I got into a conversation with a friend yesterday about PMS (as you do) and she was telling me how the previous week she had had a particularly bad bout of it. This all of a sudden explained why her head was turning round and around and around when I walked into her office last week and she was spewing some sort of mushy pea substance out of her mouth. I also could have sworn I heard her mumbling something about “jou ma se vissie” which for her was surprising. She’s very nice you see I left swiftly. I don’t like mushy peas.

Now see as women, we understand this little phenomenon (I call it “phenomenon”, anyone on the wrong side of it would call it something akin to the Holocaust – potatoes, potatossssss). So we can get together and laugh over all the dead bodies in our wake so to speak. Lets call them…Collateral damage a.k.a Anyone-stupid-enough-to-put-themselves-within-clawing-distance.

So I thought I would try and explain this to men. Seen as it is you poor souls who suffer the most. So a bit of a “How To Guide” on how to treat your women like a live grenade. Trust me. This will save your life…. Maybe.

So what isssssssssss PMS? I looked it up on Google so I could sound like a smart arse and I must say, I got strange results. Answers.com: “Do Cows have pms”… what the hell…? Who asked THAT?! Can you IMAGINE a Pre-menstrual cow…? “Mooooooooo” would be replaced with “Foooooooooooook youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu” and your milk I fear would taste like sweaty gym socks.

I digress. Another meaning: the practice of monitoring a pharmaceutical drug or device after it has been released on the market. Ok no, that wasn’t correct, it gave me results for “Post Marketing Surveillance”. But seen as I’ve written that sentence now, why bother deleting it. I’ll make it work dammit! Weeee *points at Pre-menstrual women* are the “device or the drug” and the market… well is the world. Not working? Fine. Fuckit. Lets move on shall we

PMS: a collection of physical, psychological and emotional symptoms related to a woman’s menstrual cycle. So something like a hydrogen bomb with boobs and a bad attitude.

See now, when we are in the grips of a bad bout of PMS, we get enraged at pretty much anything and … everything. For no good reason either. Who needs a good reason DIPSHITS!! (Sorry… just trying to get you used to the language that usually gets used :)) Orrrrrr we want to cry all time, for no reason and you better be sensitive you boob!

For example: A delicate butterfly comes gliding past you. Isn’t it beautiful…? To you maybe. To me? *snatches butterfly clean out of mid air like a ninja and shovels it into my mouth* *chew* *swallow* it was getting in the way of my view of the stupid mother fucking (sorry kids) dry-cleaner who’s standing in front of me asking me to repeat my name (Are you fucking deaf!!!) “and who are YOU to be asking me if I want starch!! Go back to your country you arsehole!!”

“Ma’am… I’m from Benoni…”

“Well fuck… that makes sense then doesn’t it….” *lets go of his shirt*

“Just do my laundry!! damn you and your family to HELLLLLLLLLL!!!”

Now… if you come across this with your woman… and trust me you’ll know because there will be lots of heavy breathing, bloodshot eyeballs and spittle flying out of her mouth. Two Things. 1) Back away very slowly with a smile on your face. 2) Agree with her (The words “Did you see how that shmuck was deliberately trying to taunt you with his stupid little dry cleaner eyes” will help). Then go back to the Dry cleaner (after escorting sweetums to the car), ask him to please stop dialling 10111 and pay him R500 for his silence. A slush fund for these kinds of times is essential.

Or this could go the other way…

For example: A delicate butterfly comes gliding past you. Isn’t it beautiful…? *starts to sniffle* So beautiful…. *Sobs* I used to have a butterflyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy when I was a kid *full on crying now* and then *hiccup* it diedddddddddddddd *begins to wail* Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy God whyyyyyyyy does everything have to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee *hiccup* You don’t love meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Now it is in fact this type that you should fear the most! Because this one turns swiftly into the enraged version if your reaction to her AGONY is not the correct one.

NEVER laugh at her ridiculousness. You will die. It will be painful. It will involve a nail clipper. And possibly your testicles.

NEVER say “what’s the matter sweetie?”. She just told you you moron (cue enraged reaction)

The best possible reaction here would be once again: Back away a little bit (for safety sake – she may decide to maul you anyway). Agree with her. Some tears here on your part to show your agreement always do good (always carry a small vat of Vic’s Vapour Rub with you, spunk a bit in your eye and Bobs your uncle!)

If you STILL do not make it out of this experience without a visit to the Emergency room. Well then, I am sorry I cannot help you.

But I leave you with this…. There have been cases in court where women have gotten away with murder because they commited it while suffering from PMS. Just saying. Use it, don’t use it.

Ladies… I find a good murder weapon to be the trusty leg of lamb. Gives a good wallop! …and you can eat the evidence afterwards.

You’ve had a rough couple of years I know. You feel angry, cheated out of a happy childhood like the ones you see in the movies. It’s ok. It will “make” you as a person… one day. Not anytime soon though.

You absolutely HATE High school, and sadly you’ve already had to drop science (because lets be honest you sucked at it and would have ended up setting your teachers head on fire eventually). You’re not too sad about that right now, because who in Gods name WANTS to learn the periodic table … on purpose?! But, your dreams of being a doctor are out the window… again no worries. No one can afford to send you to University anyways Besides… you would have ended up elbow deep in pancreas at a dodgy government hospital anyways…!

