A Gentle Ribbing

You know when you wake up, and you feel like your ribs are broken on one side of your chest? No? Well neither did I, until two days ago. It was, shall we say, a distinctly uncomfortable experience, especially since I hadn't really done any exercise since the archery, and I was certain that enough time had elapsed for the archery itself to be cleared of any rib-assault. I was still keeping archery in for questioning, but it was obvious that it wasn't my main suspect. (I feel like these police metaphors might not be going anywhere but they're amusing me for the time being)

I have a theory. Actually, I have many theories, but the one I'm focusing on now is of vital importance. I think we could all agree that the world is full of different kinds of people. That's pretty much a given, when you consider all the countries, languages and cultures there are. But I'm talking specifically - one giant divisive line which separates everyone into one camp or another. To find out which you side you're on, please answer the following question - are you:

A) the kind of person who, upon waking to extreme pain on a part of your body that houses quite a lot of your important organs, immediately and sensibly arranges for medical treatment or at the very least tells someone?


or


B) the kind of person who, upon waking to extreme pain on a part of your body that houses quite a lot of your important organs, chooses to not only ignore this pain and hope that it will go away but refuses to even acknowledge it by telling a family member or close friend, all the while assuming it will actually kill you at any point in the next twenty minutes, for as long as said pain lasts?


You've probably figured out by now that I am the latter. In fact, my friends know full well that for any ailment up to and including Bubonic Plague, my answer is always going to be "a good night's sleep will fix that." I was proved right when a good night's sleep did fix the rib issue (pretty much) except for a slight soreness when I laugh. Once my friends and colleagues discovered this, they seemed to really get aboard the comedy train, upping the ratio of laughs-per-minute by a zillion percent (and yes, I calculated that). Consider the following conversation between myself and one of my colleagues from Finance:


Him: Sent to Seafield during lunch. Woman standing outside the Range Rover garage with Power Suit, Power Hair and Power Sunglasses – Obviously never looked in the mirror at her Power Camel-toe!!!...Business Attire FAIL!!!


Me: HA. Oh dear. That should really have been the first thing she checked…


Him: Yup. It should go:

1. Is fanny on display?
2. Handbag?
3. Car keys?

Me: Those whimpering noises you can hear are me trying not to implode with laughter. I mean that in a horribly literal sense.

For those of you reading this in the land of Americana, and in case the cameltoe reference wasn't obvious enough, over here "fanny" does not refer to your ass. Do not google the term "british fanny" at work. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. DO NOT FROLIC. These are the rules.


Casting my mind back, the rib thing could perhaps have been caused by a mammoth guitar session, when I somehow slipped into The Zone and played for so long that all the skin on my already toughened fingertips started to flake off gently, like a gross kind of skin snow. 

Mmm. Festive.

Even Rocky Had A Montage

As you'll know if you read the previous post, my friends and I had planned a day of excitement for Wetsok's birthday. As a rule, the Fleetch and I tend to be on time if arriving at a party individually but if we try to go together we are invariably late. I'm not quite sure why (although there is far more potential for dicking about if both of us are in the flat at the same time and alcohol has been consumed) but in the past we have averaged about a 30 minute delay when trying to get somewhere together, so it was with some surprise that we arrived early at the carvery this morning. Our other friends turned up shortly after, and we tried to catch the eye of a passing waitress so we could start ordering. She ignored us. We tried again with another waitress, who also strode past. It wasn't too busy, but there seemed to be a lot of bustle, so we didn't fuss. Eventually a waitress appeared at our table.

Wetsoks: We have vouchers for the 2 for 1 breakfast.

She pushes forwards the vouchers.

Waitress: Ah, but there's only five of you.

The waitress glances around the table, and her gaze settles on me.

Waitress: Are you...a little one?

Me: (speechless with indignation) .....?!

My friends descended into fits of rapturous delight.

Tanyakit: (giggling) Yes, she is. Do we get some kind of extra discount for her?

Me: (choking) Mffrrrmgh!?!

