Myth busted!
Myth: The pen is mightier than the sword
This is a good one. Looking at it literally, it would seem that there is no way this could possibly be true. How could a pen possibly be stronger than a sword? But just to be sure, I decided to test it out and so I found two random strangers on the streets of
Of course, this being an adage and all, we’ve also got to look at it figuratively. Figuratively, I suppose it’s saying that it’s diplomacy and the works of journalists and authors alike that have power over the people rather than warfare and brute force. I don’t know about you, but I’d say the two are pretty much related. Wars are a hot topic for authors and news reporters alike. Writers love nothing more than to rave about the inhumanity of war. And books have been the cause of many wars. For example, all the suicide bombing and madness over in the middle east is caused by the Kuran. The crusades were brought about by the Bible (and the various versions of it). Both of these are books (and brilliant pieces of fictional literature at that) that have caused quite a bit of bloodshed. As you can see, wars start books and books start wars. In terms of diplomacy against war, well… since when has diplomacy ever solved anything? The best way to get your message across in today’s world is not to play nice. Countries like
Of course, considering that the word of this age is ‘prolification’ it’s safe to say that the nuclear bomb is mightiest of all. Myth busted!
Myth: Sticks and stones may break my done but words will never hurt me
I’m not sure just how much damage a stick or a stone would do to your skeletal structure. But I suppose it really comes down to just how big the sticks and stones are. Twigs and gravel sure aren’t going to break any bones (hell, they have trouble breaking the surface of water). But if the said sticks are tree trunks and said stones are boulders, a few broken bones would probably be the least of your worries. Looking at it literally, words don’t exactly hurt you in a physical sense. But let’s look at this figuratively. I suppose the general notion is that words can not harm your spirit or your determination or your mood. Again, it depends on if the words thrown at you are twigs or trunks and it also depends on who’s throwing them at you. Hearing something like “liar, liar, pants on fire” from one of the kids at your primary school probably isn’t going to put you off for life and cause you any particular amount of grief. These are the twigs of the verbal world. The tree trunk is when your father tells you (frequently) that you are “a good for nothing shit hole” and that he “should have had you aborted”. That would hurt. A whole lot. Enough to make people commit suicide (in the most unoriginal ways possible because nobody hears my pleas for more creative and artistic deaths). Or even worse… become emo… *shudders at thought* Myth busted!
Myth: Women are evil
I’m sure you have all witnessed this first hand so there’s no real need for me to prove this to you with countless examples. So, I’ll provide you with some mathematical proof that not even women themselves will be able to dispute.
“women are a lot of time and money” can be written as:
women = time x money ------------ (1)
“time is money” can be written as:
Time = money
Substituting into (1):
Women = money x money
Women = money 2 --------------- (2)
“money is the root of all evil” can be written as:
Money = √EVIL
Substitute into (2):
Women = (√EVIL) 2
Women = EVIL
Therefore, women are evil.
There you have it. Irrefutable mathematical proof that women really are evil. Of course, this proof is entirely dependent on the facts that time is money and that money is the root of evil (as opposed to evil itself which is a common counter argument). Myth confirmed!
Chapter 31: Nothing good ever happens after 2 am. Just go to sleep.
When it hits a certain hour, your body’s clock tells it that it is time to shut up shop and go to sleep. This biological urge should never be ignored because your body knows what’s best for it (most of the time anyway. From time to time it has urges to do stupid things that aren’t good for it at all (e.g. snap reflexes that result in heads colliding into solid objects)). But unfortunately, like all things that should not be ignored, these urges are often ignored. Sometimes we’re just having too much fun to be giving up on it and in bed is the last place we want to be (the notion of going home from a party without picking up just seems too farfetched for some people). Sometimes our brain and conscious thoughts override our better sense (that voice in the back of your head that’s telling you to go to sleep, not to put your hand into the open flame and not to get on that rickety death trap of a ferris wheel that has nobody lining up for it (probably because it looks more like a medieval weapon of mass destruction than a ride)). It’s times like these you need someone to be there and to act as a louder and more vocal voice of logic because if you don’t do what your body tells you to, there will be dire consequences. When your body says to you “I’m hungry, feed me” you damn well feed it otherwise you end up starving to death and there won’t even be a corpses for them to bury or cremate. When your body says to you “I’m thirsty, get me a drink” you had better get it a drink otherwise you’ll end up being nothing more than a pile of salt on the side of the road. And when your body says “Its getting pretty late, take me home so I can go to sleep” you damn well better do it because there’s no knowing what might happen if you don’t follow this instruction. But it’s not going to be pleasant. As my grandma used to tell me, “Nothing good ever happens after 2am. Just go to sleep”. Of course, me being me, I didn’t believe a word of it. Nothing good ever happens after 2am? What bad could possibly come from staying up past 2am? The answer: a lot of bad stuff can happen after 2am. Let me tell you a story about what happened to me after 2am.
6pm – we arrived at Rachel’s place to help her set everything up for her twenty first birthday party (‘we’ being Joseph and yours truly). Had a bit of fun inflating balloons with helium (or rather we had a bit of fun inflating ourselves with helium. Nothing funnier than listening to somebody who sounds like Mickey Mouse saying things like “I’m going to kill you all”). By the time we were done inflating the balloons (all four hundred of them) there was barely any room left in Rachel’s living room to move. So we spent about a quarter of an hour deflating all the black ones because they looked ugly and reminded Rachel of a funeral parlour. I’m not sure what sort of strange funerals she’s been to but I’m fairly certain the death of someone you know is hardly something worthy of celebration with balloons. But while the black balloons were certainly horrid ugly things, they were none the less filled with helium. And so the three of us had some more helium loaded fun.
8pm – the rest of the guests start arriving and dinner is served up by Rachel. She’s no gourmet chef, so dinner basically consisted of a bunch of random things she found in the freezer section at the local supermarket and chucked in her oven. Of course, Rachel being Rachel, didn’t read the instructions on the packets (because “instructions are for wimps!” in much the same way as “modesty is for wimps!”). Due to her strong hatred of all things instructional, most of the food was burnt to a toasty crisp on the outside (think of what it’d be like to unleash a flamethrower on a frozen turkey and you’d have a rough idea of what it looked like) but was still frozen solid and utterly inedible on the inside.
9pm - But everybody knows that it’s not the food that makes the party. It’s the guests (and more importantly the alcohol that the guests bring with them). Between the ten people present at Rachel’s dinner party, we had a dozen bottles of wine so we decided that we’d drink a bottle each and leave two spare at Rachel’s for a later occasion. That was before we realised that somebody would have to drive us all home. “Not a problem! Jack will drive you all home! Jack is the man!” Jack ‘the man’ also had a rather annoying habit of speaking about himself in the third person. But of greater concern to us was that he drove like an utter maniac. So we weighed up the options: deprive ourselves of alcohol, stay sober and drive home ourselves OR get absolutely smashed, have Jack ‘the man’ drive us all home and risk potential death. After much deliberation, we came to the decision that staying sober would be almost as bad as suicide anyway so we designated Jack as our driver and went on our merry drinking.
9:30pm – half an hour and a bottle of wine later, everybody was in a pretty good mood. And then the power blacked out. “F*cking hell! Everything in this f*cking house is falling apart. Damn it!”
“Anybody feel like heading out to a bar somewhere?”
“What do reckon, Rach?”
“Ah what the f*ck. Let’s go!”
10pm – seven of us crammed into Jack’s car (Maggie, Kim and Steve decided they’d call it a night and head on home (in hindsight, a very wise decision)) and after some rather haphazard driving (which included several attempts at drifting and using a round a bout as a makeshift aerial ramp) we arrived at Club Phunky Munky.
10:05pm – we get in line to get into Club Phunky Munky which was having an exceptionally busy night.
10:15pm – our heart rates are back down to normal after the ‘life flashing before our eyes’ experience of Jack’s driving. We’ve progressed about five metres in the queue.
10:25pm – we’ve thrown up into the gutter half a dozen times each from the madness of the ride and we are now over the motion sickness. However, we then develop a new form of sickness. We are all sick of waiting in line. We progress another six metres in the queue.
10:32pm – Jack grows impatient and is thrown out of the queue after swearing at the bouncer for making us wait so long and threatening to “castrate you with a f*cking pair of chopsticks”. Scarily enough, he’s not bluffing and being over the top with his threat. He actually knows how to castrate a man with a pair of chopsticks because his dad (who used to be a field surgeon in the Chinese Army during the reign of Mao) taught him how.
10:35pm – we’re helping Jack to his feet after he copped a clean hit to the head from the bouncer who he threatened to castrate with chopsticks.
10:37pm – we all head over to the bar just down the road from the Phunky Munky called Bang and Zest. There is no queue there, nor are there any bouncers and we let ourselves in.
