Supermarkets, Nature, Muncle*

*I'm sorry about the formatting, this computer is kind of horrible like that.

Today I leapt cheerily out of bed at 3.30am and drove to Ashburton to count everything in their supermarket. We caught a lift with an Australian competitive lawn bowler and ex-eftpos salesman called Rick, who I swear was trying to chat up my mother ("So, are you a bowls lady then, eh?") and who talked constantly when I wanted to look out the window - but it was nice, because a) I like driving in the dark and b) we passed a house! I love seeing this.

No wait not that I mean we passed a house which was being moved down the road.

I used to live in a flat on the main road through the city, and every so often a house would roll by at 3am, and I'd always go out and watch - the whole procession, from lead car, truck with 'Wide Load' sign and then the house itself (on a truck, in case you were thinking of something like this) -

- with the windows all lit up, and very quietly. Almost magical it is. And then Rick guffaws and says that he was selected for the Canterbury Lawn Bowls team again this year and the magic is kind of gone but whatevs.

Little quiz about my day at the supermarket. Which of these statements is true?

a) there is a brand of hamburger patties called 'Meateors'

b) 'Oceanfish' is a valid catfood flavour

c) when you scan Sunmaid Raisins they show up on your scanner as 'S/M Raisins'

d) packets of marbles now come with a list of '10 Exciting Marbles Games to Play'

e) all of the above?

Scan down for the answer.

'e'

OH SHIT A FLOATING EYE

Nothing else exciting happened except that a packet of juice powder (I have temporarily forgotten the proper word for this) exploded on me in a shower of tropical groove (it's called that) and then all day everything smelt like juice.

Here is a fact about birds.

Did you know that, like most other um animals (maybe plants too? hmm) the way that birds evolve is based on who their predators are? The vast majority of birds have always been eaten I mean 'predated' (real word) by ground-dwelling mammals with crappy eyesight and an excellent sense of smell. That is why most birds nest in trees and fly about; because when they're up there the predators can't reach them except for I guess climbing predators but fuck I am not talking about that. Birds are also, in general, brightly coloured but not very smelly. 'Cause of you know the predators.

Enter New Zealand birds! Back in the day we didn't have any mammals except for a whole lot of seals and sea lions (which apparently were really really populous (and presumably ate, um, not-birds)), so all of our birds were predated I mean eaten by....dun dun dunnn... other birds. Bigger birds.

Cannibirds.

Birds who could fly, and who had excellent eyesight but a crappy sense of smell.

And that, it turns out, is why NZ has stinky, dull brown birds that lay their eggs in the ground.

It's also why they have long poky beaks - so that they can stick their noses beaks into the ground and eat someone else's baby birds.

Nature is interesting, huh?

Speaking of interesting, the most awesome part of this post is about to happen - I am going to tell you about Andrea's dream. I was in it.

Andrea and I were living wild in the desert, having rejected the society of the time in favour of living as outlaws and periodically sweeping into town to conduct a raid. (Here comes the awesome.) The top halves of our bodies were human, but we had dinosaur legs. Robotic dinosaur legs. Robotic dinosaur legs that could transform into motorbikes.

So we would come sweeping into town on our motorbike wheels, then transform back into our dino-centaur selves and lay waste to the town with the giant guns we had mounted on our metal gauntlets. Did I mention we had huge metal gauntlets with guns on them? Because we totally did.

I was going to try and draw this but there's no way my Paint skills could capture it.

Anyway, to thank Andrea for including me in this kickass dream, I'm going to play Muncle! I mentioned this a while back, but didn't get around to it, and she keeps reminding me.

Would you like to play? It's pretty simple, really, I just ask you a question - you know, one of those 'if you could be stuck in a lift with any famous person, living or dead, who would it be' type questions* and then you answer. It's a pretty good ice-breaker for parties.

Ready? Here goes.

Would you rather... fuck your Mum's body with your Uncle's head on it, or your Uncle's body with your Mum's head?

...and that's how you play Muncle!

(Thanks to Mr London Street for introducing me to this dreadful game.)

*Helen Keller is a poor choice

TLDOML - Finale!

But not really because 'finale' kind of implies that something Exciting is going to happen, which it isn't. Sorry. Most of the excitement happened at the start...in hindsight, I should have told the story in reverse. Maybe next time.

Final Leg (10pm - 2am next morning*)
* which I am including because I didn't go to sleep until then.

Eventually, the gangway opened and I boarded the ferry.

What, you were expecting something exciting just because I left the last installment on a cliffhanger? You should know better than that by now.

I spent most of the ferry trip over standing outside on the deck and smoking and being Sad. It was very cold. Just like my heart. I also wrote a song which was not at all over-dramatic and most certainly not about tEp and sang it over and over, standing outside in the cold, smoking. (What a nutter.) I also drank several glasses of wine and, when we swung around into Wellington harbour and I saw the city lights, started crying out of sheer relief that the day was over and I was home! Also out of drunkenness, and over-tiredness, but mainly relief. I took the pen that tEp had stolen from the bar and given to me from my pocket and, wilfully and unrepentantly disobeying maritime law, threw it into the ocean. So somewhere on the bottom of Wellington Harbour is a pen from a Dunedin bar, handled by myself and tEp (and presumably several barstaff before that but never mind about them). I like to think that fish are shitting on it.

The rest of the story is fairly straightforward - disembarked in Wellington, carted my suitcases into a taxi, and went to my new house, where I promptly fell asleep on the couch, relieved beyond the ability of my blog to express it that the curtain had finally fallen on...The Longest Day of my Life.

Cue closing music, credits.


I hope you enjoyed that! Sorry it got a bit crap near the end. If you did enjoy it, let me know, and I may write another serial story! Just for you! If you didn't like it, well fuck you. No, just kidding! (But still, there's a little bit of 'fuck you' sentiment present.) Let me know if you hated it and I'll never do it again. Well not for a while anyway.

Have been writing a fairly gory short story, and keep saying inappropriately gory things to my family. Everyone else, I just keep saying generally inappropriate things to, as per normal. It has been Week of the Inappropriate Comment at my house. The most recent one was only asked for story research purposes, so I feel the outcry that followed it was a little over-reactionary. (Reaction to the in-defence-of-Hitler comment, though, was justified.) So, to extend the gory inappropriateness (real word? probably not, should have used impropriety (spelling?) but is too late now) to the blog, do tell me: how would you prepare human flesh, if you were a cannibal? What would you serve it with? Us writer types need to know these things.

(Strips of arm, basted with teriyaki marinade and shallow fried. With julienned carrot and snow peas. Atop a heap of udon noodles, although I'm not sure how their texture would work with the arm. Or perhaps an enormous leg drumstick, with the usual fixin's for a roast.)

(What?)