You are not yourself. You pretend to be the person you think people want you to be. If you would listen to me, I would tell you you’re awesome, and you have a lot to give. But you won’t listen and you will carry on through High school acting like someone who makes me cringe just a little when I look back now.

Don’t panic. You pass. Clever little cookie you

You will work for your dad, IT. You will study, do your MCSE, lecture, and you will hate it all. Your relationship with your father will become strictly one of boss and employee, and you will fight a lot. You will eventually want to poke your own eye out if you are called to one more URGENT call about “My pc not working!!” only to find that it’s off at the wall, and realise that you can go no further doing this… so you will leave. Your fathers and your relationship will be good again. Like it’s meant to be.

See what happens when you don’t focus in Science!

When you are 19, you will get a call in the early hours of the morning. Now hold on to yourself, because this is going to hurt. Your friend, compadre, partner in crime since you were 7 or 8. The boy you grew up with, your best friend, the one who made you a cup of jelly (before it sets) to drink because he didn’t have any cool drink (You cried, you thought it was going to set in your stomach and you would die). The one who told you, we were “just quickly going to take our bikes and go to the SPCA” and then ended up taking you on a 2 hour journey on the highway, on your BMX!! The one who used to chase your bus down in high school with flashing lights and hooting like a crazy person until you got OFF the bus so he could take you home. David. The friend you hadn’t seen in about 2 years… You will be told that David had shot himself. He didn’t make it.

My darling Tash. This is one of those defining moments in your life. You will NEVER get over this. I know this because as I write this, I am holding a sob in my throat and I am 33. You will always have a regret that you didn’t do SOMETHING. But you didn’t know. Keep reminding yourself. You will always miss him. You will always cry when you talk about him.

You will have 5 significant relationships with men. Unfortunately right now, you’re in your early 20’s and have the EQ of a slug, so you don’t know this yet but it will be these men who will help make you who you are, but most of them, in an incredibly painful way.

The first you will want for the specific reason that you cannot have him. He does not belong to you. It will be exciting, heartbreaking and in the end, you will walk away because you don’t really have a choice. The lesson you learn here is to not touch what was never yours to begin with, no matter how involved he may be with you. Be proud of your choices and realise you daft cow that you can destroy people with what you do. It will hurt, but don’t worry, because the next one is soon to come.

The second, you want because he was beautiful and because he seems to love you more than life. That’s it. That’s where his charm ends. But you stay together for 2 years. He will then leave you for a “better life in another city” and then will destroy you entirely when he tells you that he never loved you at all in fact, and that he was only with you because he felt sorry for you. Now you have NO idea how much that is going to hurt you. But don’t worry, you will get over it, and you’ll be helped by someone you never thought would be there for you. His mother. You didn’t get on when you were together, but when he hurt you, she was the one to rebuff him, she picked you up, called you 10 times a day to make sure you were ok. She will get you through. I promise. And of course there will be the added joy of the day he calls you a year on, with the hopes of “hooking up again” when he comes to your city. You will retaliate by venting on him for an hour on the phone. He will cry and say sorry. You will feel like a million bucks. Immediately. Over it. He will continue to call you for attention, you will point and laugh. Lesson learnt: Beautiful packages are not always what they seem.

The third. Hmmmm…. Now this one, being the shortest relationship you have ever had, a mere 8 months, I am sad to say will destroy everything about you. The shortest, the most painful. Fall on your knees and clutch your chest in pain kind of heart ache. Because sad to say but you don’t have the best self-esteem, and were not given good emotional tools when you were growing up, so you define yourself by the man in your life. You will not get over this for a very very long time. As a matter of fact, it still stings you. Not because you still love him. But because you never really found out why it ended. I think you held too tight. But you never got a good explanation, never got your confrontation. You were left reeling. He moves to another country, moves on with his life, as if you were never there at all. You will never understand. You will always feel rejected because someone could forget you that quickly, which to you, meant that you were a nothing. Lesson? You won’t learn anything except for just how much you can hurt and handle.

But it’s the end of this relationship, and getting stuck in traffic one day and thinking “there has to be more to this” that gets you to leave your job, your family, friends and country.

You will travel! You will live in London. Cool huh Whatever you do… avoid the kebab!

You’ll meet the 4th man in your life. He’s a good guy but he too will hurt you. But you will forgive him an indiscretion, or try. You will learn that sometimes no matter how hard you try, there are some things that will taint your relationship forever and in the end you will part as friends because even through the hurt, you knew that maybe it was better this way. Before you part though, the 2 of you will travel! And that will be thanks to him that doors have been opened to you.

Now this will shock you because at 16, you can’t see how you will ever get to this place but…

You WILL stand outside of the Taj Mahal in a monsoon, soaking wet with your arms out stretched.

You WILL dive, meet village people in the mountains and feel the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters ever. A tsunami, on boxing day in Thailand.