10:39pm – despite there not being a queue outside, Bang and Zest is still pretty busy but we spot a spare booth in the corner. Unfortunately for us, it’s right next to the jukebox which is currently belting out Justin Timberlake’s greatest (s)hits. We order drinks as quickly as possible to help drown out the noise while Jack attempts to muffle the noise from the jukebox by taking off his shirt and tying it around the speakers. His attempt fails and he joins us in the booth sans shirt.
10:45pm – the drinks arrive and the ‘music’ stops. Jack goes back to retrieve his shirt and changes the music to his favourite 1970’s rock tunes. The tunes are also somewhat annoying and bordering on being wrist slitting material but after the torture that we had all just endured, it doesn’t seem so bad.
11:14pm – a strange looking girl approaches our booth and asks if she can join us. “I absolutely love this band”, she says, “but I can’t hear a damn thing from over there”. Jack accepts despite both Rachel and myself telepathically telling him that she was dog ugly. His response (in telepathy): “I don’t care if she’s dog ugly. By the time we get back to my bedroom I’ll be too drunk to notice anyway. Besides, she loves Pete Za.”. Our telepathix reply to this: “Ewwwwwww… too much information”.
11:29pm – Jack and his new friend (whose name I have since forgotten. Jack isn’t much help either because he just refers to her as ‘number four hundred and nine’) are both utterly inebriated. Jack is half way through his umpteenth bottle of vodka when he leans behind him and vomits all over the juke box. And then finishes off the bottle.
11:45pm – Josh, Melinda, Virginia and Andy leave the club and decide to take a cab home because while Jack’s driving couldn’t possibly get any worse, it won’t be getting any better while he can barely stand up without falling over.
12am – Jack’s new friend is picked up by her boyfriend (who gives Jack the most suspicious look ever and looks just about ready to punch him in the face when his girlfriend throws up all over him). They promptly leave the bar, leaving just Rachel, Jack and myself in the booth. “And then there were three…” said Rachel.
“Waiter! Bring us another bottle of… what’s that stuff called again… bring us another bottle of vodka! What? No, I swear to drunk I’m not God!”.
1:45am – everyone else in the bar has gone home except for Jack, Rachel and myself. We’re still drinking and the number of glasses and bottle on our table was large enough to construct a mightily impressive glass tower. Which is exactly what we try to do. We barely manage to stack one glass on top of another, let alone a hundred glasses. Jack and I have had enough to drink (we had probably had too much to drink several hours ago, but who’s counting anyway?) and are about to head home. “What? It’s still early. Come on, hang around a bit later. It’ll be fun. In fact, it’s going to be LEGENDARY!”
1:50am – she uses her sad puppy eyes to make us stay (amazingly she can still pull that off despite not being able to walk in a straight line) and Jack falls asleep on the table.
1:59am – Jack wakes up from his little nap and we are kicked out of the bar. Jack heads to his car (amazingly, he actually made it home in one piece) and Rachel asks me to walk her home.
2am – (this is where the bad things start happening) I agree to walk her home.
2:15am – we’ve walked about five hundred metres when we realise that we’re going the wrong direction and turn around.
3:03am – we arrive at Rachel’s front door (or at least we thought it was her front door. The fact that we couldn’t tell the difference between Rachel’s single storey fibro clad house and a triple storey full brick mansion should be proof that we really were drunk. Although the pile of glasses and bottles on our table at Bang and Zest probably would have confirmed that anyway). Rachel tries her keys on the door.
3:04am – Rachel finally manages to get the key into the keyhole but it snaps when she tries to turn it. We both sit down and I complain about it being so cold.
3:05am – Rachel pulls off her sweater and offers it to me. She is wearing nothing at all underneath, not even a bra. I tell her that she’ll freeze to death and that we can share it.
3:15am – we are both squeezed into Rachel’s sweater (which is now stretched to double its usual size).
3:30am – we both pass out from the alcohol and fall asleep in the same sweater on not-Rachel’s front porch.
6am – the owner of the house with the front porch that Rachel and I are sleeping on finds us on her front porch as she leaves the house for her morning jog.
6:01am – she has overcome the shock and is now in panic mode. She screams. Rachel and I both wake up.
6:02am – we have overcome the shock and are now in panic mode. We scream and I struggle to get out of Rachel’s sweater.
6:03am – in my struggle to get out of her sweater, I accidentally tear it in half. Rachel runs home, hands covering her breasts. She trips over several times on the way home and causes a dozen traffic accidents, one of which was fatal.
6:05am – I recognise the girl on the porch and realise that I am going to be in deep shit if I don’t get out of here quick smart and she recognises me.
6:06am – I don’t get out of there quick smart and she recognises me. I am in deep shit.
6:10am – the girl is on the phone with my girlfriend telling her about how she found me asleep on her porch in the sweater of some whore and that the whore was also in it at the time.
6:20am – the girl hands me the phone and between the sobbing and sniffling I manage to make out the words “you f*cking ass hole” and “bastard”. Both of which are mentioned repeatedly.
6:45am – once she is done telling me off, she tells me that “we are f*cking through, Gustaf” and then politely asks me to “please put Sam back on” (who I assume to be the girl).
7:01am – I get a call from Rachel (who has apparently made it home in one piece) telling me how much of a bastard I was to take advantage of her while she was drunk and that she can’t believe I would stoop that low.
7:05am – as soon as Rachel stops to take a breath, I cut in saying how nothing happened (not that I recalled anyway).
7:07am – after a rather lengthy awkward silence she asks me if I would like to come over to her place to make something happen.
7:10am – I am heading towards Rachel’s place when I hear my grandma’s voice in my head. “nothing good ever happens after 2am , Gustaf. You should just go home”. I guess she was wrong after all. Then I hear my father’s voice. “Vodka is f*cking wonderful. It makes things happen”
Chapter 32: I refuse to worship false idols!
I refuse to worship any false idols. They are treacherous and often lead you to temptation and despair. The good book speaketh thus, “There is but one true Lord”. But the good book doth lie when naming this Lord as God. The one true Lord is Chuck Norris, b-grade action movie extraordinaire and martial arts adept. For those of you who have not yet converted, here are a few reasons why Chuck Norris is god:
- Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
- Chuck Norris doesnt shave; he kicks himself in the face. The only thing that can cut Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.
- Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother’s womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.
- Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn’t stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
- Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
- Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the
- Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK’s head exploded out of sheer amazement.
- Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse… horses are hung like Chuck Norris
- To prove it isn’t that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.
- The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
- Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
- Chuck Norris won ‘Jumanji’ without ever saying the word. He simply beat the living daylights out of everything that was thrown at him, and the game forfeited.
- Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his dad did.
- Chuck Norris was the fourth Wise Man. He brought baby Jesus the gift of “beard”. Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus’ obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.
- If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.
- Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
- When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.
- Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying “booya”.
- Chuck Norris once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.
- Filming on location for
- When Chuck Norris plays
- After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on
- Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”
- The original theme song to the Transformers was actually “Chuck Norris–more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris–robot in disguise,” and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.
- One of the greatest cover-ups of the last century was the fact that Hitler did not commit suicide in his bunker, but was in fact tea-bagged to death by Chuck Norris.
- Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.
- There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.
- When Chuck Norris’s wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, “Don’t worry about it honey,” and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce. When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, “Never question Chuck Norris.”
- The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’s fist.
- If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, “Two seconds till.” After you ask, “Two seconds to what?” he roundhouse kicks you in the face.
- When Chuck Norris falls into a pool, he doesn’t get wet, the pool gets Chuck Norris-ed
- Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word ‘hunting’ implies the possibility of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
- Chuck Norris can divide by zero
- Chuck Norris can count to infinity. Twice.
- The opening scene from Saving Private Ryan is based loosely on Chuck Norris’ first game of dodgeball.
- If paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors, what beats all 3 at the same time? Answer: Chuck Norris.
- It is common knowledge that there are three sides to the force: The Light Side, The Dark Side, and Chuck Norris.
- When Chuck Norris was denied a hash brown at McDonalds because it was 10:35, He roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became a Wendy's.
- Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick is so powerful, it can be seen from outer space by the naked eye.
- Chuck Norris wears a live rattlesnake as a condom.
- Chuck Norris burned down an entire forest when he was experimenting with water.
- If you want a list of Chuck Norris' enemies just check the extinct species list.
- Chuck Norris can believe it's not butter.
- We once had a bachelor party for Chuck Norris. He ate the entire cake before we could tell him there was a stripper in it.
- Chuck Norris eats Transformer toys in vehicle mode and poops them out transformed into a robot.
- Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris was dropped at
- Chuck Norris owns the greatest Poker Face of all-time. It helped him win the 1983 World Series of Poker despite him holding just a Joker, a Get Out of Jail Free Monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green ..4 card from the game Uno.
- Chuck Norris does not use spell check. If he happens to misspell a word, he simply changes the actual spelling of it.
There you have it. Forty eight reasons why Chuck Norris is the indisputable true Lord. And just in case you need a forty ninth:
- Chuck Norris believes in God because Chuck Norris knows that Chuck Norris exists.
