I Am Not Mother Theresa

Contrary to recent popular perception, I am not Mother Theresa. I'd just like to clarify that, because I thought it was obvious but I discovered last night that - unbeknownst to me - I have been masquerading as some kind of modern day martyr. According to some people, the only things differentiating me from Herself of Calcutta are my eyebrow piercing, my lack of headscarf and my penchant for good wine, foreign cheese and watching crap like America's Next Top Model. Apparently, I live to help people. Who knew?

Last night I got a phone call from a family friend asking me if I would (do her a favour? Do my eternal soul a favour?)... meet a "lovely young man" for a drink. The LYM has been staying with her while studying English. The FF is very practiced in the art of bamboozling; I agreed. The FF neglected to mention, among the hyperbole about how charming, lovely, interesting and well spoken he is that the LYM is studying Business Law, has a facial tic and carries a bottle of shampoo on his person at all times. She did, however, mention that he is Italian which meant - of course - that I had to pay particular attention to my footwear, and put on an extremely uncomfortable yet fetching pair of something-something on my feet because everyone knows Italians are total snobs when it comes to footwear and even if you are prepared to despise someone before you meet them you still want to impress them. Big sigh. Now I'm home and I have sore feet.

I spent all day dreading the encounter, and calling everyone I know and love who might have been within a 25km radius of where we were to meet if they would join me to ease the pain. There were two things in particular that I was dreading. These were that he would either be stilted in the language department, and the entire event would basically be a verbal run through of the first 10 pages of his English textbook, or he would be just like the Golly-Wog*, another socially awkward colleague of mine about whom I will blog at a later date.

Initial impressions were not good. We said hello, how are you, how's the family (all on page 1 of the textbook) and that went so well that I metaphorically skipped to Chapter 2:

Me: What time did you arrive in Sydney today?

LYM: I will be here for 3 days.

Hmmm.

As it turns out, that was really the only misunderstanding of note we suffered. He was just awkward enough for me to not have a fabulous time yet not awkward enough for me to get a really great blog post out of (without having to rely to my powers of exaggeration). So, in summary, I was sucked into performing a Good Deed. Now all I need to do in order to gain automatic entry into Heaven when I die is advocate the rhythm method for married couples. Piece of piss.



* It's not often one is able to insult two ethnic groups with one nickname, so I'm rather proud of having managed it here.

It's not the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but....

... I can't seem to get it out of my head: the other day I was in a cafe and some chick asked the barista "is there any coffee in a soy chai latte?"

... There is an ad on TV this week where the voiceover refers to a character's "steely eyed mind" but the first 6 times I heard it I thought he said "coeliac mind"

Y2Kx2

I think I may need to stop this blog... I just noticed that the last post I published was my 144th. We only did up to 12 times tables at school, and since that is the result of 12x12 it is the biggest number I know. It sort of feels like New Years Eve 1999, when we all sat around wondering if our computers would work when we woke up, and if they didn't work then how could we warn people further along the national date line.

To be honest, that last part is a bald faced lie. I actually spent NYE in 1999 being slightly raucous in a rented mansion by a river, smoking cigars, wearing a silver sash that was supposed to be tied around a chair* and consoling my friend whose new hot pink dress that she was supposed to wear to her sister's wedding was ruined.

*I only know this because of the photos

FarceBook

A friend of mine informed me the other day that she had found her future husband on Farce-book. They have never met, but his profile assured her of his awesome eligibility. She showed me his photo, and we discussed his seemingly limitless list of virtues and merits together. But then a suspicion started to creep in. "He can't possibly be that perfect! There's got to be something wrong with him." My friend - let's call her Juliette - cried. "I mean, how can he not be married? ... He's probably gay - or worse - really really short."


In a surprising twist, Juliette has found her Romeo's flaw - he wears his collar turned up.

Top 5...

... Bad Ideas for a Top 5 list

1. Uses For Plastic Bags

2. Times I gargled salt water

3. Toilet Cleaning Moments

4. Rules of English grammar

5. Collaborations with Britney Spears (although I've heard that Tarantino wants her for his next movie - For serious!!!)

Should I Be Worried?

I started this new job the other day, and found out that the staff code name for the boss is "The Eye" (which I initially thought was "The I", not realising that the point of the nickname was to honour her hyper-surveillance rather than her ego mania). Anyway... I found out last night that there is a running competition for staff members with a $50 prize. The prize is funded by a collective group of ex-staff members, and is awarded to anyone who manages to "Pop The Eye". The previous winner succeeded in making The Eye stamp her feet and pummel her temples with her fists. Impressive. So... should I be worried, or should I aim for the prize?