Stressed.

I am stressed.
Why are you stressed, Rachel? You might very validly ask.
I am stressed because a) I've had three weeks of holidays and then within two days of being back seem to have run myself into the ground, although I ought to be able to deal.

b) I feel like a fail, because I am a disorganised leader in a disorganised cub group, who don't tell me where they need me to be except in vague notes, and who aren't there when I turn up (late, although I arrived the first time this evening at the hall early... but had to rearrange my plans).

c) Every time I think I have a handle on something, some serious shit goes down.

d) At which point my father takes it upon himself to point out how shit I am at organisation, how I should be working and how I don't really have any right to not be able to deal.

e) I haven't got the balls (or the physical stamina and motivation) to walk over to the town hall and have a face-to-face discussion with Mike about wanting to drop scouts and just do cubs, even though I know doing both is too much for me, and I am knackered. I am going to take the cowards way out and write him an upstanding formal British e-mail relaying my reasons.

f) I wish hibernation was a human deal, and not just for chubby animals.

e) My bedroom is a festering pile of shit. As is every piece of technology I own. I cannot afford anything new at all.

ARGH.

An episode...

Looking for a phone charger.

[Russian Accents]
Me: Is NOKIA?
Dee: Look somewhere else then?
Me: NO, IS NOKIA?
Dee: It's not here?
Me: NOKIA. [waves nokia charger]
Dee: IS HERE!
[dissolve into lolz]

Banter.

The Weekend (and all it entails).

Sooo, it's the weekend. Everyone's favourite piece of time outside of the week. A veritable haven between the exhaustion of Friday and the feet-dragging toil that is Monday morning. This weekend, I have been productive, but not in the way I ought.
Apart from experimenting with new hairstyles vis-a-Val Denton and Diana from The Years between, I have been a busy, busy thing:

This morning I had an interview with the District Commissioner and various official people about being a Scout Leader which was possibly one final check that I wasn't a paedophile. It went well, and I got a free bacon roll and cup of tea out of it. Not bad for Saturday morning.

Also went to gather materials and shiny new pens from Hobbycraft which, other than being a rip off, is the magical place where all stationary and craft materials go once they've sold out to The Man. Needed a sketchbook, and fast, so there was no real choice.

Then found out through that wonderful gossip machine, Facebook, that there was a Jumble Sale on in Blissworth. Being a sufferer of Boot Sale withdrawal, myself, I was up in arms about going. So we went, and I swear I have bought a poor-man's wardrobe in clothes, along with some books, a DVD, a bowl, some free tupperware from a woman who insisted that being a student equates to needing charity aaaand a pipe which makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes. Also some pressies for my Padre, whose birthday is on Wednesday. :)  ALL of this, I add, for under £3. Mind. Blown. Milo would definitely be proud.


Thanks, Worley.

So, as far as other plans go. Tonight is set to be an excellent Stay-In-Day-Late-Pub Therapy session, with added amusement and DVDs and Annas. Which makes me unreasonably excited, but I think I'm still riding the high of feeling like an utter thief for paying only 10/20p a piece for clothes. I love living in a village.

That is all for now, darlings, over and out, a bien tot!

Civilised conversation.

This evening the parentfolk and I went to see The King's Speech (which was excellent, as we knew it would be) and afterwards went for a chinese. Over a feast, some malibu and coke and beer and cider we had some quite interesting turns of conversation, I can tell you.

One classic example took place between courses, when I had found a pen and was explaining the layout of NBs, with diagrams. Afterwards, I did some doodling of Rolly, which included the BEST sketch of him, on a napkin, I have done so far. HP, being an insensitive fool threw out a few insults about him, and this conversation happened. Let me just take a moment to remind you we were in a rather packed restaurant and talking quite loudly.

HP: His nose looks like a penis.
ME: Oi, don't say that. [speech about how noses are an excellent and important part of the anatomy] IDK what sort of penis you have, but -
HP: Well, you know...half of you came through it.
ME: ...wtf...why...what...who would SAY THAT?! [flailnej]
MADRE: What's that?
HP: Rachel's just insulting my penis.
MADRE: ._. Don't SHOUT.

:) Cheerful, cheerful times.

Londres, Mon Amour.

Went to London with the Padre yesterday; it was one of the best days I can remember. Bobbling along roads, sharing decent tunes, being harassed by Chinese Food Saleswomen at Camden Lock, winding up in a Cyber-age sex shop...