Chapter 33: To violence against women,
Seen the ads on TV lately? “To violence against women,
Whatever the case, this stands as yet another example of why gender equality will never be achieved. Because the sexes are not equal. The only way to ensure absolute gender equality would be to make everyone a woman (by circumcising and castrating men and giving them all breast implants), thus meaning that it would be wrong to beat up on anybody because everybody would be female; or (god forbid we should take this option) to transform all the women into men (by removing their breasts and attaching artificial penises to them) this making the campaign obsolete because there wouldn’t be any women to say not to violence against. But there’s also a slight issue of gender equality which arises during this process. Which sex do we make everyone? We certainly can’t decide something as important as this through tossing a coin and saying “alright, if it’s heads we make everyone male and if it’s tails we make everyone female”.
There needs to be a logical process in deciding these things and as everybody well knows, the battle of the sexes rarely sets foot into the realm of reason. So then it would seem that our real solution is to make everybody both male and female or to make everyone asexual. The benefit of making everyone asexual is that the operation would be much easier to perform because it’d simply be a matter of removing organs and it would thus be less of an expenditurial burden to those of us who actually pay taxes. However, the problem with this is that while everyone is happily carrying on about their lives without their genitals, the birth rate will take a steep dive towards the zero mark because no genitals equates to no copulation and reproductive processes. No reproduction means that sooner or later the human race would become extinct (if God was merciful he would make it sooner and end the immense suffering). And perhaps even worse than the human race ceasing to exist, there would cease to be pornography because sexual acts would cease to mean anything. And since sex ceases to be pleasurable or meaningful, violence against women would decrease dramatically because the majority of violent acts against women come about as a precursor to rape.
On the flip side, we could make everyone both male and female (something that we call a transvestite). The benefit of this is that everyone can have sex with themselves and this would also be a very handy way to quash the likelihood of rape from sexually hungry males with aggressive sexual behaviour. The self-sex factor also eliminates the need for masturbation and the need for pornography as men would then be able to ogle their own feminine private parts. Reproduction is also allowed by introducing dual sex citizens as the generic. In fact, the problem with having dual sex citizens is that rather than not being able to reproduce, they reproduce at double the rate at which they should. Think about it, at the moment about half the population is male and half the population is female. Therefore only half the population are equipped to give birth. But if everyone was female (and male at the same time) we’d have double the number of births. In fact, we’d have more because gay couples and lesbian couples would also be able to give birth now. So we’d have a huge birth boom and flood the planet with an influx of twin-sex children. Not a good thing. The amount of money needed to carry out the operations to make everyone a dual sex citizen would be bordering on insurmountable. The last thing the government then needs would be to have that many more children on child welfare.
As you can see, achieving gender equality can be a very messy business. It would seem that the simple solution would be to make all the women into dual sex citizens because they seem so damn desperate to be both men and women anyway. But they won’t agree to this and a lot of men wouldn’t agree to it either. They don’t want to be having sex with a woman who has a penis. Nor do they want to go without sex. This is why gender equality is such a tricky tricky issue. If we are to achieve gender equality, we’ll have to give up a lot of other things to get there but nobody wants to make these sacrifices. But there is a solution that would make (almost) everyone happy. Gustaf’s Solution. All of these previous suggestions have been made by conservative old men with nothing better to do with their ideas than include “but” in every second sentence. Gustaf’s Solution has no “buts”. Gustaf’s Solution is to split men and women into two separate tribes. Everyone will have a collar attached to them that monitors their heart rate and location. Then we make them play a little game to prove which sex is superior. The first team to kill half the other wins the game and the remainder of the losing team is put on a rocket and will be sent hurtling towards the sun for a blazing and glorious death. The catch is that they only have three years in which to wipe each out half the other sex. If neither sex has killed more than half the other at the end of the three years, the collars will explode, killing everyone. Think of this as being a team based version of Battle Royale. But on a shit heaps bigger scale.
Of course, when one team wins and the other team is sent hurtling into the sun, it’ll only be a matter of a few years before the remaining sex becomes extinct because they will no longer be able to reproduce. So I suppose that the prize for the winner is not that they get to avoid death, just that they get to live for an extra thirty to forty or so years. Since there will never be gender equality, the only solution is to prove which gender is superior and exile the other (or send them on a one way trip to the sun for dramatic effect). There is no flaw to Gustaf’s Plan. It is flawless so long as Gustaf is on the winning side which he is sure to be on since Chuck Norris will also be on the same side.
Chapter 34: The jury has found you guilty of murder. I sentence you to life in a five star resort…
Should you ever find yourself out of house and home because you wasted your entire last pay cheque on alcohol and hookers and can not pay off your mortgage as a result (despite selling all your furniture, your TV and refrigerator and your left testicle) you can rest easy knowing that you will be looked after and taken care of very well. You will be given a home (which will probably be better than the one you just lost to your greedy sadistic bank). You will be given food (which will probably be better than the food you were eating while your greedy sadistic bank was demanding 90% of your pay cheque on mortgage repayments. Then again, anything is bound to be better than spam sandwiches day in day out). You will be given access to first class gym facilities (which will probably be better than doing push ups on that cursed old rug in your living room that is so flea ridden that you’re bitten enough to make it look like you’ve got a seventeen pack). You will be protected by security who will never let you out of their sight (which will probably be better than that ass alarm system you had at home that let you be robbed eight times within as many months without so much as a peep).
And all this is courtesy of the government. Yes, they do actually put your tax money to good use from time to time. But (you didn’t honestly think there wouldn’t be a catch to all this, did you?) some conditions must be met. Firstly, you must commit some illegal act. I’m not talking about some minor infringement like parking in a disabled spot when you’re clearly not disabled (despite walking out of the car with a bit of a limp). I’m talking about really evil things like murder, drug trafficking, extortion, illegally importing several hundred refugees in shipping containers and becoming a politician. That sort of stuff. Secondly, you need to make sure that you leave the police a handy tip off (nothing too subtle because they’re all absolutely morons and you’ll be able to kill a hundred odd people and smuggle in an entire country before they get to the first murder scene. Something like “I AM GOING TO KILL ANTHONY SMIT WHO LIVES AT 3
The big problem with this plan is that the judicial system in this country is soft and the likelihood that you’ll be locked up in maximum security for life (which in legal terms is a twenty five year sentence (goes to show you what they know about the average life expectancy)) is pretty low. Even if you’ve killed a million people and started a nuclear war you’d probably get away with not much more than a slap on the wrist (unless of course the country you started war with was our good friend Uncle Sam in which case you’d probably end up with a warhead up your ass). It’s the harsher judges you have to look out for. They might lock you up for a few years in one of those regular prisons where the food actually is bad and the accommodation is anything but accommodating. *gasp* And that is exactly why you must take utter care to make sure that they know you committed all those murders and that you are in no way remorseful for what you did. If possible, insult the families of those you have killed and call them “f*cking wankers who are worse than the trash I shot in the head six times with a grenade launcher”. And if that doesn’t get you put into that terrible prison with the hot showers and cushy beds, then threaten to kill the judge’s family and call him a “f*cking who is worse than the trash I shot in the head six times with a grenade launcher”. That ought to do the trick. This trick will work in any country where they don’t permit capital punishment. Doing so in countries which allow capital punishment will probably result in you being shot in the head repeatedly while the judge is yelling things like “now who’s the f*cking wanker, huh!?!” at you.
Should you have something resembling a conscience, some sort of moral value or religious principle that prevents you from shooting people in the head repeatedly while on the phone telling the driver where to drop off that shipping container full of refugees, there’s another option. But it’s not easy. Not as easy as the fool proof plan of getting into a high security prison (they’re constantly building better fools). The idea is to try to get yourself into government housing. It doesn’t involve murder or extortion (not from you anyway, most likely it’ll be directed at you). But with the amount of paper work involved, you’d be better off just shooting someone. And with the number of no good slackers in this country, you’d probably have to wait in line a long time to get housing. Unless of course, you can get some of them to leave the queue. And that’s when the shooting begins…
Chapter 35: It’s like comparing apples and oranges… sort of…
When I was a kid my parents (besides liking to lock me up for extended periods to protect me from the world which they were (and still are) adamant was out to get me and make my life miserable) loved to be hypocrites. They loved to tell me that watching television was bad for me. And then watch about four or five hours a day of trivial trash like those reality shows. They loved to tell me that eating chocolate would rot my teeth. And then go and consume an entire block of the stuff in front of eyes while I sat by and watched helplessly as they licked their fingers (they could be a bit cruel sometimes). They loved to tell me that if I ever saw anything around the house that needed doing to just do it. And then call me over to tell me to mow the lawn, vacuum the house, mop the floors and tidy up the desks every time they saw that the lawn needed mowing, the house needed vacuuming, the floors needed mopping or the desks needed tidying. But most of all they loved telling me to stop complaining that all the kids at school were allowed out after dark, were allowed to invite their friends over and were allowed to go out to socialise on the weekends and that I should just stop comparing myself with them because they aren’t me. And then they go and compare my exam results to theirs (“How come you only got 90% when Johnny so and so across the street got 91%?”), compare my work ethic to theirs (“how come everyone else is always so busy studying and doing homework and you’re always sitting there staring at your computer screen?”) and compare my job with theirs (“how come he can get a job at a proper shop and make some real money while all you do is tutor kids on Saturday?”. That was my mum anyway. Recall that my dad was as allergic to real work as I was).
