I Forgot What I Came In For.

I had a plan this morning ... something I wanted to write about; something I though you might like to know.
But I'll be damned if I can remember what it was.

Anyway ....

Here in 'Blighty' ... well,Wales ... we have been blessed with a lengthy period of sunshine and temperatures that are, for want of a better word, freakish for this time of year.

There have been no April showers ... or down-pours as we like to refer to them ... and there have been no high winds and gales, such as the ones that wrecked our garden fence a few years back.

Yes, we have been well and truly blessed weather-wise.

The young folks are out strutting their stuff on the streets and in the parks; T-shirtless men displaying their muscles and scantily clad young ladies displaying more flesh than 'grandma' ever knew she had.

The sunshine certainly brings out enough to ogle-material for both sexes to enjoy.

However I have no interest in getting a tan ... my skin darkens under a 40watt light bulb anyway ... and I'm not one for displaying my 'wares' to all and sundry, so my shirts stay where they are put ... on my back.

I'm not averse to the occasional semi-naked young lady crossing my path though and, I have to admit, my eyes have popped once or twice at the sight of some voluptuous beauty or other.  I am human, after all.

Oh, by the way ... William and Kate are to be married today.

I would just like to say that I, along with about 75% of the nation, am not at all interested in their wedding.  In fact I have already had a belly-full of 'The Royal Wedding'.  That is all we hear about these days.

Perhaps, only perhaps, if the media hadn't rammed it down our throats for weeks I would be a little more interested watching their 'big day' on TV, but to be honest I'd rather work.

I wish them well, of course, but I have more pressing issues to deal with ... questions to answer.

Such as ...

• Why don't horse riders carry bags to pick up their horse's poo?
• Why do fat people (I'm not 'fat-ist') always think there is enough room in a narrow doorway for them and us then attempt to squeeze their way through?
• Why are people with the best university education always the biggest idiots?

Not exactly philosophical conundrum's, I know, but they keep me busy.

Ah!  Now I remember what I was going to tell you about ... my haircut!

Sadly though, I don't have time now.  It's a 'bank holiday' ... that means I have to work!

See you soon.

Ted Nugent

I don't use tapes in my car (does anyone these day's?). The thought of them tangled up in the innards of my cassette player - which I don't have any more anyway - scares me.

That is why when I found a tape with the hand written label "Ted Nugent: Cat Scratch Fever, etc." I slapped it into the cassette deck in the study and recorded it onto CD straight away.

 There's nothing like a bit of a head-banging session whilst on my client-hopping round's
 
I was stunned and severely disappointed when this (minus video, of course) was all that I got...

The next time I find a tape that I want to copy onto CD, I'll check it's contents before wasting my time.

Homer & Marge (Part Five): End Game

The door revolved!

Homer and Marge walked into the foyer of the Knuckleville Community Hospital ... well, Homer 'walked' and Marge 'waddled'.

"C'mon Marge.  Get your ass in gear, will ya!" moaned Homer.

"This bag is heavy, Homer, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm about to give birth" said an exasperated Marge who's patience was wearing as thin as the authors hair.

"Keep it corked, babe. I'll get you some help" said Homer as he scanned the hospitals reception area.

A young lady in a pale blue uniform approached him and said "Hi!  I'm Lyssandra; two S's; and I'm a Knuckleville Blue Bunny volunteer ... ". She pointed at the badge on her lapel. "... and I bake cookies on Tuesdays, run a painting class on Wednesdays and push folks around in chairs on Fridays. How can I be of service?"

"It's a Saturday!" said Homer.

"Yeah, I was bored.  Wad'ya want me t'do?" she replied

"My wife's gonna have a baby any minute now. She's alread pee'd herself ... "

"My water's broke, you idiot!"

" ... yeah, that too!" said Homer. "Get her a wheelchair and point us in the direction of the baby-thingy-place, will ya".

Lyssandra leant to her left and looked around Homer at Marge.  "Whoa!" she said.  "That's one big momma!  Be right back".

She scuttled across the tiled floor towards a the cafe area.  Grabbing the handles of an occupied wheelchair,  tipped out the occupant - "Make way for the new generation Grandma!" -  then hurried back to Homer and Marge.

"Your carriage, M'lady!" she said as Marge eased her bulk into the chair.  "The maternity suites are this way."

She pushed Marge across the foyer towards the lifts. "Gangway!  She's gonna blow any second now!" she yelled.

"Great!" sighed Marge as she was propelled at high-speed through the foyer. "That's all I need.  A moronic husband and a speed junkie volunteer!"

"Hun!  You forgot your bag!" said Homer.

"You ... you ...  I hate you Homer!" she screamed as she disappeared into a lift.

"What? What have I done?" managed a shocked Homer. He picked up the bagand gave chase.

...

Doors opening. Children's ward, Maternity and the place for expectant father's to pace up and down in. said the lift as it arrived on the fourth floor.

"Gnnnnnngggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" said Marge. "OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodit'scomingnowwwww"!

Marge's wheelchair was snatched by a nurse and she was rushed away into the nearest delivery room. "Doctor's already on his way, deary. He ain't dropped a pass yet! You're in good hands now." she said.

"Aaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhhh you bastard Homer!" said Marge.

A few seconds later, the stairwell door burst open and Homer gasped his way to where Lyssandra stood.

"Dammit!  Couldn't you have held the door?" he panted.

"Sure" said Lyssandra. "But your wife said if I did, she'd rip my heart out, so ... hey-ho! What's a volunteer to do?"

...

Homer paced up and down in the place for expectant father's to pace up and down in, cursing the fact that Marge had banned him from the delivery room.