Waitress: I'm so sorry, I just... I thought you were...younger than the rest....

I sulked. My friends laughed. The waitress looked apologetic.

Fleetch: Do you have, like, a children's special?

Wetsoks: Do you want some crayons, honey?

Me: I hate you guys.

The waitress took our order as fast as she could and scurried off looking slightly ashamed. My friends continued to laugh heartily at my discomfort.

Me: You know what? Laugh it up. Because she must have thought I was your child. Which means one of you looks old.

Wetsoks: (shrugging) I could look old enough to be your mother.

Me: No. No, you couldn't.

Tanyakit: Speaking of children, I was thinking about this the other day - when the zombie apocalypse happens, you should probably be the one to start repopulating.

Me: (in horror) What?

Tanyakit: Well let's face it, you're the youngest and you're quite healthy. Chances are you'd probably survive.

Me: Probably?!

Sarahnator: I can assist with the birth.

Tanyakit: Do you have medical experience?

Sarahnator: I've seen every episode of ER.

Fleetch: Excellent.

Me: (panicked) I'm not birthing children. Now or after the apocalypse. Have you seen my hips? They're narrow. I'm not built for it.

Tanyakit: Pfff, thin women have babies all the time.

Me: It would end up coming out of my stomach, like in Alien. I am not having post-apocalypse children. I'm putting my foot down on that dream right now.

The group sighed in mournful unison for a few moments (trying to guilt me into planning my future offspring after civilisation as we know it comes to an end) and then the restaurant door opened. A family came in, with four children of varying ages.

Wetsoks: Oh, look Otternator, it's your little playdates!

Me: I really hate you guys.

We had much hilarity on our archery/air rifle/paintball/axe-throwing course, and while I am happy (and surprised) to note that we all came back with our limbs, we did sustain a few bruises along the way. I won't bore you with the details, but I drew a picture that will hopefully capture the mood (yes, they actually got me crayons at dinner, much to the confusion of the staff, because I'm friends with the kind of people who think it is the height of hilarity to do things like that, and I absolutely love them for it).

Here is my artistic interpretation of the day's events, in crayon

 And here is the Fleetch's artistic representation of the day's events, dedicated to me:

We may have differing views on what the day was supposed to be about.

The Empire Needs You

My lovely friend Wetsoks has a birthday coming up on Saturday, so I decided to write this post in her honour. Our group of friends have planned an entire day of fun, which naturally caters to her tastes - these tend to towards Mexican food and dangerous activities, so I'm looking forward to this with quite a lot of excitement. We had an email conversation during the week which was as follows:

Sarahnator: So we're meeting for breakfast, then going for the archery/axe-throwing lesson, then to the hospital to bandage up the wounds one or more of us will have managed to obtain, then dinner, then drinks at Tanyakit and Otternator's flat. Is everyone OK with this?

Me: Dontcha mean Fleetch and Otternator's flat? Unless they switched without me knowing. Also, don't you wish your otter was hot like me? Don't you wish your otter was a freak like me? DONTCHA?

Wetsoks: And at some point, one of you will take your shirt off for my entertainment, right? It is my birthday after all.

There was a long, pressing silence, devoid of emails.

Me: Everyone quit looking at me. Teamwork, people. Teamwork.

Tanyakit: I'm fairly certain that Wetsoks lost her take-your-shirt-off privileges when she suggested some Yo Momma comment you made was too far.

Me: That is an excellent point. And one I fear you may pay for dearly at home, when your bedroom is suddenly and inexplicably infested with "kittens".

Tanyakit: Speaking of those buggers, there's a little "kitten" on my ceiling. I noticed it before I left on Friday, but I couldn't reach it.

Fleetch: You need the hoover, dude. Just suck those "kittens" up next time they wander into your house. No need to gather them up in a cup and toss them out of the window, or flush their remains after you mash them against the wall.

Me: I really hope no one from IT is reading these emails. Out of context we sound terrifying.

Fleetch: Yo momma sounds terrifying.