You WILL eat French bread and cheese, drink strong coffee next to the Mekong river in Laos and learn what kids should be like when they have no PS3’s and no tv’s.

You WILL crawl around the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam, and sail around Halong Bay.

Your heart will break at the Killing Fields in Cambodia, and you will meet children that will touch your heart forever. Children who collect cans for food till 11pm at night, and are only 5 years old.

You WILL look out over Kuala Lumpur from the Petronas Towers and dodge monitor lizards on Pehentian islands..

You WILL be eaten half to death by bed bugs in Singapore. Sorry about that.

You WILL walk on a beach in Bali, touch the hand of a wild orang-utan and see Komodo dragons up close.

But more importantly you WILL finally become you.

And then you’ll meet your 5th….

Dale. He is the one who will understand you, love you and support you through thick and thin, make you laugh until you cry…. Be good to him always. We want to keep him. He’s special, and what you went through all this rubbish for. He is your cherry on top. Make sure you never let him buy an Alfa!

Thankfully, You still have both your parents. Be very good to them. Always. You have your sister, your saviour. Your brother, and you have your best friend. You’re a lucky lucky girl.

Be good to yourself Tash. Don’t be so hard. You will end up having a life that some people will covet. Even with the hard parts.

You’re a good person… most of the time

Gardening… is very, very bad for you.

How do I come to this conclusion you ask? Well in a nutshell, my bum feels like it is in a vice, and as for my legs… well… let’s just say I have for the past 2 days been dropping myself on to the toilet because my muscles they doth protest too much. The pain, the agony, the torture! I lay on the couch last night begging someone, anyone to just put me out of my misery. Just put me down.

See now, just because the universe is such a bitch and made my Garden Service go out of business. To be honest, I don’t even know quite how that happened anyway, as our garden has more than enough of a jungle like quality to keep anyone in business for the next 10 years. People go in with gloves and mowers and small little garden forks, and come out 2 weeks later, filthy with long beards wearing loin clothes and brandishing machetes looking dazed and confused mumbling things like “Jumanji” and “the spiders… the spiders got him….” (usually followed by some violent eye twitching).

So anyhoo, they went out of business and there we were again, back to square one. A garden that needs to be cleaned and weeded, and Dalekins and I just wanting to sloth away the weekends rather.

My idea of gardening is to throw the leftover ice in my now empty gin & tonic glass out onto the grass… “There we go grass… grow, grow like you mean it” and then I usually walk away mumbling about what a fantastic green finger I have. (Usually the middle one that I raise when someone says to me “My God you really need to get someone into this garden, is that delicious monster meant to be holding up your patio table like that?”

So after weeks and weeks, of just ignoring the garden completely, hoping that when I open the curtains this morning, the garden gnomes would have swept in during the night and hacked and chopped away all the rubbish and left us with something out of that lick-arsey House & Home Magazine. But alas, no.

So on Saturday morning, something overtook me (Upon hindsight, I now realise it was something evil). I waltzed into the garden and declared “Today! You shall be MY biatch!” – and then promptly roped my mother, my nephew (for his small hands) and Dalekins into some manual labour. I wasn’t going to do this alone are you high?! So I cleverly mouthed things like “nature… fresh air… exercise…. I’ll pay you….” And they all seemed to be lured in *evil grin* Yes, yes I know… I’m a bad person.

So after 2 hours, the garden was looking pretty good. We however, were not. I was sweating like a miner, and covered in sand that had mingled with my sweat and become MUD! (Why is it that when you use a small garden fork to get some stubborn roots out, the roots will not just give way slowly… oh no no no, they will come loose with a violent snap and end up spunking the sand all over your face!)

I may need to point out here as well that I was still in my pyjamas. So, muddy, sweaty, slightly sunburned and in stripes. Too sexy!

Also something new I learnt this weekend: Palm trees are the trees of the devil. They drop their fruit all over the place. In the beginning, they look like fat juicy delectable berry type thingies. But, when they have fallen off the tree, been lying in the sun and under all your other plants (because they’re crafty that way) and gone all rotten, they start to lose their charm… quickly. Also the fact that every insect living in your garden thinks you’re throwing them a personal shmorgasbord and they all converge on these smelly rotten thingies at the same time… I can assure you it leads to a skin crawling experience when trying to pick these things up. A spade, does not work. So we resorted to Woolies packets over our hands to pick them up.

But when the 30th disgusting little bug crawled over my foot and Dalekins shouted out “God what’s that crawling on youuuuu!” for the hundredth time, followed by much snickering from him (I was ready to use my garden fork to see if his prostate was still…. healthy) I decided enough was enough! That, and the fact that my legs were shaking so much I was starting to look like I was having a fit, and my mom was starting to look like a hunchback…. Poor lady… remember the fresh air and the exercise you got mommmmmmmmmmmmmmm (Please don’t cut me out of your will – I know not what I doooo!)

So anyhoo… here I sit. And sitting is all I’ll do for a while because using any form of leg or bum muscle right now is just out of the question. So heed my warning… just don’t do it.

Gardening… is for other people.

So my Cell phone rings “Private number”. So being the clever little Call Centre Manager that I am, there is more chance of me voluntarily poking a hot coal right up my bum than answering that phone right now! Private number = call centre!

