Thursday 27 February 2014

A Latte Trouble

I dropped into the Sloth's workplace today to say hello on my journey to my own workplace, and to get a coffee. When I got on the bus, holding my lidded beverage in full view of the driver, he chose to bark brusquely at me - "I'm going to ignore that coffee!"

I chose not to respond to this, but it wasn't until I'd sat down that I realised how ridiculous a statement that really was. I relayed the conversation to my friend Wetsoks as follows:

Me: It's stupid. You can't ignore something you acknowledged in the first place. By his own admission he already failed. Who wins here? Me. Because I have coffee.

Wetsoks: (horrified) You can't take drinks on the bus!

Me: Your tone suggests I've done something much worse, like strangling baby animals or something. It's just coffee. I'm a grown woman, I can handle a lidded beverage without spilling, and even if I do spill, I make sure to spill on myself. Like an adult.

Wetsoks: But those are the RULES on the pictographs on the bus! You can't just break rules like that!

Me: Dude, you were in prison. I'm finding this adherence to rules both hypocritical and hilarious.

Wetsoks: Yeah but... only because I told on myself.

Me: Which is commendable. In fairness, not that I am comparing your prison sentence with me being chastised by a bus driver, I was holding my coffee in full view. He could have said no and ordered me off the bus, and that would have been fine. I just won't stand for this passive aggressive bullshit.

Wetsoks: Lol. Really?

Me: Yes. I'm the long run I'm helping him to Be Assertive, or at least Not A Coffee-Hating Prick.

Wetsoks: I see.

Monday 10 February 2014

Can't Hug Every Cat


As you may or may not know, the Sloth and I have two cats. Roland is large, grey and emits fluff as if it is his second goal in life - his first being to have his mouth full of food at every available opportunity (and the word 'food' can encompass almost anything, edible or not). The second cat is called Mr Giles. He is small, black with a white tuxedo, and has permanently huge cracked-out eyes with giant pupils. He is easily startled but extremely cuddly and his favourite hobbies include headbutting unwarned guests with clumsy affection. He does not understand word/phrases like 'no' and 'ouch' and 'help, your claw has gone right through my skin and feels like it is severing a tendon'.

They are adorable and endlessly entertaining creatures. When Sloth arrived home from work the other day, I greeted her as follows:

Me: Hello darling. Would you like to hear a list of things your cat has been afraid of today?

Sloth: Shouldn't it be your cat, or our cat? How come he's my cat when he's being a prat?

Me: No. As I was saying, things Giles was afraid of today: the bin opening. The bin closing. Briefly, the sound of my slippers on the floor, which he was not afraid of yesterday and has, in the last hour or so, forgotten to be afraid of. The sound of Roland moving on the couch.

Sloth: (mouth twitching)

Me: There's more. He was also afraid of the shininess of the packet of wet food I opened for him, which he actually ran away from with a terror-stricken expression. I actually had to coax him back into the kitchen.

Sloth: (trying desperately not to laugh)

Me: Meanwhile, Roland has played fetch with a piece of wire all day and been relatively good except when he couldn't find it, and decided the best way to remedy that was to howl with misery at me until I located it for him. Which took a while. I ended up on my hands and knees, crawling around the living room. By the time I had found it, he was asleep again.

Sloth: So, a good day then?

Me: Could have been worse.