The Number 22

It makes me wish I was a double agent in a bad Eighties spy movie and some American or Russian bonecrusher would tie me down to a chair in a dilapidated warehouse in a deserted neighbourhood and start pulling my teeth out… because eventually they’d get to the one that’s giving me trouble.

Toothache is one of the only legitimate reasons for a bad mood. When a little old lady at the bus stop smiles because you moved off the seat so she could sit there, you just want to punch her in the face.

Not her face in particular. It could be anyone. Any face.

It gets worse when the bus you’re supposed to catch – the number 22 – drives straight past you without even so much as a sideward glance. You run after it waving your hand, but then remember Don Johnson’s words from the film ‘Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man’: “My old man told me before he left this shitty world: Never chase women or busses; you always get left behind.”

Truer words are not very often spoken.

I don’t know what it is about the number 22 bus. It’s always late with a grumpy driver who tears through the streets like a maniac.

I remember one rainy bus ride out to Mutley Plain when the ‘22’ driver hit a cyclist. The poor pedal-powered patsy bounced off the large window, startling some old dear, without so much as slowing down.

The bus driver’s expression – common to all bulldogs while dining on wasps – didn’t flicker, and he carried on as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had occurred. I sighed with a slight wave of homesickness and thought about the roads of Cape Town.

But enough with the flashbacks.

That same day the morose ‘22’ flew past, leaving me more than a bit pissed off, got worse.

The weather knuckled down and with a bit of effort managed to cough an hour’s worth of hail out; and my tooth – not to be outdone – turned my mouth into an Iranian nuclear testing site – with suicide-bomber-practice-run intervals between each mushroom-cloud-main-event – while I waited at the bus stop to embark on my return journey.

Needless to say, my sense of humour had packed his belongings into a hanky and tied it onto the end of a stick and told me he was taking the magic beans and my signed copy of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ and marrying a washed-up pornstar in a kitsch Las Vegas church to pursue his dream of training Boston Terrier puppies to bark the hits of Chesney Hawks.

This news left me devastated.

After fifteen minutes of trying not to scare the old ladies waiting with me, I saw the much-anticipated ‘22’ careering down the road. Holding my hand out and stepping into the road, I flagged the Frankenfaced steering-wheel-pusher down.

Of course, he stopped five metres away from where I was standing. And as I walked towards him the grannies jumped to their feet in front of me.

So, being a gentleman in spite of the dental demolition derby running across my gums, I slowed down and patiently followed the OAPs; imagining that soon I would be holding on for dear life as the sour-faced Citybus speedster either brought me closer to home or closer to God.

Before I knew it the accordion-doors were closing and the bus was shooting off without me or the old ladies on board. As it turned out the grannies had clocked the number ‘8’ bus a mile up the road and were giving their old bones a head start before it flew past as well.

Next time I’ll just elbow them out the way.

… later that day, when I’d eventually met up with Lucy, she said I’d probably have seen the funny side if it wasn’t for the misery-inducing cavity.

Secret agents might laugh in the face of danger, but it’s hard to laugh with toothache.

In Defense of Letter Writing

Does anyone still email?

I don’t mean those poor buggers who work in veal-fattening pens – otherwise known as office cubicles (thank you, Douglas Coupland) – and send emails related to work; I’m talking about personal, friendly correspondence.

The Facebook has taken over this function. And if one was prone to punching out a one-line, four-word “So how’s it going?” email, an FB message would be even shorter. Along the lines of “Howzit, china?” if you’re of the South African persuasion.

I know it’s a bit pathetic that my heart is warmed when, upon opening my inbox, I see an email from my mum. So you can only imagine the Lepidoptera-storm in my stomach when through the letterbox falls an actual, handwritten letter from the same dear mother-of-mine.

I’m sad like that.

An uncle used to always give Greg and me writing paper for Christmas. It would usually have a character along the lines of Garfield or He-Man in the bottom right corner, and the same image on the envelope.

A bit of a crap present when you’re seven or eight, and possibly more than a mite contrived. I think we used the paper to write him a thank-you note and never again.

We knew that next Xmas we’d get more so we never saved it.

Maybe it made an impression, though, because these days I love writing letters. Well, it’s not really the writing I love, but the thought of someone expecting the usual bills and pizza delivery menus in their letterbox only to find an actual, handwritten letter.

Sure, my hand aches and cramps up slightly. But at least it’s for a more noble reason than it was when I was sixteen.

I don’t think what’s in the letter is important. It doesn’t have to be well-written or exciting, but to think that someone took the time to sit down and carefully write something out just for you – that is worth more than a hundred emails and a million text messages.

It’s a hint that you’re getting old when you reminisce about how things are a-changing and moan about them, so I’m not going to moan but rather try to encourage even just one person to write a letter to someone they know.