Now let me just point out, I - THANK FECK! am not working in a call centre that does any form of cold calling. Oh no no no, there will be no “Hi ma’am how are you today? (said very fast and in that “I just got laid” smiley face type voice) I was just wondering if you would be interested in purchasing a new pancreas from us. They come fresh from India and have hardly been used as we harvest them from small children who once worked in the Nike factory but who’s fingers are now too cramped to sew anymore and therefore have no more use for them so we harvested their pancreaseseses for re-sale. *deep breathe* We have cheap cheap payment plans available….” Blah blah…

You get my drift? Luckily, in my call centres, we are the people that GET called, when your head is on fire… well not really. Please don’t call me if your head was on fire. We support software technical issues… (Please wake up now, you have to read the rest of my rant).

So anyhoo where was I? Yes yes I ignore the private number. Smug little smile on my face, oh no you evil telemarketer, not today you won’t… not today. My direct BUSINESS telephone rings, so of course this I answer… still smiling smugly. “Hi my name is Mpumi and I am calling you from Cell-C” (also said very fast)

^%#$@#!#@!

Now as I AM aforementioned call centre manager, I do have a very very small sympathy gland somewhere in my body for cold calling call centre agents (it is situated close to my bum hole – sorry is that too crude… I can never tell) So in a firm but friendly-ishhhhhhh voice I stop the chit chat! “Mpumi where the hell have you gotten both my cell number and my direct work number from” “Oh from the National consumer database…” Oh fuckydoo no you didn’t. See now… I always make sure that I do not fill this crap in. Or if I really HAVE to (gun to my head) I always ensure there is some sort of tick box where you make sure you tick “do NOT use my details for marketing purposes”.

Which makes me wonder then, where the hell they get the info from! Are you people following me around with a satellite or something! I watched Eagle eye you know! I have techie smarts *taps forehead*… That or I have had a gps inserted that somehow leaches information out… a listening device of sorts!

So who I ask could be close enough to you to insert this kind of device…? Well…. It could be my gynae… he does look like a bit of a dodgy old todger… *frown*

Ladies… beware… you do not know whats potting down there when you go see a gynae, it’s all an evil conglomerate (not quite sure what that word means but have always wanted to use it) Gynae’s / MTN / Cell-C / The Prostate Doctor (incase you thought YOU were safe guys).

I am telling you, we’re all transmitting something right now! *slams legs closed*

Some poor agent is sitting in a house in Brixton with those big earphones on with a direct line to Mutual & Federal or some such malarkey, just waiting for you to give out your personal info…

Call Centre Manager: “Jimbob have you gotten Mrs Flufferbutts direct telephone number yet!?”

Jimbob: “Not yet boss… she keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs, so I’m only getting the numbers down in spurts! But I have sent Agent X over to her house to pretend to be the hunky repairman, so here’s hoping I should get all the info out of her soon…”

See now… that was just unnecessary wasn’t it!

It’s been a long day ok

Pet Peeve of this week: Gynaes… you guys just get a baddddd rap!

Especially when the 3rd party… is black. Fluffy. Goes by the name of … lets call him…Zeus (that’s because that’s his real name and cats who can scratch your face off don’t need pseudonyms). Weighs in at 6kg’s and who’s fangs stick out, ever so slightly all the time – just in case he ever NEEDS to intimidate you!

Yes, I’m talking about the cat mom. I feel the need to quickly point that out before I get a phone call from my mum yelling about hell and damnation and is that why she found handcuffs under the bed last time she was there… (what I ask, are you doing under my bed mom?)

Anyhoo I digress… let me fill you in on my little predicament that I now find myself in. That being that I now have to fight to get a small space in the bed to sleep in (Heaven forbid I need to roll over). It usually starts with me standing at the foot of the bed looking forlornly at Dale who is curled up snoozing away like a little kitten in the middle of the bed (only he twitches a lot, so it’s more like a kitten on CRACK!) and to the left of him… Zeus. Who has now taken to sleeping horizontally across what he deems as being HIS side. What happened to cats curling themselves up… noooo he tries to make himself… longer.

And there’s what’s left for me to sleep on… a few small centimetres. So I have now taken to getting into bed and doing a small exercise called a “Bed angel”. Lie down and do a VIOLENT horizontal jumping jack smack the sleeping little crack addicted kitten sleeper next to you a few times, and he’ll move up eventually. Me mumbling as I try and move him over about “encroachment… selfish…” and him mumbling as he goes… “..bed nazi…” and all the while… there lies Zeus… snoring away none the wiser.

A little history on Zeus. He was a pick up cat who kind of adopted my mom. He was dirty, smelly, scared of everything and never made a sound, not even a single meow when he was found. My mom took him in and he became Zeus. Now don’t feel sorry for him, he is a gorgeous cat, and he knows it! Long black hair, yellow eyes… he’s like… the Brad Pitt of the cat world.