But let me explain. We were planning to go to the Tate Modern to see the Gauguin exhibition before it closes (which is next week, I believe), but the first time we could get in was 19:00. What better excuse could there be to make a day of it?

If you don't know Gauguin, he's a French post-impressionist artist from the late 19th Century and here is one of my favourites of his...

Now, we originally planned to hit The Globe and have a bit of a Shakespeare sesh, but inevitably the pull of Camden's beautiful markets got the better of us and what was meant to be a brief rummage turned into a Journey-To-The-Centre-Of-The-Earth Style foray into the bowels of the Locks and different markets around there. My favourite of these had to be the Horse Tunnel Market which was like something from Lord of the Rings crossed with Dickens. Here I found a rather dashing RAF rain-jacket and shamelessly broke my jacket embargo, and the Padre showed off his masterful haggling skills.



I also bought another hat (don't look like that, this one is spectacular!) I have wanted a cloche for ages, and I found the perfect one, so am vaaaaairy chuffed. HP bought some badminton shorts, too!

There were lots of stalls with people very eager to give us free food, and after a spot of mulled wine we were very grateful until they tried to force us to buy a whole pot of peppered chicken right after we'd had lunch. Not being hungry is, apparently, not an excuse. Our excuse earned us some abuse (rhyme intended).

Eventually it got dark, and as we wandered hither and thither (which Fry's English Delight tells me is the oldest cliché and was coined in 702) the atmosphere bloomed. Pretty lights, shadows and neon signs everywhere. There was also one of the most amazing and mind blowing shops in the world, which had a queue to get in and out called CyberDog; this was basically a giant, imposing, music-pumping cyber-fashion shop.

At first it looks (and sounds) like a club - but at 5pm this wasn't really likely. You go in and there are robotic bodies lining the walls and some shelves offering things like Astronaut Food and Stuffed Toy Microbes (Black Death was my favourite, but not worth £15). There are also people dancing like robots on balconies.


Then you descend into the abyss down an escalator into the main shop which is awash with neon and science-fiction inspired awesomeness, including bags made of floppy-disks, skin-tight clothes and cyborg shutter shades. People are also paid to walk around in various cyber gear looking like they are androids.


Naturally, we were having a great time, and ambled around, down some more steps, only to be confronted with BONDAGE TAPE! and a pole dancer and various electronic sexy things. Did NOT see that coming. Quite amusing though. Haha! (And thus, an anecdote was born.)


After this, we pottered about for a bit before deciding we ought to get a wiggle on and didn't want any more pepper chicken (until our later SFC on the way home) and we needed to traverse London to the good old Tate (or rather the good Modern Tate...) So we hopped back on the tube to Waterloo.

At this point (it being night and all) my sense of direction let us down and we went for a mile or so in the wrong direction down the Thames! We did, however, get some spectacular touristly views (see above.) This meant that, at 5 to 7 we had to make a mad dash of it to get to the gallery. Then commenced a conversation about Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seeds :


Me: Look over there - we discussed those at school.


Dee: It just looks like grit.


Me: Hey, it's conceptual. *ramble about society*


Dee: -also, the artists name is I wee-wee. Hehehe.


Me: *sigh*




The Gauguin exhibition was pretty good. I wasn't much of a fan of the work of his I had seen before, but it has always been Herr Padre's favourite, so it couldn't be missed. However, I found a lot of the stuff there useful and interesting, especially the sketchoodles which he would no doubt have abhorred anybody but himself seeing. Poor chap, died of syphillis.




Slightly let down that they had moved Bacon's Tryptich for the Base of a Crucifixion (above, one of my all-time Tate Modern faves) as that was one I was really looking forward to seeing again. They did, however, have a few others there instead, including the tryptich he did for his lover chap who committed suicide. Properly sad and emotive and excellent, his work is. And also proof that my taste in art is really morbid compared to Padre's enjoyment of quaint French villagers and rolling hills and Tahitian lounging women...



Finally, the bastards closed the gift shop before I could spend the remainder of my worldly cash. Being told no by an aristocratic sounding woman not good for your cultural street cred (especially when she is in 6-inch stillettos to your flat-heeled Dr Martens). Left brusquely in a bristling bustle of cloche, swishy coat and frilly brolly.