Wetsoks: Sociopathic, indeed.

Fleetch: Or just bizarrely angry at "kittens".

Me: This needs to go into our script, Fleetch. I can see it now - we'll need one conversation to explain it, and then later while someone is on the phone, in say a restaurant, or waiting in line for a sandwich, they'll have a whispered conversation; "Margaret, I don't... No, I can't come over. I told you why...Listen, I don't care if the "kitten" is looking at you! Just kill it with your shoe or something."

Fleetch: Totally. "Just try not to get its guts all over the wall like last time".

Me: And then the camera zooms out and the entire line of people are staring in horror at the person on the phone.

Wetsoks: Disturbing.

Me: Yo momma is disturbing. In bed.


And on that note - Happy Birthday, dude. We love you.

Thundercats: Ho's

The Fleetch and I were talking about a friend of a friend recently, who happens to be one of the most beautiful women I've ever had the fortune to meet in real  life. It helps that she is exceedingly nice, intelligent and funny, but mostly it's about her perfect face. My god, her perfect face. The conversation was as follows:

Fleetch: She is so PERFECT.

Me: Isn't she?

There was a dreamy, happy silence as we both contemplated this idea.

Fleetch: I feel like nothing next to her. In a kind of "you are a goddess made flesh, and I am a mere mortal unworthy to look upon you."

Me: Agreed. She's quite close to being the actual perfect woman.

Fleetch: Totally. Except... I don't know. I'd want the perfect woman to be a bit more...violent.

Me: Violent?!

Fleetch: Well no. I mean, I want her to be able to kill dinner for me.

Me: I guess I see the appeal. As long as she was also super girly. Sort of like Buffy, except actually like Faith.

Fleetch: Right? Just something a little more aggressive, animalistic. That would be my perfect woman.

Me: Body of a woman, mind of...of....a CHEETAH!

Fleetch: A fucking what?

I am now giggling too hard to be able to converse like a normal, sane person.

Fleetch: (in amazement) Did you really just say 'mind of a cheetah'?

Me: (wheezing) It just came to me!

Fleetch: Dude. That's genius.

We spent the next few minutes in complete hysterics, imagining a cheetah-woman hybrid roaming at will around the flat, stealing from the fridge, growling from her perch on the top of the door and generally mangling our soft, unprotected human flesh (the Fleetch has this theory that humans are nature's marshmallows, and I must say it's a convincing argument).

Fleetch: No, seriously. I see what you mean. Huh. Mind of a cheetah. Who'd have thought?

Me: It's actually an obvious choice, when you think about it. After all, the Thundercats had Cheetara.

Fleetch: Excellent point.

The Teaches of Fleetches

The Fleetch and I journeyed a long distance yesterday evening, all the way to the fair city of Glasgow, to meet my friend Hot Emma (her official title, and it is well deserved). We'd all bought tickets to see the fantastic Peaches DJing at a local club, and it was an excellent night. For those of you who don't know Peaches, this is a little taster of her music and is in fact my favourite song of hers.

We decided that the teaches of Fleetches are like also very much like sex on the beaches. Huh. What? On a slightly related note, the Fleetch and I had the following conversation earlier in the week:

Me: You know what I really like? Rum.

Fleetch: That's very pirate-y of you.

Me: I know, right?

There is a brief silence.

Me: By the way, we're out of rum.

Fleetch: (eyeing me suspiciously) Are the two things related?

Me: I refuse to address such accusations. Much like I imagine a pirate would.

Fleetch: You know, we should really start making Fleetch-related cocktails at home.

Me: That is a genius idea. Like a "Fleetch On the Beach", or a "Fleetchito".

Fleetch: A "Strawberry Daiqufleetch". Oh, wait - a "Fleetchmopolitan"!