In comes Dalekins and I. Now Dale was allergic to cats when we started going out. He would sit on the couch and look at Zeus as if he was a roach who had just crawled out of his baked potato! Swollen eyes, sneezing, being unable to breathe, but he stuck around (that’s cause I am AWESOME :P). When asked why he took such a serious dislike to Zeus… his words were… “because he’s pretty… and fluffy… like those stupid dogs that you carry in a handbag…. You just kind of want to boot him over the wall” Dale’s more of a Boerbull-rip-your-face-off kind of guy.

So I was concerned when Dalekins and I moved in together. How would he take to the cat. Little did I know. This was going to be a love made in heaven. I don’t quite know when this happened, but Zeus took a serious liking to Dale, and Dale who quickly lost his allergy reciprocated… and then some. To the point where Zeus finally starting meowing, having long conversations, but only with Dale.

Zeus and Dale are now inseparable! Zeus will follow Dale EVERYWHERE. He sits with him when Dale goes for a wee, he sits with Dale when he is bathing, when he’s brushing his teeth. Zeus waits outside for Dale every afternoon and runs to his car door for attention as soon as he arrives.

I’m thinking STALKER. Helloooooooooo Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii am the one that feeds you cat!! Where’s my love!

See now… I find myself at the back of the queue!

If there was a fire in our house, I would be the SECOND thing Dale would save. First would be his precious little cat, then me. Oh no wait. Make that the third thing he would save!

Dalekins priority list:

- Zeus!
- Tub of Vanilla Ice-cream
- Tash – after having a few cooling mouths of vanilla ice-cream and rubbing Zeus’s head for a bit…. Then Tash. After getting that feeling like he’s forgotten something.

You think I’m exaggerating don’t you! Hmmm I present my evidence:

- Dale will NOT go to sleep unless Zeus is on the bed next to him. He will actually go in search of him, even if the poor thing is curled up sleeping in the lounge, Dale will fetch him and carry him to the room because “I don’t like it when you not sleeping with us….”

- Dale will move the bath mat around the entire bathroom to find a nice warm spot for Zeus to lie on (so his little bum doesn’t get cold on the tiles) Makes for interesting language when I am trying to get out of the bath dripping wet with nothing to stand on because the bath mat has a big black furry thing on it and is on the other side of the bathroom!

- Dale (and this is a true story) will put pieces of chicken or fish in his mouth and suck off the sauce and spice before giving it to Zeus… “Whaaaaaaaaat … he doesn’t like it when there’s spices on his snack” (Dale would be a great father…. If he were a penguin, or a bald headed eagle perhaps)

- Dale likes to give Zeus a “lift” from the car to the house… “Here Tash hold the keys, my wallet, and all our monthly Pick n’ Pay shopping, I have to carry Zeus to the house” (because his paws are broke?) In comes Tash walking like a packhorse….

- Dale CANNOT I repeat CANNOT be the disciplinarian when Zeus is being a brat. This cat LOVES scratching the bed. Has scratched it to absolute pieces, and I can tell you why. Because every time he does it, Dale leans over and instead of giving him a smack on the arse… oh no… he gets a rub on his head to quieten him down. Good kitty…. You stop scratching the bed now… now of course Zeus has now learnt the fast track to getting rubs! Forcing ME to now dive over Dale to the other side of the bed like a banshee to give him a hiding. Dales excuse for not smacking him…? “I caaaaaaaaaan’t do it! When I lift my hand up he squints his face up like he’s expecting the beating of his life, I just caaaaaaaaaaaaan’t” And the one time I actually saw Dale smack Zeus… well, Dale says smack, I say gave him a bit of a hard pet on the bum, he immediately looked at me like I was the bad person and said “see I CAN discipline him” and looked all hurt and angry with ME!! … and then I felt like a bad person until I saw Dale immediately hang his hand over the bed and rub Zeus’s head! “What the HELL Dale… you can’t smack him and then immediately give him a rub, he’s supposed to be learning a lesson that he’s a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad cat!” cue Dales confused face… “whaaaaaat? I waited the allotted 5 seconds after the hiding before I rubbed him”… *looks up at the heavens for help* Dale… my sweet… the 5 second rule only works when you drop a fried egg on the floor, yes you can snatch it up and put it back on your toast (notice I said YOUR toast)… hidings however, can’t realllllly work with the same concept!

- And the best evidence…? Dale sings Zeus lullabies…. In CAT! Yes… take any bedtime lullaby that you know. Now instead of humming. Meow it.

I am totally screwed in the attention stakes. You wouldn’t think I would have competition from something who wakes us up at 5am for his breakfast by standing on your chest with all his weight and just staring at you until you wake up (he USED to jump over us lightly but oh no, not anymore) now he stomps on you. Or repeatedly puts his icey nose on your forehead… hard to ignore.

I wonder if I would get MY head rubbed and my breakfast if I woke Dale up by balancing on his chest every morning….

What makes one person eternally positive, and so smiley that you OFTEN want to smack the stupid “I-love-life” grin right off their faces (or is it just me?), and then our grim little neighbour, the negative “woe-is-me-nobody-loves-me-I’m-gonna-eat-some-worms” type of person? Because to be honest both types tend to annoy the crap out of me!

