Let me back up for a moment here, drop some context on ya. I was asked to go to a Ladies Do of some description at the military or airforce something with my sister, mother and mother-in-law once removed to be. Mother-in-law once removed to be was the one doing in the inviting, so I was slightly chuffed to have been thought of at all, other than as that large slightly out of focus streak of pink that zooms in and out of the kitchen for more food every so often. Allow me to preface my story by establishing very firmly that I am neither Afrikaans nor white enough to really gain any sort of enjoyment from these sorts of affairs, and mostly I just kept reminding myself how flattered I was to be asked as I dragged my fuzzy ass through a bath at a time on Saturday morning during which I could still be sleeping. Due to this overwhelming enthusiasm, my hair wasn't even dry when we left here, and I'm usually painfully ready and on all kinds of time whenever I need to leave the comfort of my house.
When we got there, it transpired that the tables had been set by each respective hostess, mother-in-law once removed to be having done ours. She had laid out for us mini marshmallows, little skittles, those chocolatey little dinosaur eggs, koeksister balls and chocolate biscuits. I APPROVE OF HER LIFE CHOICES. A very chirpy lady with a black feather boa (no really) was the MC, and Freak The Mighty was the sound guy. She was deeply invested in her job here today, and whilst I envy and respect that energy, I just don't play when you're asking me to pull a lipstick out of my bag so you can divine my personality from its shape. I am not a team player.
Now I had already braced myself for the worst, as it said right there on the invitation that there would be "lekker local talent" performing, and the gods know that never bodes well. What this meant was that four students from a local high school had been selected to perform hits from their iPods for us. I know how much of a cynical bitch I am, and I know that really it's just terrible and speaks badly of my character, but this is just another thing I don't do. Listen, Brenda, that brand spanking new kid of yours is all amazeballs in awesomesauce and whatnot- this is undisputed and irrefutable. HOWEVER, should your child ever ask me to sit still and smile while he self-importantly sings the director's cut of Jerusalem at me in a warbling little falsetto, I will be forced to exact violence upon his person. Also, the eldest boy took it upon himself to inject a little Steve Hofmeyer into our day, which I still have not forgiven him for. I love how, knowing to pick all of the slightly older or more easily impressed larger ladies, he came and sang at me at one point in Pampoen. We are not amused, young man. Do I look like I own a pantsuit in matching pastel pinks?
There were little prizes to be handed out over the course of the festivities, and ladies, THIS IS WHAT I CAME FOR. I am unwaveringly dedicated to my single-minded materialism, and I'll freely admit that all I want out of life is as much stuff as I can carry. Do I care at all if it's some cheap-ass bath salts that I will never use and that will only sit in my cupboard slowly stinking more and more of patchouli? Not a whit. Gimme. Of course, since I'm sitting there wilfully shoving sugar into my mouth like a slightly slow blight on the collective integrity of the whole room, Murphy saw fit to deny me even the solace of a single citronella candle. My sister won some shower gel or something, which I shall be forced to resent her for for at least the rest of the afternoon.
As I'm sitting there, figuring out how to reach over the lady to my right with the maximum amount of grace in order to kidnap the bowl of little skittles, I'm thinking that I have two problems. At any given time, I am both a) Fat, and b) Hungry. Neither of these are going away any time soon. And I swear if you put a bowl of offal flavoured Lays down in front of me it would take me several handfuls before I even realized my error and deciding 'meh' and reaching for more.
Then, mercifully, after rather a lot of Afrikaans music had happened at me, it seemed to be over. The last of the really big parcels had been awarded to some other bitch sitting at the front table, and all of the chocolate biscuits within reaching distance were gone. I held hands with some complete strangers as Lady MC insisted on praying for a few years ("Aaaand, amen. Ok, amen now. Now."), and the fun was over. Look, really, the whole point of writing about this for any kind of audience of more than 1 is to make it seem worse than it was and the blow shit way out of proportion, so I want it to be genuinely clear that I was actually really flattered that I was asked to go and I my growth has not been stunted at all by the experience. But seriously people, would it kill you to invite me to a Jimmy Carr show every once in a while?
I own cats. In fact, Sheldon would never come visit me for fear of dying immediately after stepping foot through the door, because several cats would immediately shed directly down his throat. To be more exact, there are six cats in the house, of which two are mine exclusively. Two belong to my sister, and another two are sort of house cats. One of those house cats is bat-shittingly insane. She is called Koshka, and her business card would read "I pee and vomit in more inappropriate places by nine AM than most people do all day." My dad has been bravely fighting the urge to murder her violently for years now, and he's running out of bravery. Not only do we wake up each morning to a cheerful game of 'find where that pee smell is coming from', but also (in increasing frequency lately) are we lucky enough to clean up after a grisly murder scene every so often. She's the only cat in the house who takes her bird hunting fucking seriously, and unlike most tame cats you've ever met in your life, she eats her spoils.
If she has perchance supplemented her more than adequate diet sometime during the night, we will wake to find a scarce few feathers arranged in what amounts to a chalk-outline somewhere in the house. Of course, if you've truly been a good girl then Santa will reward you by allowing you to walk in on her still busy chewing the head off some bird that looks like it'll likely turn out to be on some endangered list tomorrow. Here's where it gets worse: she eats everything when she catches a bird. There are really only a few wayward feathers left, but other than that she eats the beak, the feet, the wings and everything she happens across in between. The only thing she leaves behind, is the heart.
I probably should have warned you about that, my bad. And yes, astute readers would note that that is not a heart, but more likely a liver or somesuch. This is not better. Does anyone have any help on why the living holy fuck she would do this? It's creepier than that time "Waking the Witch" started playing just as I was falling asleep listening to some Kate Bush. It's not like she simply eats and eats and then loses interest or decides she's full and the bit she didn't get to just happens to be a heart. It's deliberate, and it's bloody skilful. I mean surgical precision, and it's shorn so close to the organ itself that it begs some questions. My dad suggested today that perhaps she's leaving little sacrifices for her dark demon overlords, and I'm inclined to agree. What the fuck kind of cat leaves a meticulously excised heart behind after slaughtering another animal? I'm starting to fear for my immortal soul when I lay my unsuspecting head down for the night- that bitch knows where I sleep.
Luckily, my two babies and at least one of Estelle's are awesome and then some, so they kind of make up for the mark of evil slinking around the house. Except for those two times that her cat Sabre pooped in my cupboard. And when he comes into my room and steals my packet of kelp pills like all the fucking time, man. That's awkward.
Double rainbow, all the way. My room. Just thought I'd pop that in there cause it's kind of awesome.
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