Being ostentatiously cultural this way is a real drain to one's alcohol reserves - and after this, what could possibly be more cultural than a visit to an excellent pub? Nothing, I hear you cry, with joy and apprehension as to whether we did or didn't manage this at about 11pm in Waterloo. (We did.)
We went to THIS charming little alery, The Hole In The Wall. The story goes that when my father and his school chums used to go on trips to London in Sixth Form, their teachers brought them to this very watering hole for a post-play pint; naturally, it was an unavoidable pilgrimmage. Situated as it is in a hole in the wall under a railway bridge, the bar was barrel-shaped, wood pannelled and rumbled occasionally with the noise of trains going over. They also served TEA BEER. Beer brewed with tea. It was gorgeous. Here is some modelled by a paternal relation of mine.

Overall the trip was astronomically good in all manner of ways, despite us arriving home at about 2am (dirty stop-outs) and my having to be up at an unearthly hour of the morning for a First Aid course. Jolly gosh darned spiffing and dashed good, it was!

A sensible discussion...

Dee: I never read the history plays - never really wanted to.
Rachel: Ah, but Richard III is GOOD! He basically goes around killing everyone an-
Dee: They're all just politically motivated works of fiction-
Rachel: Most things are politically motivated works of fiction.
Dee: Like your face.

There you have it. My face is a politically motivated work of fiction. Who knew?

Victory, skid-marks and mint-making...

This is a photo of the first recorded snow I could find in Milton - it's also very nearly the view from my house. (1962) Yes, I'm going to do that terribly English thing, where I make a great deal out of clouds bursting - tally ho!

***

So it's been tremendously snowy the past day or so and anyone who knows my feelings about weather properly know that snow is my favourite, followed by rain and then fog and then sunshine. It makes the world all shiny and light even at nighttime. Anyhow, I do have a point to make with this - this isn't simply small talk.

Yesterday, with a lovely blizzard outside, I decided to accompany my padre to the Moreton Pinkney auction to pick up the spoils of the day. This quickly turned into an adventure of epic proportions, with the snow-level gradually rising as we drove (that area had a lot the previous day, aussi) and hilarity (and DANGER!) around every corner.

Getting there was the easy part - ambling along listening to various good tunes and discussing my increasing level of hunger - but coming back took the biscuit.

One thing you should know about the Northampton area is that there are an absurd number of canal and railway bridges compressed into a relatively small place, with a number of little 'island' typed areas where you are, quite literally, trapped between bridges. Therein lies the problem. These canal bridges seem to pride themselves on being as tall and steep and twisty as possible, and even in a rather chunky car, if you throw in the added hazard of arctic conditions, things start to get crazy.

We arrived at this canal bridge near the Marina to find the debris from some earlier collision; bits of wall, tyre marks that made no sense to a linear journey, and the perfect image of a disaster waiting to happen. But we braved it, and skidded around and about for ages with all the vigour and vanity of a mouse trying to climb up the side of its glass vivarium. Eventually we gave up and tried (in a rather beautiful ARC of skidditude) to turn around and go the other way.

Eventually we went across to another, more passable bridge, but then quickly found ourselves trapped on one of these islands, between a bridge with an impassable one behind it, or a bloody ridiculous rail bridge. However, there was an incentive! Beyond this bridge, was a pub!

Alors, in order to get to the Walnut Tree for a pint, we braved the rail bridge for the best part of a rather hilarious half-hour going forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonal-wise etc and being looked at as though we were dicks by some cocky truck and 4x4 drivers with their smug-arse four-wheel drive. They didn't have the fun that we did.

After many millennia we escaped the island and trundled over to the Walnut Tree (whose steps I had shamefully redecorated with stomach fluid a full week before) and dived in for a quick one. Christmas beer, cider and 'sizzling prawn' crisps that were wank, considering.

From there things were easier and we returned to find our house had experienced a deluge of fallen clouds. What an adventure! :D

***

Incidentally, I've just managed to sell my Kindle (which I bought for £109 when it came out) for almost double its price - the joys of e-bay, Christmas, and people's failure to read websites that say that only the upgraded version is sold out. :) HURRAH!

Eugh, you're such a shower.

Me: What a douchebag.

Dee: What does that actually mean?

Me: Well, it's like a dick, isn't it? Let me google it.

Here is what wikipedia informed me:

Douche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity. A douche bagis a piece of equipment for douching—a bag for holding the fluid used in douching. To avoid transferring intestinal bacteria into the vagina, the same bag must not be used for an enema and a vaginal douche.

