So long, suckers!

I am going on VACATI-ON! Yes, I know that's not how to spell it, but I don't care. It's my blog and I'm claiming creative licence, or whatever.

What will I do, you ask? It's only natural that you would wonder, seeing how my life is oh so glamorous and exciting, and all. Am I going on one of those space trips with the millionaires, perhaps? Swimming in the French riviera? Shopping in Hollywood? Or maybe I'll finnaly get around to stalking Jensen Ackles?

Well, you're almost right.

I'm going to my mum's cottage. There is a river, or a lake or a fjord, or some sort of body of water, anyways, so there will probably be swimming involved. Aaand there is a small grocery store somewhere around there, so there will also be shopping. Mostly for hotdogs and chips and such, but as long as there is an exchange of items and money, it still qualifies. Although not in the exciting euphoric kinda way that shopping for things that you don't need to survive brings about. And should I happen upon Jensen Ackles throughout my holiday, then by God, I intend to follow him around like a horny puppy-dog. That doesn't make any sense, does it? Oh, to hell with it. My brain, Bergerac, has left ahead of me. I'll be following it on Monday. Horray.

Return of the Über-Stink

"The following entry contains moments of scatological information, which might not be suitable to all readers. Reader discretion is adviced."*
Do you remember when I told you about the smell? The one in the bathroom that doesn’t seem to be coming from anywhere? For a while, I thought I knew where it lived, but I was wrong. Finding it is becoming vital. Up till now, it’s simply been irritating for periods of time. But On Tuesday it tried to murder me.

I came home early that day, far to exhausted from lack of sleep to go through any more classes. Luck, more than hand-eye coordination, helped me stick the key into the keyhole and turn it. As the door slowly opened, and the dog came bounding through (eager to pee on the bushes and sniff along the fence), I could sense that there was something wrong. A quick whiff of the hallway air confirmed my suspicions. It was back. And it was angry.

I stood motionless in the hallway, staring through the kitchen at the bathroom door, which now seemed to bulge out between the oven and the cupboard. Although I wanted to go in there almost as badly as I wanted to shove hot pokers up my nose, a perverse side of me needed to. As soon as I did, it attacked. It was like walking into a wall of indescribable stink. The kind of stink that forces you to make little whimpering sounds every time you inhale it.

Later that day, my mum wondered out loud if it could be a sewage leak in a pipe under the floor, and from that very moment, the smell took on a distinct poopy character, which I hope is all in my head. The plumbing-company didn’t have anyone to send over that day, but I’m supposed to call them back once The Mother Of All Stinks decides to attack again. Then they’ll send someone over to “sniff out the problem”, and act for which they will have earned a medal of honour. With the luck I’ve been having lately, it probably will be a sewage leak, and they’ll have to rip up the floorboards. That way, I’ll have a hole in the floor with sewage in it. A Bulgarian toilet, basically.

I once went to Bulgaria. It's a nice place. Their fried chicken is excellent. Their toilets I can do without.

* Warning included after a suggestion by Jazz

I'm off to see the wizard

Right now, as I’m writing this, there’s a power shortage, which makes owning a laptop very practical. I was minding my own business, when a storm came out of nowhere and blew all of my electricity and the phoneline away. By now, they’re probably in Oz, skipping up and down the yellow brick road.

Outside, it’s raining sideways and the trees, usually upright, are making brave efforts to lie along the ground.

Luckily, my stepmother is in the business of burying people. Once they’re dead, anyway. What's that? Can't see the connection? Well, you see, for this purpose, they use a whole bunch of white candles. Now, the thing is, that an average candle burns for… oh… let’s say somewhere between 10-24 hours. And you can’t very well use the same candle twice, now, can you? No, you can’t. Whoever is reclining in the coffin probably won’t mind, but their friends and relatives may not approve. Also, you can’t draw out a funeral to last for hours on end because at some point, the guest of honour will start to go stale. Therefore, they dropped off tons of candle stubs here a while back. When you light them all, it’s quite cosy. As long as you don’t think to hard about what they were really meant for, anyway.

I am also making my best efforts not to burn the house down in the process. I’m pretty sure that burning a house down is much easier than it sounds. Most things, especially accidents, are. Last week, for example, when I was going to step off the bus, I somehow misjudged the width of the bottom step (or perhaps it was the size of my foot) and landed on the concrete sidewalk with a loud thud. Easy. The driver and an old woman, who happened to be passing by, didn’t seem to realize just how completely straightforward and uncomplicated such an occurrence is. They were both very surprised. The little, old lady was even ready to accept the guilt for my unscheduled flight, thinking that she had startled me as she came wobbling down the sidewalk with her squeaky walker.

A side effect of such a power shortage, I’ve discovered, is sleepiness. Something about the candlelight makes me want to curl up in the foetal position and drift off into dreamland. Or maybe I’ll go to Oz and see what my electricity is getting up to.

Pic by Bialy-Fox for www.flickr.com