And it really isn’t fair comparing me to other kids because we really were different. They had normal dads who enjoyed sport, had decent jobs (accountants, lawyers, managers, etc.) and who shaved on a regular basis. I had a father who didn’t have a job but was hardly home anyway, only enjoyed sport if it was on television and had a beard that would put any wise man to shame. They had mothers who baked cakes once or twice a week, were happy to drive other kids home and did some volunteer work in their spare time. I had a mother who couldn’t even figure out how to use the oven let alone bake a cake, couldn’t be bothered picking me up let alone other kids (“why should I pick you up when you can walk home? It’ll only take you ten minutes.” In reality, it took me about forty) and couldn’t be bothered doing her own housework (she always made Angus do it and Angus would always palm it off to me) let alone voluntary work. In short, they had normal families who led normal lives and did normal things. I had a family that the word ‘dysfunctional’ doesn’t even begin to describe who led lives best described as extraordinary (and I mean that in the worst possible way) and did things that no word in any language in the universe could even begin to describe. Basically, comparing me to other kids was unfair because comparing my life to the lives of other kids was like comparing apples and oranges.
And it’s not like the things I did (or didn’t do as most of the complaints seemed to be directed at) were the only place where they were making totally absurd comparisons. They did this with everything. For example:
- They were constantly comparing Toyotas to Mercedes. “Wow, the features on the Mercedes are so much better than the
- They loved comparing plasma televisions to those mondo craptastic cathode ray things. “Wah! How come the plasma costs so much more than the cathode ray television? The picture quality is about the same and it’s not that much bigger…” Well for starters, the plasma screen is about a fifth of the depth of that hideous obsolete crate you call a television set and looks so much sexier. It’s also got a built in digital tuner so you can watch digital television when that analogue stuff goes out of date (which it has yet to do twelve years down the track). Oh, and it is bigger. A lot bigger. A whole fifty centimetres bigger. Oh yes.
- They loved comparing French movie to
- They loved comparing music (or rather, they loved saying how all songs sounded the same). “This song sounds just like that song by that other chick…” For a start, Christina Aguilera sounds nothing like that Paris Hilton skank (although the way they dress is getting disturbingly more similar with every day). The songs aren’t even the same style and I’m not sure how they managed to listen to a ballad and think it sounds the same as some poppy trash (unless the ballad was one of those stupid remixed versions, which I’m pretty sure it wasn’t).
- They loved comparing Grey’s Anatomy to House. “The shows are both so similar. They’ve both got doctors in a hospital and all these emergencies happen every episode”. Well no crap. If they’re doctors, odds are they will be in a hospital. And since they’re going to be in a hospital, there are obviously going to be emergencies. Naturally, these emergencies are going to be of the dramatic and spectacular variety because having eight year old kids coming in with broken arms every episode is just boring. But there are a lot of differences about the shows. Firstly, Grey’s Anatomy is more of a drama while House is a bit more of a comedy. Meredith Grey actually takes her job seriously and treats her patients with respect. Gregory House loves to play God and pretty much makes up his own rules because he can and because he’s invariably right. And Gregory House is just infinitely superior to Meredith Grey. The only person cooler than House is Chuck Norris.
And that’s pretty much the highlights package of their insane and totally bizarre comparisons. They love to compare things that are totally different and expect them to be similar (as these examples all clearly illustrate). Given a slab of cheese and a box of chalk, they could spend an entire day drawing similarities between the two and they’d be so convinced that cheese and chalk are the same that they’d end up making chalk sandwiches while going over the cheesy words on the blackboard.
Comparing my parents’ idea of fair comparison to a normal person’s idea of fair comparison is like comparing… apples and oranges. Well, not quite. Cheese and chalk? No… that still doesn’t quite cut it. The Daily Telegraph to The Sydney Morning Herald? Utter sensationaliased garbage compared to realistic and logical journalism. Yeah… that sounds about right to me.
Chapter 36: Growing old is compulsory but growing up is optional
A lot of my friends suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome. Not that they seem to suffering. They always look as though they’re having the time of their lives. The ones who are suffering from their Peter Pan Syndrome are their wives and girlfriends (or husbands and boyfriends since my female friends are the ones most reluctant to accept that they are now adults) who stand by sheepishly in public while their partners skip around like children and have a sook and chuck a tantrum in a way that only little kids are capable of doing. Sooner or later, you’ve got to grow up and start taking responsibility for your actions right? People grow old and as they do they have to learn that they have duties to fulfil to themselves, to their families and to society. I tried telling this to one of my friends, let’s call her Usagi, some time ago. Her response was a chirpy, “Didn’t you know Gustaf? Growing old is compulsory, yes; but growing up is totally optional”. And I guess that sums up the mindset of Peter Pan. They’re ready to acknowledge that they’re thirty odd years old but they still want to hold onto whatever youth they have left. Peter Pan syndrome gets particularly bizarre when the personality is split into something part adult and part child. Take Usagi for example (or Usagi-chan since it’s a name far more suited to her childish side).
Usagi is about thirty two years old. By no means ‘young’ but at the same time hardly old enough to qualify for ‘old fogey’ status. And yet she often behaves like both of these. As a child, Usagi was a huge fan of Sailor Moon. Whether it was the costumes, the characters, the romantic subplot or the whole ‘girl power’ theme, I am unsure of. But what I am sure of is that her huge fandom was bordering on being a psychopathic obsession. She had every single Sailor Moon manga, anime, toy and collectible key ring, plate, cup and Frisbee ever created. She owned every single cos play costume as well as the costumes from the live television series and all the musicals. Basically, her house was like a museum to Sailor Moon (I’d probably call it a shrine but that doesn’t quite convey the scope and magnitude of it). Walking into her house was like walking into an alternate universe. And it didn’t stop there either. Oh, no. She’d bring her obsession out to public with her as well. You know how little kids watch their favourite movies over and over again and know every single line word for word? Usagi-chan was kind of like that with Sailor Moon. I’d be out with her sometimes and she’d just spontaneously break into one of those Sailor soliloquays. Which was alright because it’s not as if everybody around
But that’s just the tip of the weirdness iceberg. When Usagi-chan turned twelve she discovered the joys of classical music and fell in love with one Pyotr Tchaikovsky. I don’t mean ‘fell in love’ in the sense that she merely adored his music, I mean it in a literal sense. As in sighing and developing a somewhat spaced out gaze when his name is mentioned. If he weren’t dead she would have married him. Often she’d be struggling over a piano piece and she’d just sigh and say out loud, “what would Pyotr do if he were alive…” Well, if Pyotr was alive he’d be pretty pissed off that he’d been buried alive for about a hundred years. But if he were here, alive and as soon as he got over being buried alive, he’d probably be writing yet another masterpiece or at the
Isn’t it weird how a girl who is childish enough to still be running around in a Sailor Moon costume can be so in love with music that is so classy and delicate? Most girls her age (her real age, not her Sailor Moon age) would be listening to that pop junk and swooning over Justin Timberlake (I will never see the appeal behind that man). Meanwhile, she’s listening to classical music and swooning over a man who probably resembles not much more than a pile of bones at the present moment. Admittedly the sort of obsession she has with Tchaikovsky is sort of similar to the kind of obsession thirteen year old girls have with Timberlake and co. The kind of squealing, hyperventilating and fainting obsession. The kind of feverous obsession that makes you wait in the cold for hours on end waiting for your idol to show up, all the while carrying a sign that says “I *heart* you! Marry me!” Only Usagi-chan would never do such a thing. Primarily because Tchaikovsky wasn’t exactly going to be showing up any time soon no matter how long she waited. It’d be like waiting for Godot. Or at least waiting for them to develop cloning technology so they could revive Pyotr for her. I don’t know why she’d bother waiting for them to develop the cloning technology though. She’s watched enough Full Metal Alchemist to know how to transmute humans. As for the sacrifice needed to satisfy the equal trade principle… well, since most of the singers these days have some remote trace of talent, sacrificing all of them should be adequate. Or perhaps attempting to transmute them would result in nothing but a pile of human excrement (the runny variety)… only one way to find out…
Anyway, once again, I find myself digressing from my original point. The whole point is that Usagi-chan can be a bit creepy sometimes because she never acts her age. She’s either acting like an old man when she’s in one of her Tchaikovsky moods (much like me every other day of the week) or she’s in Sailor Moon mode and behaving like a ten year old girl. But Usagi-chan is really creepy when she is simultaneously in Tchaikovsky mode and Sailor Moon mode. “In the name of the sugar plum fairy, I banish you!”