Cheerful stuff, I hear you cry. It goes on to explain that:

Slang uses

Douchebag, or simply douche, is considered to be a pejorative term. The slang usage of the term originated in the 1960s.^[5] The term usually refers to a person, usually male, with a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and engaging in obnoxious and/or irritating actions, most often without malicious intent.

This, I read out with gusto. And, as my father agreed, it was 'suitably edifying'. We had a good lol at 'a variety of negative qualities'. Gotta love Wikipedia's wording.

So now you know, as I know, that being a Douchebag is quite similar to being a dick in its use, and therefore, to avoid the awkwardness of ever discussing this again, I declare 'like a dick, isn't it?' to be the official definition.

Der Hund ist harmlos! Die Wirtin liebst den Kuche...

are both examples of my increasing, but still mediocre German. But that is not why I am here, I am here to explain to you something of the banter I share with my padre, as it gives me immense amusement, always.

Let us take, for example, yesterday night at Parent's Evening. Even talking about that makes me feel stupidly young and foolish, 'Parent's Evening' is something children have and, though I have been free of the concept (forever!) for about 24 hours, I already feel liberated and mature. In any case, enjoy this conversation:

The following is a rough paraphrasing of what occurred, as my memory isn't spectacular. Waiting for an appointment with the spectacularly verbose presence of Mr Anderson stand two parentfolk and their singular spawn (let's call her Rachel to avoid her being confused with tadpoles):

Rachel: Hey, Dee, I like your jumper, how much was it?

Dee: Not a lot.

Rachel: I bet you were fleeced.

Dee: [sideways looking] Don't be sheepish.

Rachel: After this, can we go to a bar?

Dee: Don't take this further afield.

Rachel: Best to keep it out of farm's way. What's the time? [whips out the old pocket watch to check]

Dee: Now you're just winding me up.

Rachel: That was bad, I can't even face you.

Dee: Well, that's handy.

Rachel: Don't try and fob me off with that.

Dee: I think we ought to break this chain, now...

Mim: What..?

:) Great times.

Whats-more, it's due to snow some time in the near future - hurrah!

Remember, Remember...

What a brilliant weekend.

On Friday were the annual fireworks at the Compass. For a few months beforehand the pub had a big jar on the bar for donations towards the fund, and the amount people were giving was amazing - there were more than a few notes in there - so, naturally, the display itself was excellent. Anna came along, which made it the best kind of ridiculous as we showed the village how loudly we could 'ooh' and 'ahhh' at even the tiniest little sparkles.

It was raining the sort of spit that meant you couldn't tell how wet you were until you went somewhere dry, and we faced the dilemma of trying to look into the sky, but being pelted in the eyes with water, leaving us both looking as though we had been crying ourselves into next week. (Thus lending a whole new level of literalism to the Flight of the Conchords: "I'm not crying - it's just been raining on my face...")

Afterwards, and after only one drink each, we came home because the pub was all kinds of crowded (not all of them the good kinds...) and somehow managed to go from philosophical conversation to drugless drug-style raving with improvised moves based on daily activities. We also jammed to a rousing rendition of the Joseph Megamix. I'm not sure I have ever laughed so much in my life; I headbutted a wall.

From the evening THIS plus a great number of ridiculous Facebook messages, including the Subliminal Penis Inclusion (when one attempts to penis include the word penis for male genetalia within sentences as one penis talks, with the aim of confusing the penis hell out of whoever's listening, additionally fun when typing, to draw attention to the penis best places for it to be placed.)

My favourite quote of the evening has to be: "So can you do that, just talk to me and put a little dick in?" Thanks Anna, and yes, yes I can.

***

Very few things epitomise ridiculous so perfectly as yesterday morning. There are days when one wakes up, full of the headaches of oversleeping and with all the honest intentions of ploughing out many and numerous Nobel Prize-winning essays and annotations of art work, only to have the opportunity snatched away from you on the cusp of personal fulfillment. Yesterday - Oh deplorable bastardery! - was one of those days.

Having woken up and found that I was in something resembling the 'working mood', I was promptly encumbered by the need to do admin. Most of the day was stolen by Santander's phone line and WH Smith's Customer Enquiry Services. If I ever get put on hold again, memories of yesterday will flood back to me, and the assistant will find me, when I am put through, weeping into my phone book.

Not a single sentence was written that morning, and the rest of the day was given over to watching Coupling and getting ready for the evening...

