It’s been all quiet on the blogging front these days. Not sure why. I’m due a rant surely. But nothing’s been bugging me sufficiently. Except for the price of fuel around these here parts. £1.30 a litre is fucking ridiculous.
Did you know 62% of this price is the tax element (according to the BBC)?
I use my car mainly for work. Any driving I do outside of that is minimal. It takes around £160 a month for me to do what I need to do in the course of my duties. This equates to an extra £99.20 in tax a month.
This is lazy politics and weak government. A budgetary black-hole? Let’s tax those sad fuckers in their cars. They always pretend there is a sub-text of trying to get people to use their cars less and public transport more. My arse. It’s ALL about the income.
Eeeesh, and that was me not having a rant.
And here’s something to counter the pissy mood of my ranting...
The Queen of Chaos (my twin sister) was over for dinner the other day. She makes me smile. Given that it was the New Year we got to talking about the old days in our old neighbourhood and how on New Year’s Eve everybody was in everybody else’s house. Given that Sis and I were teenagers the nearest we got to an alcoholic drink (and here’s where I ruin the hard-drinking label we Scots have) was Advocaat and lemonade. Anybody still drink that? Is there even any alcohol in it? QC is convinced to these days that this is where her egg intolerance comes from.
One particular family came up for discussion. There were five or six brothers and one sister. She was a wee bit of a mentaller. Our theory was that she was in constant competition with her brothers. Anywho, she took QC for a walk. To the local mental hospital. Where they wandered the wards –as you do – until a nurse spotted them and threw them out. Before this they even got as far as having a juice in the canteen among some of the patients. One of whom took a liking to the two young girls at the nearby table and thought he should show his appreciation by masturbating under his robe.
This caused the mentaller to giggle. Sis loves a giggle and can never help but join in. Eventually she had to ask, “What are we laughing at?’
You’ve got to hanker back to those simpler times, no?
That same night, after they got home with their decency still intact they decided they should go to mass. QC put on a blue dress she received in a present. (She hated this dress, but she was made to wear it.)
Half an hour later, while the priest was reading from The Gospel According to John (it might well have been one of the others, give me a little licence here people) QC got to wondering why her dress was so uncomfortable across the back and shoulders. Trying not to draw attention – and of course everyone nearby was watching – she stretched a hand up and over to her shoulders, reached inside her dress, felt something solid ... and pulled out a coat-hanger.
Cue a fresh set of giggles and QC and her mate being thrown out by in irate member of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
Now that’s what you call a wardrobe malfunction.
Do you have any similar stories? Go on, share...
Gas is $3.10 gallon here in the US, but complaining about that is singing to the choir. Those were some entertaining, and in the case of the guy wanking off, disturbing stories. I've been known to forget to take the tags off my clothes, and have worn to same colored, but different shoes before. If the topic was making a horse's arse of yourself, I could fill a novella length book with those stories.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 16, the family went to Montreal, Canada for vacation. I am the oldest of 4: my sister is 8 years younger and the two boys are between us.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we were in Montreal when the rental car got a flat tire. Dad parked on a sidestreet off a major road about a block from a hospital and trekked off on foot to find a gas station that would send someone out to fix the flat tire. The rest of us waited on the sidewalk.
Being the naive sixteen year-old I was, I thought the guy hollering "Olympia" from the third floor of a nearby apartment house was watching a sports game on the TV. I found out later that he was sitting on the balcony having a date with his hand. (My 12 and 14 year-old brothers caught on right away.)
I guess the sickos are all over the place.
Sean, $3.10 sucks. How much of that is tax? And I have been known to wear suits with the tags still attached. So long as you're happy to laugh at yourself, eh?
ReplyDeleteEeeooowww Linda, lesson learned.
London. First ever lunch date with first ever editor of first ever book. Eager to impress. Editor lovely. Lunch sublime. Left feeling I hadn't disgraced myself. Got back to hotel. Realised I'd forgotten to remove the HUGE XL sticker on the front of my new shirt. Maybe she thought it was the latest Aberdeen fashion.
ReplyDeleteDid you impress, Bill? Perhaps she thought the arrow pointing down meant you were advertising.
ReplyDeleteOr was that during your super-sized days? The Bill I know is a good deal more svelte than an XL.
I once went on a second date with a guy, a bbq invite to his house. I arrived with a smile and some nice wine. Having chit chatted nervously in his plush kitchen/diner he poured me a wine and beckoned me out to the patio to enjoy the sunshine, via some french doors, whilst he prepared the salad.
ReplyDeleteI walked confidently out to the patio, glass in hand, until I was stopped by my face smacking into the closed patio glass, bursting my nose and temporarily blinding me with blood, which prevented me from seeing the blood soak into his cream pure new wool carpet.
He did take me to casualty, but he didnt ask me for a third date.....yikes
bill, at least it wasn't on the front of your pants - she woulda thought you were braggin...lol
ReplyDeletemy best friend and i were in church up front, fooling around all thru mass, and the lady behind us who we did not know, grabbed us by the collar, lecturing us on our behavior and marched us up right to the priest after mass. of course, we thought we were really in trouble. But the priest looked at us, then looked at the lady and said he hadn't noticed anything and if the lady had been paying attention she wouldn't have seen anything either. and then he waved us off. of course, i turned around and stuck my tongue out at the lady and boy was she ticked. yay, one for the kiddies!!!
Hey R - I'm willing to bet a fair few folk have done something similar. What about the red wine spill on the floor of the posh car?
ReplyDeleteNice one, Thea. One for the kids!
ah yes, spilling the red wine in the porche did come to mind as I posted! and you have a good memory. Unfortunately for me, I have way too many dating disasters to choose from, so that one had to take a back seat pardon the pun :-))
ReplyDeleteAnd I waited several days hoping this wouldn't be noticed. The second time I've embarrassed myself on the net this week.
ReplyDeleteOn a visit home my friend and I popped into a aquaint Annapolis restaurant to use their ladies room. While waiting on the current 'user' to exit, I studied the door. When the nice looking man exited I asked, "What language is that? 'estroo' Luckily I don't remember the expression on the guy's face.
My friend took a picture of the door for posterity and sends it to me when I need a laugh
@ Thea, fooling around?
@ Bill, the advertisement must have worked!
Michael, taxes in Louisiana on gas are some of the highest and we produce it! I commiserate on the rant. We should all put in orders for electric cars and see how fast the price drops.