Chapter 37: Everything tastes like chicken… except for chicken
Why is it that everything tastes like chicken? You know when you eat something and you’re not quite sure what it tastes like, for some reason the first thing that comes to mind is almost invariably “it tastes like chicken”? That’s what I’m talking about. Chicken. Why chicken of all the things it could possibly taste like? Why doesn’t everything taste like beef or pork or fish or apple or chalk or rubber or elephant faeces? Why chicken? And more importantly, why can’t things just taste like themselves? Surely an orange should taste like an orange, an apple should taste like an apple, pork should taste like pork, beef should taste like beef, rubber should taste like rubber, a fish should taste like a fish and chalk and elephant faeces should both taste like elephant faeces.
Understandably some things do actually taste like chicken.
But after all that business about everything tasting like chicken, it turns out that the only thing that doesn’t taste like chicken is chicken. Yes, you heard me. Everything tastes like chicken except for chicken. For some reason when describing the taste of chicken, people always say it tastes like something else (generally something edible although from time to time the chicken is overcooked, dry and meatless in which case it “tastes like crap”). Now why is it that we describe everything that isn’t chicken as tasting like chicken but when we actually get a giant slab of chicken it tastes like something else? I do have one theory. It’s all the fault of this world going political correctness mad. Political correctness has made everybody call things what they aren’t and describe things in more pleasant ways. And since everybody loves the taste of chicken, describing everything as tasting like chicken is just a simple way of saying “I’m not quite sure what this tastes like but it tastes good. Hey, chicken tastes god too. This tastes like chicken!” And since we can’t call anything what it is anymore it would hardly be considered politically correct to describe the taste of chicken as tasting like chicken. An alternative reason was offered in the Matrix. The machines who are controlling our minds couldn’t decide what chicken tastes like which is why everything tastes like chicken. This would explain why everything else tastes like chicken as well as why chicken doesn’t taste like chicken. I mean, if everything tastes like chicken then eating chicken would remind you of the taste of just about everything else.
But which ever way you choose to go, the fact remains. Chicken tastes like everything and everything tastes like chicken except for chicken.
Chapter 38: And this is the total truth because it is God’s Word from the Bible…
I have always been a bit sceptical about religion. Okay, not always. I did go through a brief period in life when I actually went to church and read the bible and prayed and did all that other jazz. But that was a dark period in life for me and one that I would rather sweep into the closet with all those other skeletons. I was possessed at the time and my mind was then in the hands of aliens who planned to use my uber genius to take over the world (fortunately, my uber brain was so uber that it uber outsmarted them and found its way back to me). But yes… dark time indeed.
They say that God hears the prayers of everyone because he is all powerful, all knowing and a really nice guy. I guess I finally gave up on religion when my brain made its way back to me and I realised that the only person who was listening when I was praying was me. Surely I could not be God and even if I was, I wouldn’t believe in my omni potency, omniscience or omni benevolence (as large as my ego was, it hadn’t quite reached the stage where I was ready to declare myself as God. Jesus, perhaps, but not God). Even if there was a God who was eavesdropping on my conversation with myself, why even bother praying to him if he is all knowing? If he knows everything then he should know what you want without you having to ask him for it. If he knows everything then he should also know just how sorry you are for killing your neighbour and burying him in his own backyard.
They also say that he created the world and made man in his image. But if he made man in his image and clearly man is an evil being full of greed and lust and hatred, then does that mean that God is also a greedy and lustful and hateful being? But doesn’t that then contradict the fact that God is omni benevolent? “God is omni benevolent and people are all born good people but sometimes the temptations of the devil are too great and we stray from his image”. So does that mean that God can also be swayed by the Devil? “No, God is absolute and can not be swayed”. So then we’re not created in his image. Why didn’t he also make us infallibly incorruptible? “Because it is not right for humans to be perfect”. And who made the decision that humans should not be perfect? If God made that decision than that would make him selfish, would it not? To maintain perfection for himself and deny it to others? “It is not at all greedy. God’s omniscience allowed him to see that we would abuse the power given to us”. And who told you that? “The Bible” And whose word is the Bible? “Why it is the word of God, of course”. So God wrote that we are easily fallible and that he is the only one who always sees the truth? Besides being a bit of an ego trip, how are we to know he isn’t lying? “Because he is omni benevolent”. And he told you this in the Bible as well? “Umm… yes…” What about the devil? “The devil is an evil being who seeks nothing but to dethrone God and take the
“Let me ask you a question. If you die tonight, where do you think you will go? TO Heaven or to Hell?” Being the cynic that I am, I’d say neither. If I die then I die and my body stays on this world. “You’re wrong. If you believe in God and pray for forgiveness, he will accept you and you will go to Heaven” Oh, and I suppose you read that in the Bible too? “Yes. It is in the Bible. I can even show you the exact bit that says it”. And what makes you so sure that what’s in the Bible isn’t a lie? “Because it is the word of God and he doesn’t lie.” That’s what your Bible tells you. “It is written in these pages, it can not be false”. So then if I were to write something it would automatically become true? “No, it wouldn’t be the same”. What if I were to write that the universe were created by a purple hippo whose Godly power is dancing? “You’re wrong. Only the word of God is true”. I don’t see how my writing would be any less true. “The Bible is an age old book and contains ancient scriptures”. I see… so then what about all those other religious scriptures? “They are all false and written by the devil. Only the bible contains the absolute truth”. And how do you know that the Kuran doesn’t contain the truth and that the Bible is full of lies? “Because it’s obviously the truth.” Well, I’m a bit of an idiot and it’s not really obvious to me, so can you explain it to me? “I shouldn’t need to explain it, anybody who is willing to open up to God will be able to see it”. In other words, you can’t explain it? “Only God understands absolute truth and only he can explain it.” Stop giving me that load of bullshit. Can you explain it or not? “No.” So then why do you believe in God and the Bible? “Because I know he will forgive my sins and accept me into Heaven”. No, you don’t know anything. “I know for sure that God will forgive me because I ask for his forgiveness and he is all forgiving”. You don’t know the truth remember? Only God knows absolute truth.
What would you do if God was a fictional being created by Satan to test out all of humanity and to find those that would oppose his will so that they may be crushed? “I do not fear that because I know that God is real and that the devil would be foolish to struggle against His might”. I see. And what if the devil seeked the forgiveness of God? Would his forgiveness extend to even those who tried to defeat him? “If the devil were to seek God’s forgiveness, even he would be forgiven”. And what if the devil only pretended to feel guilty just to get into Heaven to corrupt it? You said yourself that the devil was a sneaky bastard. “God would see through his plan and punish him accordingly”. My, God sounds so vengeful and wrathful. “Not at all. He is kind to those who follow his word and sill strike down the enemies of those who follow his word”. So he’s a bit like a dictator? “No, he is like a father teaching his children the right way”. And what is the right way? Is it just his way? “Yes, His way is the right way”.
You said earlier that if I prayed for forgiveness for my sins that I would go to Heaven. “Yes, that is correct. God only wants you to acknowledge that you did wrong. If you do that he will forgive you”. So then would I be better off not praying and doing things his way; things like charity work? Or would I be better off robbing banks, killing people and praying for forgiveness? “If you are truly sorry for your sins, you will be allowed into Heaven”. You haven’t really answered my question. Would I be better off as a non-believing saint or as a believing sinner? “The believing sinner would be better off”. So then you’re saying that God doesn’t care about the fate of other humans so long as we believe in him? He’s starting to sound a bit selfish again. “No, that is not it at all. Only those who believe in a place can go there. Those who do not believe can not go”.
Okay, so going back to your initial question about where I would go when I died. “Yes, in death you will go to either Heaven or to Hell depending on whether or not you choose to accept the Lord”. But I can’t go to a place that I don’t believe in, right? “Correct”. Well then you’ve contradicted yourself. “Oh?” You said that I will either go to Heaven or to Hell but I believe in neither so how can I go to them? ‘Well… umm…” Furthermore, once you die, you cease to believe in anything because you cease to think and thought is required for belief (except perhaps in your case in which it seems to be a blind faith). “That’s true… but…”. So even if you believed in Heaven in life, the moment you die you cease to believe in anything and you can not then go to Heaven. “Yes… well…” So then I was right all along. When I die I’m going to stay on Earth. “No, you’re wrong! The Bible says that…” Do we really have to go through this again? “The Bible says that those who pray to God will go to Heaven and those who don’t will go to Hell. Repent or you will be damned!” I thought religion was supposed to preach tolerance? “Tolerance will only be shown to those who believe! Repent, sinner!” You know what? If you’re the kind of person who lives in Heaven, I think I’d take my chances in Hell. “Then you are condemned. I have warned you and you now know how your God will judge you.” Go to Hell.