I like to think of myself as more of a fence-sitter. Happy and positive when things are going my way. Narfy as all feck when it’s not!

I just don’t understand people who are able to be just one way their whole lives. So… I’m gonna blame our mums!

If you’re one of those positive people who can find something good out of everything bad, well you were clearly grain fed and organically grown. Planned pregnancy (no shtooping at the drive-in for your parents), your mum ate all her veggies and took regular walks in the sunshine and played Beethoven to you and breastfed you until you were 12. That is the ONLY reasoning I can come up with for someone who can be happy and smiley and see the good through the bad in EVERY situation.

Me: “Oh my God I have lost my leg in a chainsaw juggling accident”

Smiley daft chap: “Oh isn’t that grand! Now you only have to buy left shoes! That is going to make such a fantastic impact on the environment, you’re using *cue stupid statistics* 76.2% less rubber and therefore 2.6% less Lemurs will die from rubber poisoning (?) in Madagascar! You’re so lucky, I wish someone would chop my leg off” (Ok so I embellished the last line a bit – but just because I was thinking it!)

Me: “My dog just died” *sobs*

Smiley daft chap: “Oh don’t be sad *soft shoulder punch* Less dog food to buy every month, and now you don’t have to walk him everyday anymore, leaving you a lot more time to sort your recycling bin!”

You’re not normal. Take a downer. Drink less sugary drinks. You’re too nice, you make my teeth hurt and you make me feel like a bad person.

Now, if you’re one of those people who always have a little grey cloud hovering over your sad little head all the time - then you were clearly not dealt a good hand. Definite shtooping at the drive-in for your 14 year old parents (they may have been related). Your mom may have drank copiously while pregnant and may even have experimented with a few buttons here and there. Buttons or LSD it’s debateable (unless they’re the same thing – how the feck am I supposed to know I’m not a junkie!) McDonalds was on the menu everyday and as for breastfeeding, well that would have been a definite no no. You got a bottle full of Oros! Also no Beethoven for you, you got death metal, and a lot of songs involving puppy kicking.

This is why you hate life so much and get a little smile on your face when you watch the news and hear about the penguins in Antarctica (or is that where the polar bears are) all strangling themselves to death on plastic packets. Well why should you care anyways because you’re going to die soon anyway, probably from a bad batch of worms, and alone… and no one is going to love you.

Boo hoo.

Me: “Oh my goodness Mr Sad looking man, you just won the LOTTO!”

Sad looking man: “I know isn’t it terrible L I’m rich now. I bet you all my relatives are going to try and murder me in my sleep now, and I’m going to get many many young beautiful 20-somethings with big boobs throwing themselves at me, and that’s going to be terrible because I have a small penis and they’re going to notice and then leave me because I’m a bad person. I wish I was still poor rather. It was so much better when my children were starving and I had to feed them fishpaste for breakfast because that’s all we could afford, but I think that’s why I got fired from my last job, my smelly fishpaste breathe, not because of what my boss told everyone, I did not follow her home and steal her underwear. Anyways my life sucks….”

Me: “Brad Pitt just declared his undying love for you! You’re such a lucky lucky girl!”

Sad looking girl: “I know… it won’t last though, he will see me for what I am eventually, a bad person, even though I spend every day doing good deeds for charity it’s just not enough. He’ll leave me and I’ll end up fat and alone with only my 17 cats to keep me company, my life is just too terrible…”

You’re not normal. Take an upper. Drink more sugary drinks. You suck the joy out of everything and make me want to slit my ankles.

Fence-sitting is the way to go! I’d run down the things my mum did to make me this way, but thinking of my parents shtooping makes me a little naar…

Win the Lotto? Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Penguins choking on Checkers packets? Boooooooooo

Brad Pitt? – Um… does he come with his 50 children…? (insert hectic fence-sit)

Lost leg – Definite BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (Although being able to juggle a chainsaw would be a YAYYYYYYYYYY for me – I suck at juggling)

Dalekins and I were walking around Brooklyn yesterday when all of a sudden my eye caught something in a window. Well cue the violins, Drakensburg choir and soft gentle lighting that usually surrounds angels… I was in heaven! A shop that sells pink kitchen stuff!

Now I am not quite sure why I seem to have this little obsession over pink things… it’s not as if my house is filled with pink and looks like Biggie Best threw up all over it, but it’s just such a friendly colour don’t you think? Now don’t get me wrong, I like pink and all, but I don’t buy everything pink that I can find. I tend to look for and covet the objects that just shouldn’t be pink, but for some obscure reason, just are… Like a pink anal thermometer, now see, THAT would be something I would buy… a pink nose hair trimmer… you get the point ja? Anyhoo I digress…

So Dale gently peels me off the window and says… “do we go in…?” Now it’s at this stage where you always suss out a shop and decide whether you can actually afford anything in it or not. Am I going to have to sell my firstborn to the Nike factory in Abu Dhabi to buy that little spatula over there? Yes? Well at least we’ll get free shoes…

So we go in and like a heat seeking missile I head straight to the pink dustbin that I all of a sudden just know, I cannot live without! My life would not be the same without it… I would lie on the couch in a funk of depression eating Pringles in my dirty gown watching the Rhema channel and sobbing quietly for a month if I could not make this beautiful pink dustbin MINE! *greedy face*