Peaches performed a brilliant set which had the entire crowd dancing and throwing themselves around like toddlers on a sugar high. She wore what I can only really describe as a 'boob dress' - literally, a dress with enormous breasticles sown on - as seen here:

Peaches also ensured that the crowd remained sticky throughout the night by spraying us with champagne and beer, held between her legs in a rather suggestive manner. After the bus dropped us back in Edinburgh, we walked home. On the way I saw a constructive digger, looming all shiny and alone in the darkness, so I dared the Fleetch to ride it, which she did without a moment's hesitation.

Young man! There's no need to feel down!

Found Down The Back Of The Internet

I adore modern technology. I love the convenience my smartphone affords me; when I'm lost, I can instantly check my location on Google Maps, when I need to know the real-time bus timetable for the stop I'm standing at, and when I want to find out what song is playing in the pub, I can use an app which will not only tell me the artist and song title, but also allows me to look up lyrics and immediately purchase the song if I should wish to do so.

A large part of this infatuation I have with technology boils down to the fact that I love the internet. I'm not ashamed to say it. The internet has brought me so much joy in the form of blogs, pictures, videos of anything and everything (including, in a couple of cases, some videos I wish I'd never laid eyes on and which may haunt me for the rest of my life, but every relationship has its flaws). So with this in mind, I decided to make this post in the form of an offering to the Internet Lord, may he live forever.

Firstly, I'd like to present this video of the Angry Birds Peace Negotiations, which is a sketch from an Israeli comedy show I'd never heard of before. It is incredibly funny even if you haven't actually played Angry Birds - and if you haven't, all you really need to know is that the pigs stole the birds' eggs, and in revenge the birds now hurtle themselves (using catapults) at the pigs' fortress, guided by the player. It really is as weird as that, and yet I find it curiously addicting. This video contains phrases you may repeat for months afterwards.

There is also this little gem, in the form of a video I have watched many times over, which is the introductory song to the Disney classic 'Beauty and the Beast' if it was sung by a West Hollywood Gay. Again, this one has a catchphrase which my friends have seized upon, much to my amusement, and several cleverly parodied lyrics (my current favourite is "fat bitch, with kids, she can't afford them"). Feast your ears upon on it.

http://www.autostraddle.com/beauty-the-beast-west-hollywood-gay-109596/

My friends and I have recently decided to go to Malta for a short holiday before the Fleetch leaves forever and returns to her homeland (possibly to settle down, mate and raise young Fleetches) which has spawned the 300 joke reference "This. Is. MALTA!" I'm going to make it a hashtag now, because any prolonged period of time with my friends inevitably has mild side effects - chaos, drunkenness and an urge to blog about every hilarious conversation.

This.
Is.
OTTER!

The League of Extraordinary Shark Knights

I mentioned the Shark Knight joke in a previous post, but for those of you who didn't read that (shame on you, it was a pretty good one) I'll explain. My friends and I went to see a film called Shark Night 3D at the cinema a couple of weeks ago, and the general consensus was that it was awful. It's not like we expected it to be great, after all it was essentially a B-movie plot ramped up to suit the summer blockbuster needs of the masses, but it had been described as a combination of 'Saw' and 'Jaws' which sounded good but in fact was a great big pants-on-fire lie. The Fleetch decided that Shark Knights would have been a better title, and went off for some time on a tangent about how sharks would ride elephants in jousting tournaments (the physical handicaps sharks face in having fins and not hands with which to hold the lances was breezily brushed over and ignored). So when one of my friends spotted a local job advertisement for a position as Panda Team Leader at Edinburgh Zoo, the following email conversation occurred. I have put it in conversational form because it is easier on the eye this way, and dare I say, snappier.


The Sarahnator:I want to have a team of giant pandas. With this team I will rule the world.


Me: Ah but remember your arch-enemies, the villainous league of Shark Knights who ride their death elephants o'er the lands of man. 

Fleetch: Yeah, I would ride through with my great white sharks on elephants and trample your giant panda team. Sorry.

The Sarahnator: Ah but you forget, my giant pandas are riding on giant rhinos and are quite unbeatable.

Fleetch:  My elephants wear crocodiles like slippers on their front stumpy legs, and have manes of various poisonous snakes. Your rhinos are about to get SERVED.