Chapter 39: Till death do us part… or until we get sick of each other…
Divorce is a tricky thing. All the pain and screaming and arguing and throwing things and anger and resentment flying around. At least that’s how I’ve always perceived it. Apparently, it isn’t nearly so painful a process if the number of people getting divorced is anything to go by. In our current day and age nearly half of marriages end in divorce within the first two years (as staggering as that may sound, I’m really not making that statistic up. It’s the whole truth). With this in mind, is it really alright for people to continue to use the same age old wedding vows that they’ve been using since the beginning of time? Is it really alright to be using vows that are so old that they’ve become utterly obsolete?
It’s time we update our wedding vows (along with everything else that even has a hint of being tradition) because times change. Sure the vows may have been meaningful when they were first uttered but fast forward an age and suddenly they become trivial, nothing but empty and meaningless words. We need new vows to suit our new lifestyles and modern values. We need vows that represent these values and have the sort of fine print that would put any corporate lawyer and his expensive suit to shame.
Rather than promising to “care for her in sickness and in health” (a promise we know we won’t be able to keep), we should be promising something more realistic. Something like “I promise to have sex with you in sickness and in health, unless that sickness happens to be AIDS or something genital related”. Or even “I promise to be cared for by you in sickness and in health but if you ever get sick you’re on your own”. Something similar to that that really expresses the selfish nature of our society.
And the promise to “love and cherish her until death do us part” is some what far fetched too. Everybody knows that humans are inherently fickle animals. We’re fickle and selfish and superficial and shallow. Shallow to the point where we notice everything that is wrong with people and fail to notice the good. Shallow to the point where our allegiances only mean something to us as long as they are of some benefit to us. “Till death do us part” is often far too long a period of time for two people to be married and for them to still be of use to each other. After a while all the spontaneity and excitement fades away and then they’re at each other’s throats about every small thing and the only time they talk is when they want something or if they wish to make yet another trivial complaint about some trivial thing the other person has done wrong. I suggest we change this bit of the vow to “ to love and cherish till death do us part or until we get sick of each other (which ever happens first)”. The one that happens first is usually the getting sick of each other and I think that this is a more reasonable promise to be making to someone. Or perhaps make the vow “I promise to love and cherish you until this day next year at which time I’ll re-evaluate my situation and decide if it’s worth having you around”. One year is a pretty good time frame to set marriage dates for. Sure, political terms run for three or four years, but people are always sick of the politician and regret voting them in about a year into their term. So using that logic, I think one year is a good time frame for marriage. And if after one year you’re still not sick of each other, then you can renew the marriage for another year.
We always promise each other that we’ll love each other forever, that we’ll be together forever, that we’ll be together forever even after death. But forever is too long a time for an emotion to survive. Making a promise you can not keep and know that you can not keep is unfair on the other person. That’s why when I proposed to Ana, I made no promise to love her forever or that we’d be together forever. I told her the truth.
“I know I can’t love you forever. But I know how much I love you now. And if you can somehow love me for me, I’ll love you for as long as you are you…”
Chapter 40: You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!
The truth is such an over rated thing. Our whole lives we are taught to tell the truth and to not lie to other people because lying is the same as cheating and cheaters never prosper (which in itself is bullshit. I’ll elaborate later). And yet we are constantly lied to, told mistruths and tricked into thinking things we wouldn’t normally think and doing things we normally wouldn’t dream of doing. Things like buy furniture that won’t fit into your little shit hole of a house because it’s on twenty four months interest free. Of course, the catch is that if you don’t pay it off in those twenty four months, be prepared to be hit by a massive interest akin to the sort of taxation that caused the French revolution. Things like voting for the Liberals because they promised to once again strengthen our economy. Which they always do but the problem is that we never seem to benefit from it because these economic growth plans invariably come at the cost of jobs and welfare. Things like believing that drinking Red Bull will actually be of benefit to your sporting performance and is healthier than Coke because it has taurine instead of caffeine (when in reality taurine and caffeine are the same damn thing).
So then why are we told to tell the truth when the world around us is constantly lying to us? Is it some sort of double standards thing where by we can’t allow an entire society full of liars so the common people must tell the truth because the corporations have more to gain from lying to us than we have to gain from lying to them? Have we become so utilitarian where lying is alright so long as the ends justify the means?
And then there are those ‘little white lies’ that are the primary export of parents all over the world. All those little things parents tell their kids to protect them from the potential evil that it may breed in their impressionable minds. Mummy, where did Rover go? “Oh, he went on holidays dear, he’ll be back soon”. Of course, kids have attention spans equivalent to that of a gold fish and they’ll have totally forgotten about Rover long before they can start to miss him (just as well because when dogs die the vacation they get is sort of one way). Mummy, I don’t want to eat these vegetables. They’re yucky! “But if you don’t eat them you won’t grow up to be big and strong. Don’t you want to be like Superman? He wouldn’t be strong if he didn’t eat his vegetables.” Oh and his x-ray vision would be so much worse if he didn’t eat his carrots because everybody knows that carrots (do not) help improve eye sight. Mummy, can you cut the crusts off the bread? I don’t like them. “But if you don’t eat the crust, you won’t grow up to have pretty curly hair”. Err… right. There’s plenty of scientific proof that shows that eating bread crust makes your hair curly *cough*. We’ve been cheated by these shampoo companies all these years. All this time I thought it was my twelve dollars a bottle shampoo that made my hair curly and beautifully puffy when all along it was just eating bread crusts that did it? Heads will roll for this! Mummy, are you and daddy going to get a divorce? “Sweetie, where did you get that idea from? I would never leave you. Sometimes grown ups argue about silly things and that’s alright because it’s better than keeping it in, okay?” It’s absolutely okay but some things are better kept from other people. Like the truth from children.
And then there’s the big one. Mummy, where did I come from? “Well… umm… I’m a bit busy at the moment. Why don’t you go ask your father?” Daddy, where did I come from? “Umm…err… Sharonnnnnnn! Ask your mother, dear” But mummy said she was busy and I should ask you, daddy. “Oh, right… ummm… well, you see… you were… umm… brought to us by… a stork!” What’s a stork? “Well… it’s… it’s a… hold on a second *disappears into kitchen to asks mummy what a stork is* *comes back* A stork is a bird. A big white bird with a big beak. It carried you here and left you on our doorstep”. Okay! Daddy, where did the stork get me from? “It... umm… it picked you from the… cabbage patch… yes… you were grown in a cabbage patch and then brought to us by a stork”. And stupidly, we kids believe this far fetched story about being grown in the dirt and then delivered to adults by courier birds. Why is it that parents can not simply tell their kids the truth? Why can’t they just say to their kids “Your stupid dog died, I know those vegetables taste like a rat’s ass but you’ve got to eat them because they are good for you (like everything else that tastes like ass of some description), you have to eat the crust because I’m a god damn tight arse who doesn’t want to waste any food and you’re here because daddy couldn’t keep his f*cking dick in his pants which, incidentally is the same reason why I am leaving his pathetic ass”.
And the reason parents tell their kids these little white lies (personally, I prefer the term ‘lie through their teeth’) is that they think that children are too young and can not cope with the truth because they aren’t old enough or experienced enough in life to deal with it. When I was a child, I believed that was the truth of the world. But you know what I really think? I think parents lie to their kids because they are the ones who can not cope with the truth. They don’t want to face up to the reality of their less than glamorous lifestyles so they tell lies to their kids. They want to lie to themselves but they know that they are unable to fool themselves with their own lies so they transfer all their lying energy and direct it towards their children.
“Did you break the vase, Timmy?” No mummy, it was Rover, I swear! “Don’t lie to me, young man. I want the truth!” You want the truth? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
Chapter 41: The relevance of the seven deadly sins to life today
Everybody knows about the seven deadly sins. The sins that are supposedly the ones punishable by eternal damnation unless you kiss some serious God ass and ask his imaginary-ness for his imaginary forgiveness. It’s generally accepted that these ‘deadly sins’, while not punishable by death (not usually anyway), are certainly bad traits for a person to possess. But just how bad are they? Sure, they may have been ‘shock horror, I can’t believe you did that’ bad back in those good old days of purity when nobody lied, stole or killed (and boy are those days old…). But how relevant are they in today’s world of corporate greed and money driven zombie-ism? Well, let’s recap. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, avarice and sloth. Now let’s have a look at how relevant they are to today’s society.
- Pride – said to be the sin from which all others arise, it is basically excessive belief in one’s own abilities (especially if these beliefs should interfere with one’s recognition of the grace of God). Now I don’t see why having some pride would be a bad thing in the society of today. One of the biggest problems in today’s society is suicide and most suicide comes about as a lack of belief in one’s own abilities which in turn leads to a belief that we do not deserve to live. Surely, God would not begrudge us the will to live? And if he does, then may the church be damned for the blood of those who took their own lives will be on their hands.