***

The evening. There was a bonfire the size of my house, a house the size of twelve of my houses, and a cabin with its own bar, a projector and a bloody sauna. But let me explain...

I met this chap Paul at the pub and, not knowing that he was practically God on the residential scale, greeted him with cheer and publy chatter while I was there. It later transpired that he had invited us out to his own bonfire party, which was held at his house - a gargantuan PALACE at the edge of the village. From personal observation, this dear chap Paul was not exactly the sort you would peg down as having a house the size of Toulouse.

So, when we arrived, I spent a few moments attempting to get my head around the luxury of the somehow Upper-Middleclasses (Experience, Anna! Closer already!) and then bumped into a couple of people that we knew, and all was fine and gosh darned dandy. Now, I had told my parents expressly that last night was for socialising, and I expected to see them both talk to at least ONE stranger at some point. (I have installed myself as something of a Relationship Manager, as per IT Crowd, for my parentfolk, who are simply some of the least socially adventurous people I have ever met. Our house is a fort, so are their social preferences.)

So, there were many schnapps and satay things and general noms, but these all came after the excitement that was the bonfire. I haven't ever been to a bonfire where there was an actual Guy - I had passed these off as a slightly violent and human-sacrificial tradition that people these days could generally not be bothered with - but there was one, and he was magnificent. His death was like something out of the Wicker Man. If he wasn't already an unconscious pile of stuffed fabric through smoke inhalation, there are no worries that the fire didn't burn him to a cinder. Often when I talk about fire, I am simply getting a little bit excited about matches and the mutant candle I ruin play with in my bedroom, but this was something else entirely. The fireworks, too, were spectacular!

Later in the evening, somebody broke out the guitar hero and singstar. First off, I cannot begin to play guitar (or even the easy level of bass) without getting very frustrated and growling as the song progresses. I can, however, sing to an alright enough standard, so I tried as much as possible to stick to that. It was great fun - the best score, I think, being 99% of Evanescence's Bring Me To Life. Oh so reminiscent, that song. My Padre did a stonking rendition of Tokyo Girl by Deep Purple, and sabotaged my (third) attempt at King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man - I literally rofl'd.

They also made me sing the Barbie part of Aqua's Barbie Girl at least five times. So many times.

We stumbled our way back, quite loudly, at half two, taking revenge for all the times people have unsubtly gone home from the The Compass outside my window.

It is now twenty-to-one, and I think my parents are STILL asleep.

A Sticky Situation, A Victory and a Discovery

Madre was going to park the car somewhere that wasn't the drive. I had not been out of the house today, so I decided "Hey, I'm going to go on a minimal road trip!" Only problem? I'd just got out the bath, and was wandering about in my bath robe, slightly soggy.

So, I looked out of the gate - the coast was clear and so I pegged it to the car. It soon transpired that, for whatever reason, Milton Malsor is THE PLACE TO PARK tonight, and there were no good places on our road. So we drove around the block which was all well and good until we found a place just around the corner from the house.

Sod's Law is a bastard indeed. At some point between my getting into the car and us parking, a congregated MASS of Trick or Treaters and their parentfolk had gathered outside my house and were talking to the people across the road. So, naturally I hid behind the wall and hissed at my madre to remain equally out of sight. What does she do? Does she take up the opportunity of some impromptu espionage? Never fear! She marches out, brazen as anything and says hello to them, leaving me no choice but to make swiftly for the house. As decoys go, it was nothing less than disastrous.

I think I managed to pull off the bright-red-bath-robe ghost look quite well, all things considered.

Thank Moses for Halloween - the only night you can safely be a prat without facing life-long harassment from the neighbours.

***

In other news, my padre won the Mensa Scrabble Championships for the first time today! He has entered the tournament for the past few years and always came second, so I'm really proud, even if he did do it by playing words without knowing their definitions...

Well done, Daddio!

***

Also watched Walk The Line today and loved it a little too much - it seems that Joaquin is meant to be pronounced wah-keen, though that makes kein sense whatsoever - and it has caused me to download a fairly absurd amount of Johnny Cash music. :)

Y'reight there, duck?

It is amazing how you can drive a few miles up the road from your home and feel almost as though you are in a different country. Yesterday I went on a work outing with my padre to Stoke which, though not very far away, seemed almost to be the heart of the North.