I fondle it lovingly like you would a baby bird… “who’s a pretty little dustbin” and look around for a shop assistant because, and this is what should have made me nervous to begin with… there was NO prices on any of the goods in this shop. In struts 18-year old Barbie shop assistant. Fresh out of matric and still getting pocket money from mum! “Can I be liking to help you”… “Erm yes please, what is the price of this here sexy pink bin?” See now this is where things begin to go wrong… this little flossie first looks me up and down and sniffs disdainfully as if she has just run a credit check on me with her evil little x-ray eyes and found my bank balance to be well… lacking…! I move my expensive Polo handbag in front of me… “take that biaaaaaaaatch” but she’s unperturbed the little troll!

“All those fings on the wall there are from Germany…” (Only thing making me feel better at this stage is this girls awful grasp of the engerrrrlish lingo ek se) So I nod and continue to bore little holes into her head while imagining her being stung by a colony of Africanised bees…” So she looks at me and I can just SEE she’s thinking “Oh my donder this girl really IS going to make me look up the price even though she definitely cannot afford to buy the bag that I would put it in” (Only erm… in Afrikaans)

“Vat bin daar is our cheapest one…” and I’m thinking HALLELUJAH there is hope.. “It are costing R6000” My heart sinks and I can literally FEEL my credit card begin to vibrate in fear. “Oh is that all” *swallows* Not to be put off, I spot the next best thing… once again cue angels and violins… a Pink Breadbin. No bread would ever taste the same again if it wasn’t going mouldy in my kitchen in that sexy little number! “…and um how about that breadbin?”

She looks at me with that stupid little smug smile and says “Really…?” *glares* I start moving towards her ready to separate her expensive haircut from her scalp when Dale grabs my arm and to my great pleasure she gives a little yelp in alarm. “Oh um um that breadfing is like costing 2500 raaaaands…”

The universe hates me.

So I slink off hearing the breadbin and dustbin both screaming in agony…”Taaaaaaaash…. Don’t leave me heeeeeereeeeeeeeeee” and I can almost hear the little twit laughing saying to her colleague “Oh my goodness I just had to deal with poor people… pass me the hand sanitizer!”

Pfffft.

So I had a dream last night… I strutted into the shop with loads of Clicks packets in my hands filled to the brim with pink Tupperware…. “You work on commission don’t you?” she’s now looking at all my clicks packets…I lift the bags and look at her smugly… “Big mistake…. BIG mistake” and stomp off to go buy enough koeksisters to fill aforementioned 200 Tupperware containers feeling like Julia Roberts in Pretty women…

P.S. No Africanized bees were injured in the making of this story.

Sooooo, something to be grateful for today… emmmmmmmm. I am grateful that my car didn’t get crushed by a big chunk of frozen wee expelled out of a Boeing on it’s way to Japan.

I have bomskok whenever I see school shoes that use the strap thingy still… in Primary school some psycho ran past me and her funny metally thingy was sticking straight up in the air, so it sliced my ankle open… struse bob - she tried to kill me! I have a scar and everything! Through the years the scar has moved from my ankle to under my bum…but I digress!

And ofcourse there’s that… incident with my director. I was chatting away in his office with a colleague about a meeting and I put my foot up on his couch (as you do… when you’re in your directors office) and when I moved my foot that bastardly little metal thing scraped against the fabric and made a noise like the loudest POEP you’d ever heard… I swear the air got sucked out of the room and em too bad it didn’t take me with it! (For crying in a bucket why can’t we live in a country with natural disasters and why couldn’t one vent it’s rage that day! Like an earthquake that would swallow them whole and no one would be the wiser!!)

I would have sold my first born for no one to have heard that, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo both my director and colleague look at me and both burst out laughing, “Excuse youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu”… well…. the more I stammered and stuttered, the more they laughed. Jokes about cabbage and beans were bandied about… atleast I think they were, the blood was rushing around in my ears too loudly to hear them *mumble mumble*

Bastard things! Why do we even have those stupid things anymore… ever heard of velcrooooooooo…? *imagines noise of velcro ripping over fabric* Hmmm…

Flippers it is….

Ok so seen as I have jotted down a pet peeve.. I suppose I have to list something I like today, something I am grateful for (or atleast according to my mums emails I have to be grateful for stuff (and then send on aforementioned email) or I’ll be shagged by a hundred billy goats while being forced to watch Dr Phil reruns on a black and white tv for the rest of my days… or something like that?)

So something I am grateful for today… hmmmm….

Today I am glad and absolutely LOVE the fact that a bald headed eagle (having found it’s way to South Africa…?) didn’t drop a tortoise on my pip in order to crack it open!

… don’t you people watch CSI!!!

What pisses you off and makes you want to cheesegrate your own knee caps off? Let me know, I’ll write about it… cause… I’m bored that way?