- Envy – the sin of being desirous of other people’s traits, status, abilities and/or situation. Once again, I don’t see how this could be a bad thing. While we are all individuals at heart and strive to do so, are we not all desirous of the abilities and things of others? That is the only way to become a better person, is it not? Through wanting the ability of others and working towards attaining these things. It is envy that provides us with the motivation to do the things we do and to do it to the best of our ability. Children look up to athletes as role models and admire them because of their talent and skill. Then they go to the park on the weekend with their friends and practise all the things they see their heroes do on television. ‘Envy’ provides kids with a dream to work towards and any god who would take this away from them is a spiteful god.
- Gluttony – the sin of having an inordinate desire to consume more than one really requires. Of all the sins in life, this is perhaps the most widespread in today’s world. Everybody always wants more. If they have a thousand, they want a million. When they have a million, they want ten million. When they have ten million, they want one billion. When they have one billion they die from old age and pass it on to the next generation to make into ten billion. And at the end of it all, the person only needed a million to survive comfortably. That’s just the nature of man; to want more even if we don’t need it. And that’s fine so long as we obtain more through fair means that do not hurt anyone. If this gluttony comes at the cost of the lives of others or the existence of entire villages then it becomes unacceptable. When this happens, may God (real or otherwise) strike these sinners down with lightning.
- Lust – the sin of having an inordinate craving for pleasures of the body. As you might have guessed, this is my favourite sin. Especially when combined with gluttony (can you say ‘massive group orgy’?). Anyway, lust shouldn’t really be a sin because lust is a natural reaction to the opposite sex brought about by hormones. In teenagers these hormones ‘rage’ and thus their craving for all things sex and pornographic is indeed inordinate at times. But what we must understand is that if we are lustful it is not our fault. It is God’s fault for making us this way and for giving our bodies hormones (if you want to believe that God made us). If lust is a deadly sin, then God is the greatest sinner of all for he made lust and he made the opposite sex to compel our lust.
- Wrath – the sin of spurning love and opting instead for fury. Great sin this one. This sin in legal terms translates into ‘self defence’. That’s right, wrath is just a very negative word for self defence; a dysphomism if you will. Sure while being attack rather than fight back we could always do the Jesus thing (no, not walk on water you fool) and turn the other cheek, but that would probably end up in death. It may have been alright to turn the other cheek back in the days when weapons were still very barbaric but in today’s society, the only things which are barbaric are the people carrying more advanced weapons who would probably put two holes in your head if you tried turning the other cheek. The only way to stop these barbarians from taking over the cities is to fight fire with fire and put two holes in their head before they can get one into yours. Wrath is the only way to go.
- Avarice – the sin of having a desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. Well, if you happen to subscribe to the religion of moneism (which most of you would) then this sin automatically translates into a virtue. Suggesting that we should not desire material gain would be the same as suggesting that we should all have equal paying jobs no matter what we do in life and that we should all share everything. And everybody knows that is called ‘communism’. Greed is just our way of getting by in the world. It’s not as if the material gain we seek is for pleasure alone, the gain we seek is based on necessity. Everybody needs the top of the line mobile phone, a large plasma television and a four hundred thousand dollar car (let’s face it, necessity isn’t the mother of invention anymore. These days invention is the mother of necessity).
- Sloth – the sin of avoiding physical or spiritual work. Well first of all they tell us that we can’t have goals to work towards and that we shouldn’t work at becoming more like others. And then they tell us that we should be working and not remaining idle. So then what exactly are we supposed to be working towards then? The hypocrisy and contradictory nature of this sin means that it was never relevant when it was first written and it sure as hell isn’t relevant now. Even if it didn’t contradict the other sins, it would still be incorrect. The welfare handouts given by the government to the unemployed mean that those of us who have jobs may actually be better off just living off welfare. The government is encouraging our laziness and offering us incentive to be sloths. Surely the government wouldn’t dare support something evil?
As you can see, the seven deadly sins are far from deadly. Most of them are merely results of natural biological desires, a means of ensuring our own survival in today’s world or just purely self contradictory and counter productive. And if we were to accept these sins as being deadly, then dear friends, I am afraid that we are all going to Hell. If we all go to Hell then Heaven will be totally empty and Hell will be overflowing. And we all know what happens when Hell is overflowing. Oh yes, the dead will walk the earth. *evil laughter*
Chapter 42: Just in case you’re still not convinced religion is a scam
Why is it that despite every single huge problem with every single major religion (except moneism because it’s just the bomb), the world is still so obsessed with religion? I suppose in a world as stuffed up as our own there are three trains of thought as to why having god/s is important. For the atheist/cynic religion means as much as the sand on a foreign planet. For the devoutist, religion is a way of finding guidance and spiritual enlightment. For everyone else, religion is a way to dump off emotional baggage onto figures which may or may not be real.
However, what the devoutist often overlooks is the religious loophole which exists. All religions (save Buddhism) condemn the worshipping of 'false idols'. These false idols include the gods of any other religion. So in effect, all catholics are damned by the islam religion, all islams are damned by the Greek orthodox, so on and so forth. However, no religion states that not worshipping their god/s will result in eternal damnation in the pits of hell/hades/etc. This is where the atheists (such as myself) win out. As atheists worship no god, they are safely hedging their bets and will be the only ones not to go to hell as a result of this loophole.
Another reason why the atheist is less likely to go to hell than the devout church/temple/mosque/etc. goer lies in the 'charitable acts' clause. Most religions preach helping others and working towards the betterment of your fellow man as being a pathway to heaven. Put simply, going to church/temple/mosuqe/etc. in no way contributes to society (positive or otherwise). Instead, the atheist spends this time doing charity work, visiting old folks homes etc. which do actually have a positive effect. Not all atheists fit this criteria however as many are morally broke, but so are many visitors to places of worship.
The devoutist is the one who goes to church, reads the bible at night and goes to hell. Meanwhile, the atheist ignores the word of the bible, does what they feel is morally correct and goes to heaven (assuming there is one).
Chapter 43: You stupid ball, don’t you want to go home?!?
Hate. Golf. Ever see those ads on television for golf tournaments? The ones where you have that voice over guy saying things like “four days of live, rivetting golfing action”? There is no action to it. At all. It is the most boring ‘sport’ to watch (yes, even more boring than lawn bowls and curling) and in terms of entertainment value, you’d get more bang for your buck from watching paint dry or watching the clothes being dried in the tumble dryer or even watching grass grow (which is effectively what golf is, watching the grass grow with the occasional thwack). But I thought I’d give it a go at least once just to see if it was any more exciting to play it than it was to watch it. After all, cricket is great fun to play but only moderately interesting to watch (and even then only if people were being hit in the head with beamers and sledging the hell out of the other team’s batsmen). I figured the same might apply to golf. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
Golf is not only not any more fun to play than it is to watch on television. That’s something that I could have lived with. Golf in real life is not only just as boring as it is on television, it is also the most frustratingly, irritatingly, annoying thing to ever be conceived by man. Whoever invented the game of golf deserves to be strung up by his feet (I’m assuming it would have been a man because golf has been around since the days when women did nothing but cook and clean) and shot in the shins (apparently that’s the most painful place to be shot. Obviously shooting someone in the nads would cause a great deal more pain but the suffering wouldn’t be prolonged because the rinse and repeat method doesn’t work on dead folk). Repeatedly. Even if he’s dead, we should still dig him up and shoot him anyway. And if we can’t find his bony remains because somebody already had the idea of kicking his ass, Chuck Norris should round house kick at the speed of light again and send his foot back in time to seriously hurt this guy.
Imagine trying to sink a stupid white ball into a hole in the ground several hundred metres away. And then having to walk (that’s right, walk because golfers are all a bunch of no good useless wankers who can’t run because of those goofy pants they wear) to where ever it was you hit the damn thing, finding the f*cking ball (which promises to be as much fun as looking for Wally) and then whacking it again and hoping that it gets closer to the hole. And when you finally get it into the hole, you get some stupid bird related term next to your name on the scoreboard depending on how many shots it took you to get the damn ball to go into the damn hole. None of those terms even made any sense. “Wow, you got a birdie on your first attempt at that hole? I only managed an eagle!”, some guy said to me while I was at the course. What in the hell is that supposed to mean? Is that some sort of code for “damn, you’re wife is hot, I would have tapped that shit”? The only two pieces of terminology in scoring in golf that make any sense are hole in one (because you sunk the ball into the hole in one shot, something that I am never going to accomplish even on a mini golf course) and par (because you are on par and took the number of shots (or strokes as golfing pedants would have you call it) recommended by the douche bag who designed the course). Other than these two, the rest are a bit… on the far side. I have no idea what it means to shoot a bogey, or an eagle or a birdie. Nor do I care. Golf is stupid enough without having to deal with wanker terminology like this evidently designed with confusing the golfing uninitiated in mind.
