Again, the discussion moves to the topic of children. What a struggle it all is, to get them from A to B, to all their different clubs and teams, the fretting over education, the sympathetic nodding and groaning as the conversation moves inevitably on to pregnancy and delivery, the morning sickness, the pain of labour, the pros and cons of caesarian section, the frequency of contractions...
It is relentless. Every day, often over lunch, as it is so appropriate, they cluck and brood. Beneath it all, so secret they wouldn't admit it to themselves, the race. The competitiveness that so inspires their very presence here, it bubbles in their voices. I suffered more than you, bled more, it took longer, I didn't cop out on gas, my child is more precious than yours, has had to endure more threatening illnesses, has had stranger vomit, more frightening disease, (is there something 'wrong' with hers, you know, he doesn't seem 'quite normal', does he?), our child is at a better school than yours, a more sophisticated nursery. I love my daughter so much I couldn't wait for my six months maternity leave to finish but muscled my way back here to pick up the reins of imposing my remorseless blind ambition on the fortunes of others and carve my career out of the trail of failure I leave behind me.
It has been said that Krusty has 'behaviour issues in the workplace', that he is problematic for other people to work with. He exhibits 'attitudes' that do not match the doctrine. Well, yes, he does have a willingness to comment in a concise, honest, candid manner, and is unwilling to declare how wonderful is the Emperor's new suit.
But he does refrain from sharing the details of how the proctologist slid his begloved and jellied finger deep into my butt, stirred it around, then inserted an array of scopes and probes to illuminate and picture the very depths of my bowel, when investigating my complaints about arse-ache.
Because that would garner complaint, and accusations of unreasonable behaviour. Because it is apparently perfectly acceptable in an open plan office to proclaim the placenta, but turds are taboo.
--
I have noticed a new fashion around the office, for the sophisticated women to wear dark, shin length trousers, which I am led to understand are known as Capri pants after the Ford motor car of the seventies and eighties and are in no way connected with the small island off Italy where Tiberius kept a palace and may well have personally 'attended' to Caligula, and where Gracie Fields fucked off to, and they wear these so-called Capri pants with pointed boots. The overall effect has a certain logic to it...
"It's bread, Jim, but not as we know it!"
- oooh
- "Set phasers to stun!" "Destination, Alfie Moon."
- "Move to Warp drive!"
- "Warp engaged."
"Ah canna hawld her taegether, Cap'n, she'll shake heersel' apart."
"Mind integrity compromised - Captain, we may have a brain breach."
"Arm sonic torpedoes, deploy on my command!"
- "Torpedoes armed and on stand-by, Captain."
- "Engage!"
- "They are under sonic attack - we appear to have audio supremacy."
"Impose Krusty-law! There can be no exceptions. Commence Operation Palace!"
- "Neutron bomb deployed, Marshall. Slough has been destroyed, relandscaping is in progress, Operation Palace is ahead of schedule."
- "Resistance is eliminated - subjugation is complete. Facilities have been established. Nominated individuals are being converted. Krustyanity is acknowledged."
"C'mon, you fuckers, we know there is a better way. Every day as I crawl along the M4
past that concrete hole in Berks (I'm sure he'd be delighted), all I want is to impose my iron fist on it, and redefine it as my capital, where there will only be my immense palace, as a statement of my immenseness it will overshadow the mere pebbles of Windsor Castle, a thousand years of history wiped out in the New Beginning of the Krusty Age."--
Tabatha has just told me that I'm not going to be taking her to the local balti house (actually, they don't really have balti houses down here, not like this) wearing my purple velvet uniform and eighteen yards of thick, thick gold braid. So I guess I'm going to be going in jeans and hooped (hooped, they go all the way round, stripes have an end to them, ok?) t-shirt. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to curry we go.
Still, she isn't offering me her wares with additional seaweed and prawn cracker crumbs this evening...who knows what may become of such things. One bhaji and I'm a veritable goat.
See you.
PS: thanks for the 'badger' offer, Richard. Just to re-iterate, the turd was still glistening, so pretty fresh, at about eleven in the morning, an inky blue-green-black colour. Three to four inches long, single stool, one straight torpedo-shaped link.
(Tabatha is commenting that she isn't terribly keen on my obsession with my own discharges, and this apparent trend towards those of not only other people but other species, for fuck's sake, is not a winner. Better stay off the saag tonight, then.) (Wot more parenthesis?) (Apparently dietitians - this is how we spell it in the UK, I'm assured by the health 'professional' at my left - have poo-posters or 'stool charts', more formally, for the comparison of colour &c. to deficiency/excess blah blah blah. No.2, dare I say, looks interesting, no? Nice. I prefer posters of nekkid leddies.)
Curry calls, must go, as 'twere.
4 comments:
While most mothers would be appalled that you would compare their precious little babies to a healthy dump, I agree with your assessment. Not that my children are shit, per se, although they, being of the teenage persuasion, have put me through some shit.
Anyway, what I mostly agree with is that women should shut the hell up in the workplace about their 23 hours of labor and C-sections and epidurals. I don't understand why it's such a big competition.
Instead, save your bodily fluids' stories for the playground, where you can compare your pain with other mommies and traumatize their young, impressionable children into never reproducing.
Krust, you're priceless. Are you sure you're not a martyr to your hemorrhoids, like Kenneth Williams?
Wendy - if only the dearest mamas took after you. I didn't really intend to compare the kids to turds, that's incidental, it's the mums I find a bit shitty. I'm feeling really quite vindicated by your accord with my point of view. Of course, the other benefit to the dearest mamas taking after you is that they would be a bunch of fit foxes in interesting outfits, not a herd of cows at M&S, and would understand the difference between natty cocktails and naff cocktails. But these are people who think a martini is vermouth and lemonade.
Betty - my friend Sandy says that since I cut down on my input of peanuts, the chalfonts are noticeably fewer.
Yep, every time I see a woman in black capri pants and black boots, I immediately think Star Trek!
Post a Comment