The Sarahnator: My rhinos are steampunk zombies and have no fear of crocodiles or snakes. 

Me: Are the rhinos wearing Victorian period garb? Wait, no, that would only hinder them in battle.


Fleetch: I also have a Trogdor.


Me: Trogdor!


Fleetch: TROGDOOOOOOOR!


Me: Trogdor was a man.


Fleetch: He was a dragon man.


Me: Actually, he was just a dragon. But he was still TROGDOR!


If you've never heard of Trogdor, I urge you to watch this video now. It is a hilarious clip from the cartoon Strongbad, and a genius song.

Blending Into The Background

I mentioned the vegetable box in the last post (the one where the Fleetch and I put zombie makeup on just for fun, much to the bewilderment of our neighbours, especially when we had to take the trash out) - it was fantastic because there was so much of it, but at the same time there was SO MUCH OF IT. I bought a blender on Monday after convincing myself that by liquifying the fruit and vegetables, I would be able to reduce the physical mass and there would be the added bonus of tricking my body into accepting more vitamins than it has had since I was about 7. I made a delicious smoothie from grapes, apple, banana and orange/mango juice, and then in typical otter fashion, I counteracted a lot of the healthy goodness by adding alcohol. Mischief knows no bounds. Funnily enough when I called my mother for our weekly chat, we had the following conversation:

Me: So, I bought a blender.

Mum: Oh, good. So you'll make smoothies and things?

Me: Yes, the Fleetch and I made some already.

(There is a brief pause)

Mum: You should probably add something to that.

Me: Way ahead of you, Mum.

Mum: Vodka?

Me: Peach schnapps.

Mum: That's my girl.

However, a problem arose when the Fleetch and I decided to invite our friends round yesterday evening. We expected the second vegetable box to arrive in the afternoon, so we had offered to cook a nice homemade healthy meal for all six of us, plus special ice cream smoothies. While I was waiting for the vegetable box to arrive, I wandered into the kitchen and considered making a breakfast smoothie for myself, but as I looked around, I noticed a crucial part of the blender was missing. I could see the two blending cups and two lids, but not the attached spinny thing (I'm using the technical terms straight from the manual, obviously). I figured the Fleetch must have absent mindedly tidied it away, so I looked for it. It wasn't in the drawers, or the cupboards, or the sink, or the dishwasher. I searched the kitchen for over an hour, muttering in confusion to myself, and couldn't find the spinny thing. Even the discovery of a banana note didn't help my mood (the Fleetch had drawn what I later discovered were jellyfish on it for some reason known only to her, but what I first assumed to be coconuts on fire). Eventually, the Fleetch came home.

Me: Dude. I can't find the attached spinny thing for the blender.

Fleetch: You're kidding! I looked for it yesterday and couldn't find it either

Me: The other problem is, the vegetable box never arrived.

Fleetch: So what you're saying is, we have four people coming over for dinner and we promised them two things, neither of which are happening now?

Me:.... Pretty much.

Fleetch. ......Dayum.

Me:..... Yeah.

Fleetch: Well, look. It must be  here somewhere, right? It's not like we'd have taken it out of the flat.

Me: Or out of the kitchen. That doesn't even make sense.

We searched for the spinny thing for the next hour, while our guests arrived and sat around growing hungrier and drunker. We moved the washing machine. The Fleetch took a knife to the back of the kitchen sink cabinet to see if anything had fallen down there. We checked the hall, our bedrooms, the living room, even followed the cats around accusing them of stealing the spinny thing. Eventually, wearied by the search, I met the Fleetch in the kitchen.

Me: Dude. I think we have to give up.

Fleetch: No! We will NEVER give up!

Me: I think you've gone blender-crazy. You have to let it go.

Fleetch: (poking at the blender) It's just that it must be here somewh-........Oh. Oh, crap.

Me: What?