Anyway, my golfing experience was like something straight out of Happy Gilmore. Not the Happy Gilmore you see towards the end who can actually play and wins the trophy and gets the girl and everything. I was more like the Happy Gilmore at the start of the movie. If I could manage to connect club with ball at all, it would have been good for me. If the ball went any further than about 10 metres that was an achievement. And if I managed to actually get the ball into the hole without the number of shots going into triple figures, it was nothing short of a miracle. And true to Happy Gilmore, I had one of those Happy Gilmore moments where I just had to get down on my haunches and start yelling at the ball. “WHAT THE F*CK IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU STUPID BALL?!? THAT’S YOUR HOME! DON’T YOU WANT TO GO HOME, YOU STUPID BALL?!?”
Needless to say, I was promptly escorted off the course by security who were convinced that I was either drunk, insane or both. Which was fine because at that stage I was probably on the verge of being insane and I was so damn annoyed I was just about ready to go to the nearest pub and get drunk. They also put my name on a blacklist of people to never allow on the course ever again. Which was also fine because I never intend on going back there anyway.
The next time you see me with a golf club in hand, I’ll be playing mini golf at the local amusement park (because mini golf is infinitely more entertaining than real golf and it doesn’t involve as much walking). Or I’ll be at your front door demanding to know if you slept with my wife. Either way, you’d better watch out because I will be pissed off (either because that damn clown keeps spitting my ball back out or because you banged by wife. Although which would get me more fired up remains to be seen).
Chapter 44: Why is it that a man and a guy are the same thing but a wise man and a wise guy are totally different things?
The differences between a wise man and a wise guy:
A wise man once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. A wise guy once said, “Shit, we’re out of fuel”.
A wise man once said, “You should always strike while the iron is hot”.
A wise guy once said, “Bugger me, the hell I’m doing the ironing woman. It’s your job”
A wise man once said, “Make hay while the sun is shining”
A wise guy once said, “Make way to the fishing pier while the sun is shining”
A wise man once said, “He who laughs last, laughs loudest”
A wise guy once said, “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… I don’t get it…”
A wise man once said, “A rolling stone gathers no moss”
A wise guy once said, “The Rolling Stones rock! Get it? Rock? I crack myself up sometimes…”
A wise man once said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
A wise guy once said, “I’d do her…”
A wise man once said, “A woman’s place is in the home”
A wise guy once said, “A woman should stay at home and make my dinner”
A wise man once said, “It does not matter whether the chicken or the egg came first”
A wise guy once said, “I like my chicken deep fried and my eggs well done”
A wise man once said, “Build it and they will come”
A wise guy once said, “I ain’t building you kids no f*cking tree house”
A wise man once said, “You should never go to bed angry”
A wise guy once said, “Angry sex! Boo yeah!”
A wise man once said, “Everything has a time and everything has a place”
A wise guy once said, “Shit, if I don’t find my keys quick I’m going to be late”
A wise man once said, “All that glistens is not gold”
A wise guy once said, “Ohhhhh yeahhhhh! Check it out nigga’! I is blingin’ in da’ hood!”
A wise man once said, “The early bird catches the worm”
A wise guy once said, “Five more minutes…”
A wise man once said, “Nothing good ever happens after 2am. Just go to sleep”
A wise guy once said, “It’s only 2am and we’re not at legendary yet. Right now we’re only at the ‘le-’ ”
Chapter 45: One man’s trash is another man’s garbage
A wise man once said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. What he meant by this is that everything has its uses and there will always be people who will have uses for the things of which you have no need. They are making treasure out of your trash. And I agree with this wise man (to a certain extent). I am sure there is a lot of stuff lying around my house that I have no real use for (but can not bear to part with because it all has some strange sentimental value even though I don’t know have the vaguest memory of where most of it came from) which someone out there somewhere might find to be incredibly useful and valuable to whatever strange and wonderful things they do with their time. But it must be said that there are some things out there which are of absolutely no use or value to anyone at all. And I should know this because one the many jobs that I had been fired from was an inventor at one of those strange toy companies. The kind of company that not only make toys but are also responsible for designing a whole host of other really funky (but utterly useless) things. We were encouraged to design weird stuff and some of the things we came up with were just really really pointlessly cool. Some of the things I was responsible for:
The black high lighter – I figured they already had high lighters in just about every other colour imaginable to man, so why not complete the set and design a black one? I had even designed a white high lighter to go with it. Of course the biggest problem with a black high lighter was that it’s uses were limited to high lighting things that were… well… it was pretty much limited to high lighting absolutely nothing. The white high lighter’s uses were also limited, though, proved to be somewhat more useful because it was actually limited to something; it was very handy for high lighting things on black cardboard and everybody knows black cardboard is superior to white cardboard (at least that’s what the advertising campaign said)
The solar powered torch – I was sick of forever not having the batteries I needed for my torch in emergencies. Why the hell couldn’t they design a torch that didn’t cause batteries to leak? I tried figuring out a way to make the batteries not leak but it proved to be too much hard work for me (and I’m allergic to hard work). So I thought about other ways to power the torch and solar power seemed to be a good option. So I designed my solar powered torch and put it on the market but it never took off. The one day there was a power black out at my house. Haha! No more leaking batteries this time, I’m going to go use my solar powered torch… And then it hit me. For me to have to need a torch to see something, it’d have to be dark. And if it was dark that would mean on sunlight. And if there was no sunlight, where the hell was I going to get the power for my torch? So off I went to find the batteries…
The battery powered battery charger – in the search for perpetual energy (and more importantly sick of having rechargeable batteries that were never charged and having no recharger around when I needed one) I decided to design a device that would cut electricity bills. And I came up with the battery powered battery recharger. It was so simple that I couldn’t believe that nobody had every thought of it before. Use rechargeable batteries to power the device and then when those batteries were almost out, replace them with the batteries you were charging and use those to power the device and recharge your initial set. It was pure genius! Of course, what I had totally ignored was the fact that the machine would not have one hundred percent efficiency meaning that I would be using up more battery power than I would be recharging (it turns out paying attention in those physics classes at school might have helped after all). That aside, I had also forgot to account for the fact that the batteries would be used for things other than recharging themselves.
As you can see, I was responsible for the designing of some utterly useless stuff. It was all good fun though and made for a great novelty gift or April Fool’s Day prank. Imagine it…
Danny: Happy birthday, Daniel!
Daniel: Thank you!
Danny: I got you something.
Daniel: Thanks! What is it?
Danny: It’s a solar powered torch.
Daniel: That’s cool! I’m going spelunking tomorrow… I think I’ll bring it with me.
And then tomorrow he goes into a deep dark cave miles from anything and whips out his brand new torch only to realise he has no power source. How funny would that be? Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be that funny. Especially if he tripped over something and plummeted into a pit and died and nobody found his body (or skeleton if the rats in that cave happen to be particularly ravenous) until four years later.
But you have to admit that my inventions were good for something though. They proved that the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is incorrect. In the case of the stuff I was inventing, one man’s trash was another man’s garbage.
Chapter 46: In my universe I have a cookie and you don’t
Why does the same thing sound different to other people? Why do some people see the ugliest chick in the world and think she's hot? Why the hell does chicken taste like everything? I've had a think about all this (believe it or not, my brain is actually capable of such processes) and after hours and hours of deliberation (well, it was really more like three minutes but it felt like a long time) I've come to this conclusion:
Every human being exists in a complete and seperate universe. There is a "real world" but that world only takes on signifigance when several human's universes intersect. If the universes disagree then the real world ceases to exist at that particular point in space-time. Like if I say to you "I have a cookie in my hand".... you know the damn thing is there cause I'm holding it. So my universe says I've got one, but you could convince yourself that you see no cookie... What you say would not be a knowing lie, and you would say "I see no cookie." Our universes are both true, but since they don't intersect, then where is the "real" world? The "real world" comes into existence when somebody walks up to the two of us standing there and says "Hey... who took my cookie?"
Chapter 47 So long and thanks for all the fish!
So there you have it. The story of my life. Well, bits and pieces of it anyway. For the most part it was just me ranting on about how shitty society is and using some sort of story or incident from my rather bizarre life to high light my point ad nauseum. But despite that, I don’t believe that my life was an unfortunate one. No matter how bad things got, I was always able to tell myself to keep smiling. Because tomorrow was only going to get much worse. I lead an interesting life, a full life. And a full life is full of deep lows and (occasionally) brilliant highs. It’s just not life without the two and I have had more than my fair share of both (especially the lows, you’d better believe it). But no matter what was happening in my life, there was always one constant. It was forever strange. It seems somebody (or a lot of somebodies) doesn’t want me to have a normal life. And I’m fine with that. Because normal would mean that I’d have to be like everyone else, one of the herd. And I don’t like being in the herd. Especially if that herd is headed towards the flaming meteor falling out of the sky instead of away from it. I’m a bit of an odd one and I can accept that.
I have lived (and am still living, which is unfortunate for you all) a bizarre life. Those of you who have read up to this point will know exactly what I mean. Those of you who haven’t should read it and learn the true extent of my weirdness. After all, these are not the excruciatingly boring memoirs of an empress, nor of a queen. These are memoirs of a different kind.
And in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “so long and thanks for all the fish!”
The End (finally)
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