Now you may all be scratching your heads saying “What you talkin’ bout Willis….?” So grab your gag bags… and be prepared to have your teeth hurt because these are the reasons why Dalekins is the Shizzle:

Dalekins Rocks because:

- He picks the rainsins out of my muesli one by one (because we all know raisins are from the devils bum!)
- He buys me calcium and stares me down until I drink it because he doesn’t want me to have osteoporosis when I’m old (this may also be because he doesn’t want to push me around in a wheelchair because it’ll cramp his style ;)) Also I may just point out here that the calcium tablets are ginormous and I am almost sure this is some sick joke and theyre really suppositories that he’s making me drink!
- When I have had a bad day, I KNOW I’ll come home to a glass of wine and a bubble bath waiting for me
- If I stare at something longingly in a shop window for 10 seconds and he happens to notice, I know soon, I’ll get a surprise gift (Although this does not always work… especially if we walk past the Gucci shop)
- Because he leaves notes for me to find at home telling me that he hopes I have a good day and that I rock his world.
- He has peppered the entire house with bright pink sticky notes each one giving a different reason why he loves me
- Because when I am in a foul mood and acting like a demon bitch from the pits of hell, he handles me like a live grenade, smiles and says “Ok Chuckles…”
- He always leaves the last bit of cereal behind for ME to eat and goes to work with no breakfast
- I know if I ever came to in a library holding a candlestick over a dead call centre agent, Dalekins would come to my rescue and frame our old neighbour Daisy!
- Because I know he would cheesegrate anyones face off and bury them in the garden amongst the tulips if they were ever to hurt me in any way
- Because he dived over me to protect me the night we were yanked from our slumber at 2am by murderous screaming which turned out to be 2 cats having a “spat” in our bedroom (we thought we were going to be hacked up with a machete - it could happen you know!! Those cats get moody when they don’t get their treats!)
- Because when I have flu, and my nose is running down my face, and I’m wearing my oldest pyjamas and looking like I’ve been dragged through a bush backwards, he ALWAYS says I look HJOT!!
- He’s NEVER in a bad mood… ever…
- When I dance around and sing like an idiot… he joins me so I wont look stoopid!
- Because he thinks I’m the most beautiful woman in the world
- He sends me plants instead of flowers because he knows I hate things being picked just so they die a few days later…
- He opens the car door for me, every time… Not just when we’re infront of my parents and he wants to score browny points
- Because he takes photos of the Cosmopolitan magazine that just arrived in the post and emails it to me at work when I’m having a bad day so I can have something to look forward to when I get home..
- Because he just frikking rocks!

So Dalekins even though you get us lost.. when driving to the Spar… thats in a straight line, and 1km from our house, and you think the magic “pick-up” fairy is the thing that sneaks into the house in the dead of night to pick up your entire cupboards worth of clothes that you have left in the lounge. And even though I know that oneday when we’re 90 I will still have to threaten you with throwing your dentures into the garden if you don’t put the lid back on the tooth paste… I love you.

I don’t want Mr Muscle to swoop down and show me how to clean a sink, or God forbid how to scrub a toilet, I want the stupid arse-licker in the green lycra to do it for meeeeeeeee!!! Do you have any idea what germs are IN a toilet!! I on the other hand, want to be sipping a gin and tonic on the patio snarfing chocolate brownies.

Am I the only women in the world who finds it just a little irritating to constantly see women being placed in the role of toilet scrubber, carpet vacuumer and my all time favourite… the lady who comes home from a hard day at the office and then stands in her spotless kitchen thinking.. “hmmm I wonder what delicious and nutritious meal I shall whip up for my family… and all I have is this can of pilchards… ” (out pops a Michelin star like Paella - I’s been watching lots of Master Chef ;)) before proceeding to the lingerie AD where she’ll dress up and be ready for the whips and chains that her hubby expects when he gets home that night from the pub…(ok… so maybe Im making that one up… or I’ve been watching the wrongggg channels :P) and then cue the mattress AD where she wakes up (wind blowing in hair and fully made up) arms stretched out with that big smile on her face…. *hooch*

Personally, I wake up looking like one of the children of the damned in the morning… the make-up I so thickly applied the night before to make me appear ethereal to Dalekins when I wake up in the morning has somehow dribbled down to my chin and I now look like a Picasso painting of a racoon! Not…

So… in the spirit of all feminists out there, I am going to Burn all my bras in protest! (the ones that have gone a funny colour in the wash - not the wonderbras… they make my kadunkadunks look great!) Enough of being treated like nothing better than a weak female who can’t do anything….!!

Dalekinnnnnnnnnnnns!!! Please come light a firrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre… the charcoal makes my hands dirtyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!! *flutters lashes and bends over to flash cleavage in aforementioned Wonderbra* What…? he works better when he has something to look at…

*switches on big Mr Muscle light up into the sky to call him* (The Mr Muscle Signal - which mind you is in the shape of a big turd!) *watches him land* *walks up to him and smiles* *grabs his cape and sticks it on the braai and watches his lycra go up in flames* Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee *watches him running around like crazy* *sprays Mr Muscle Greaseball cleaner on him…..* WHOOSH …

What…!! I was just trying to put him out!!!!!!!!! *sweet smile

Mmmmmmm gin and tonic….. *burp*