Even if it’s your wife and you’re sending it to the house you both live in – nothing is more romantic than a love letter from the person who’s crumpled face you see on the pillow next to you every morning.

One of the greatest things you can do is make someone feel special and loved. Another is to inspire someone. Sending a letter is an easy way to make someone feel special. And, who knows, you might just inspire them to do the same.

More Than One Way To Feed A Cat

I stir my tea and stare out the window at the pouring rain. I notice, at the bottom of the garden, Rodney sits looking forlorn and miserable.

About half an hour ago, the moment I kick-started the gigantic yellow Dyson vacuum cleaner in the front room, he darted his furry ginger backside out the back door to his favourite spot just below a bird’s nest. Now, too scared to venture back inside, he has gone from fat and fluffy to soaked and scrawny.

I step over the puddles to stand on the edge of the lawn and call his name, “Rodney… Rodney…”

His eyes – great big saucers of ennui – blink twice.

Not wanting to squelch across the muddy grass, I bring out the secret weapon. I crouch down and in that voice reserved for cats shout, “Fish!”

Quicker than Jabba the Hut to the annual Empire Christmas party buffet table, Rodney bolts across the lawn, past me, and in front of his food bowl. Of course I have no fish to give him, but I put some cat food in his bowl, open and close the microwave door, and he doesn’t know the difference.

The reason Rodney probably can’t tell if I’ve given him fish or not is because he scoffs his food so quickly that I’m certain it never touches his tongue. It’s not eating, really, but inhalation.

If ever there was a being that just ate, slept and shat – it is Rodney.

In the wee hours of the morning Rodney will be at the bottom of the stairs squawking. He won’t let up until someone stumbles down the stairs and puts some food in his bowl; or, if there is food there already, pushes it from the sides into the middle.

A few hours later he will be making desperate noises – looking from his food bowl to you to his food bowl – until he is fed yet again. His flat face and bad sinuses make his puling sound like the last gasps of some pathetic dying thing, and are impossible to ignore.

If one were so inclined, a conveyer belt could be designed with a small cat-mouth-size funnel at the end that poured ‘Felix with Beef & Jelly!’ down his gob. In all likelihood the contraption would break down before old fatguts was satisfied.

But I can’t get mad at him or feel any kind of contempt for such greediness.

When a snorting, burping lump like Rodney has licked his lips and then deposited a turd the size and shape of a baby seal into his litter tray, all he has to do is aim his sorrow-filled eyes at yours, meow in that whispering way so you swear he’s trying to form the word “Help”, and gently paw at your knee.

Then you let him climb onto your lap, and hope you can get to the next commercial break before he needs feeding again.

Christmas with Batman

As I chew on my miniature tree-shaped cooking-chocolate from the fifth window of my advent calendar I have to ask myself, “So just what does Captain America have to do with Christmas, anyway?”

Is it maybe because Santa – or at least the image of Father Christmas we have today – was apparently invented by the American Coca-Cola Company?

Or possibly because the Jolly Fat Man’s red and white suit, combined with the blue of his freezing cold Northern Polish skin colour, is the same as the Yankee flag?

Or is it, as so many of those unhappy Occupy Wall Street campers would no doubt rant, because Christmas and all it stands for has been hijacked by the heinous marketing department henchman working for the bastard capitalist bosses?

I don’t care, really, but is it too much to ask for an actual yuletide-themed advent calendar?

Unless you’re willing to pay top-Pound for one punted as ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ and therefore an extra three quid or such, the answer is ‘no’ and you’ll have to be happy with Batman or Barbie or Snoop Dogg.

At the end of the day, though, the chocolate is pretty much the same cheap processed muck regardless of the picture on the front, but I’m not unhappy with that. Another Marvel-inspired ad-cal I had the displeasure of purchasing a few years back was NOT filled with elf-turds, but rather disgusting chewy gummy-type things.

Very disappointing!

But maybe comic book campness is appropriate after all, as I had to perform numerous death-defying heroics just to get the absurdly massive Christmas tree down from the loft. If I’d known it was going to be such a business I’d have dressed in spandex and got Lucy to film and post it on Yoohoo-Tube.

Wobbly ladder + (tumble-down-stairs/broken bannister) x 1 000 000 hits = a season to remember!

To add to the effect I’d have my mum-in-law at the foot of the stairs, splinters of wood raining down, mad as hell and looking like the Red Skull.

In the next few weeks I’ve got to brave it all again to retrieve the Santa outfit, so with the right planning I’ll get my shot at fleeting glory yet.

I’m not sure what’ll be more challenging: trying to find said suit in the overstuffed loft, or attempting to convince my niece and nephew that Father Christmas smells of biltong and says “howzit” and “just now” in a funny accent.

Mild-mannered blogger by night! Fat, drunk, laughing man with a sack full of half-price puzzles and board games by day!

And next year they can put my face on a calendar.