There is a long, horrible silence, while she holds up the spinny thing, which has been attached to the blender the entire time and we make desperate, we-are-such-idiots eyes at each other.

Me: (whispering) Let's just say we found it.

Fleetch: (whispering) Okay.

Me: We'll be heroes. No one has to know.

Fleetch: Yeah right, like you're not going to blog about this.

Me: True dat.

Night Of The Fleetching Dead

I really love Halloween. It's probably my favourite holiday - don't get me wrong, Christmas is fun but doesn't involve dressing up in the same way, and don't even get me started on how Easter makes no sense whatsoever. Luckily the Fleetch does too, and is happy to indulge my odd habits. A couple of weeks ago, I bought some facepaints, studied some of the zombie images Google provided and set to work on some of my friends during our 'zombie party' (which involved zombie video games, related food and  for some reason, the Formula One qualifiers, because zombies and racecars go hand in hand)

I staggered out of my bedroom on Saturday morning. The Fleetch was waiting.

Fleetch: Hey.

Me: (makes a moan that only vaguely resembles a greeting)

Fleetch: Uh huh. Hey, have you been in the kitchen yet?

Me: (fighting the retching instinct at the thought of going near any kind of food) No, why?

Fleetch: The vegetable box arrived. It's huge.

What she possibly should have said was "the vegetable crate", because good lord, the mass of produce we have amount to possibly more fruit and vegetables than I've ever eaten in my life. We stood around for a while, hungover, staring at the crate.

Fleetch: There's also meat in the fridge. The pack of beef we have is almost the size of my head.

Me: What the hell are we going to do with all of this?

There was a brief pause.

Fleetch: Let's put on zombie makeup tomorrow and get drunk and cook it.

Me: Naturally.

And so we did.

As an ode to My Drunk Kitchen (if you've never seen it on YouTube, I recommend it highly - essentially the clue is in the name), we've named this night My Dead Drunk Kitchen. Long may it continue.

Uninvited Houseguests

My friends and I had planned a lovely evening on Friday - we'd booked a table at a local Chinese restaurant, we'd got tickets to see Shark Night at the cinema (which spawned a whole hilarious email thread in itself when the Fleetch started insisting that Shark Knight would have been a better title, and the plot would have involved sharks riding elephants in a jousting tournament) and then we were planning to head out to the local bars/clubs and paint the town otterstyle. During dinner, the following conversation happened, and it was a perfect blogging moment, despite the fact that it ruined my appetite completely.

Tanyakit: So, we have a third flatmate.

Wetsoks: Yeah, and I hate it.

Fleetch: Oh, really? Another one?

Me: (bewildered) What? You have another flatmate?

Tanyakit: It's a big one.

Me: A big what?

Wetsoks: Spider.

Me: (horrified) Oh.

Wetsoks: It's living in our bathroom.

Tanyakit: (to the Fleetch) So, could you possibly come round and dispose of it?

Fleetch: How bad is it? Can't you do it yourself?

Tanyakit: Let's just say that it's such a big spider, if I wanted to take a bath I wouldn't need a plug.

Me: (turning slightly green) Guys-

Tanyakit; No, seriously, I've been showering at the gym. We're afraid of it.

Me: (putting my fork down) Could you at least substitute the word 'spider' for something that won't put me off my food?

Wetsoks: What, like 'kitten'?

Me: Um...

Wetsoks: So, Fleetch, I tried to drown the 'kitten' in the bathtub, but it was too big to fit down the plughole. The 'kitten' just won't die.

Me: This is oddly not helping as much as I thought it would.

Fleetch: (heaving a sigh) Fine, fine, I'll come round and kill the 'kitten'.

Tanyakit: It's just awful. It sits there, looking at you with its horrible, big (she catches my eye)... um, 'kitten' eyes, and it has these really long (she catches my eye again) ... adorable fuzzy legs?

Me: Can't you trap it under a cup or something?

Wetsoks: (darkly) It's too big for a cup.

Me: Okay. I'm done eating. and I'm not coming round again til that 'kitten' is gone.