One attribute of the North, as I know it, is the openness of the people - by this, I mean strangers - in talking to people they don't know. As I wandered about through Hanley town centre, pulling together a few birthday gifts for chums, I was accosted by an absurd number of people about various aspects of their lives. Trapped in a lift, a woman began talking to me about retirement, and her ex-husband, another woman entered herself into a chat with me about the sun, and various others made comments so vaguely that I couldn't be sure of whether they were talking to me, or simply keeping themselves company.

While I was taking on the Great Northern Populus, Vati was sitting in a deep, underground cavern of a room, bidding in an auction and buying most of the place. I came back to a delighted, sun-faced father grinning about how cheap he was getting things for, and having entirely forgotten the size of the car we had to fit everything into. I thought I had overspent in town, but he took the entire cake drawer by spending over two grand! However, he assured me he could sell everything for more money.

A very nice lady outbid us on a lot which included (among rather more valuable things) a wade china tea caddy and which, after a short discussion of my tea obsession, she decided to gift to me. :D

Needless to say, getting things into the car was like playing tetris with rather valuable and fragile boxes of china, but we managed, eventually.

After all this, we were on the verge of driving back when:

Dee: Hey, I thought we could go back through Buxton, and see the peaks!

Me: Hey, that's a great idea padre! Let's do it!

Dee: It's a bit dark, we probably won't see anything...

Me: Yeah, let's go! We can imagine the scenery!

Dee: We could do that at home, though.

Me: We wouldn't have the same altitude ambiance!

And so we took a many-hour detour through the winding hills of the Peak District, to Buxton which was on a whole new page of the map, with great music playing and hills occurring in the sunset. It was bloody marvellous!

When we came to Buxton, there was chaos on the roads and police people everywhere, which made it doubly exciting and adventurous, and we decided to pootle on down through Ashbourne, where we stopped at a pie shop. This shop was beautiful and tucked away down some steps in a little alcove of the town, and played host to a very cheerful Eastern European chap, who made a joke about charging us £27 for a double order of our nation's famous dish!

There was also a rather rotund chap who came in after us, all Northern-like, and ordered a double order of fish with a large chips and peas which I couldn't help but suspect were just for him. I could have fit inside him, easily, three times over - and I am not a stick-figure of a woman myself!

On the way home we discussed everything from how brilliant our Desert Island Disks combos were, to religion, politics and the state of the universe ("very large", we concluded). :D

Needless to say, us phoning from Ashbourne in the dead of night to say "Hey, we took an extremely scenic route, madre!" wasn't taken very well, but all in all a smashing day!

Entschuldigung, ich verstehe nur ein bisschen Deutsch!

Not entirely sure if I managed to spell the title right, because German language CDs don't actually tell you how to spell things - damn them! I am, however, learning! :D

In any case, I am here to tell you the story of mine and my dad's venture to Tesco's today.

[In the Fruit Section]

Him: (groping a bag of tomatoes to check their freshitude) What have you got?

Me: Baking Powder, why do I always come back to find you groping something.

Him: ...scrotum?

Me: Go away.

----

[In the Meat Section]

Me: What are your views on sausage?

Him: (as per 'Allo, 'Allo) A lovely, little sosij?

Me: A German one.

Him: Oh.

---

[In the dry-food-reduced-area]

Me: Oh my god, oh my GOD. D: Eugh.

Him: What?

Me: THAT. [points to a defrosted, OPEN packet of suppurating muscle meaty bits]

Him: [PICKS IT UP] What? Wait... is this- OH GOD IT'S LEAKING ON ME.

[collective running away]

---

[In the tea section]

Me: HEY, HEY - THIS.

Him: You don't need any mo-

Me: Look at THIS. It is HAND-ROLLED into PEARLS. It is the Stephen Fry of tea.

---

[On the way out]

Me: [drops a box]

Him: FAIL. [drives the trolley straight into a telephone]

Me: ...you were saying?

Pub-times I

My father has managed, under the influence of a number of very fine ales, to drop the entire microwave full of rice all over the kitchen floor. Only after THIS intense failure, did we discover that my madre also forgot to actually set said rice to cook. Additionally, I have adopted a walnut from the pub, realised that the fact I get served anyway makes the first drink on my 18th meaningless, and eaten a little bit of raw rice.

Now, having scooped up some floor rice, all I can hear is my padre's whistling the batman theme song, and the sound of running water.

Sometimes, IL my family. :)