"She said if I let 'that bastard' in after what you've done to her, she'd kill me!, so ... as I'm to young to die ... you have to stay out here and wait!" the nurse had told him.

For over an hour he'd listened to Marge's screams, insinuations as to his parentage and threats towards him echo down the hall.  Nurses gave him dirty looks, shook their heads and issued tut's in his direction which quite clearly expressed their disgust.

Then there was silence.

Out of the delivery room stepped the doctor.  He approached Homer and said "Congratulations!  It's healthy baby girl."

Homer awoke 30 minutes later on a trolley next to his wife's bed. His nose was covered by a large dressing. Marge was holding their new baby.

"Wha... what happened?" he managed.

"Sorry Homer!" said Marge. "I told the doctor to punch you on the nose for causing me all that pain.  I didn't think he'd actually do it".

"Is that her? Is that our baby girl?"

"Ain't she cute?"

"She's so small" he said softly.

Homer and Marge looked around.

"So!" said Marge.  "Is that it? Are we finished now?"

"Reckon so" said Homer. "Story's over.  Fini!"

"You'd better go and collect the kids from the movies, Homer".

"Sure.  As long as we're finished here. Er ... Marge?  They've been there nine months.  D'ya think I'll recognise them?"

"Er ..." said Marge.

The author reached up and gripped the upper edge of his laptop's screen. With a tear in his eye ... dust, probably ... he pulled it down and closed his final chapter.

Smelly Bubbles

This takes me back.

I was reminded of the following story after reading "Thanks for thinking of me, Rosie" by SherilinR.

It happened a few years ago and somehow got shuffled to the back of my mind.
......

The Pre-amble.

There are many kinds of farts.

There are wet ones and dry ones; silent ones that kill and raspy ones that merely bludgeon; squeaky ones and ones that go'BLART'; there are whistlers, hisser's, popper's and phut-er's.

I have named but a few but there are many, many more that people just don't seem willing to talk about.

At some time or other, we have all send a shock wave reverberating through a sofa, causing innocents in the vicinity to 'ride the ripples', as it were, and to scatter for the safety of another place to rest their bum. I am pretty confident that when I say 'we are been guilty of having cleared a room after an ill judged expulsion' that I am one hundred percent correct.

The Topic.

Farting! Yes, well done if you had already guessed the subject of today's short prose.

I would like to invite you now, as I have done previously, to accompany me on a short jaunt into the past ... two years ago almost ... and re-visit with me a young man, who through no fault of his own, could not look after himself or carry out the most basic personal functions.

I would like to point out that he was not a client of mine and on this occasion I was only helping his elderly father clean him up after an 'accident' as a favour.

So, we have established that the young chap had had an 'accident'. This accident was brown and smelly.

His father couldn't do much as he was also disabled so, ever the hero, I volunteered to clean his son (who we will call John for the purpose of this tale) and dress him in clean clothes.

So ... I stripped him off and began cleaning. Rubber gloves, wet-wipes and tissues used aplenty.

His bottom was washed and thoroughly dried and as I applied a thin layer of talc I heard a rumbling emanating from John's stomach.

I was fairly close to his lower regions at this time as, in addition to cleaning him, I had to support his legs.

I was also unable to move myself rapidly from the vicinity as to prevent harm coming to John in the process.

I would like now to introduce you to an anomaly seldom witnessed by man or beast ... the bubble-fart!

He let rip!

There was a hissing noise and the sound of more gut rumblings as slowly ... from my perspective, very slowly ... a brown bubble began to emerge from John's bottom!

Like chocolate bubble-gum emerging from a child's mouth, the bubble grew and grew.

John's father could only laugh at my predicament. There I was ... facing this ever growing bubble that I just knew would burst and engulf me in a cloud of gas that would be deemed illegal by the Geneva Convention, not to mention the brown stuff.

And burst it did!

It went 'pop' ... literally!

His thighs were liberally spattered with a thin layer of poo and an odour much akin to that of brussel sprouts and BBQ sauce hit me with full force.

I almost lost my eyebrows but I was spared the mini poo shower that I feared!

John's father erupted into guffaws of delight. Tears streamed down his face as I strained to create as much distance between myself and John's disgusting orifice as possible.

Tears also came to my eyes ... but I sure as hell wasn't laughing!

That was my first, and luckily my only encounter with a bubble fart to date.

I do not want to experience one ever again

I've Aged! What A Bummer!

It's broken!

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

My 'mojo', if indeed I ever had one, is broken.

My mirror doesn't lie and it's telling me all sort of nasty things.

It says "You've got ... puffy eyes / no hair / jowls / fat / old!" and I hate it.

Yes, I know.  I can hear you all chorusing "Noooooooo!  You are still the handsome (short) hunk you always were", but I must unfortunately agree with my mirror.

It's a damned shame really, because in my mind I'm still that sweet, innocent seventeen year old that went away to join the army ... I still have a childish sense of humour and delight in the misfortune (as long as it isn't serious) of other's.

So why does my body do this to me?

I'm sooooooo intend to replace my mirrors with life size photographs of me as a teenager.

Yours

The fed up Daddy of the Sym

The Longest Week

Work has been a little much of late. Two seventy-two hour weeks followed by last weeks fifty-four.

This week I'm scheduled for about fifty-eight but ... wait for it ... I'm getting the weekend off!!!

Well, most of it anyway.

My new rota arrived (for this week) on Friday morning. Low and behold ... I was scheduled for another seven days.

I phoned up the office...

"OK! Very funny. Now where's my real rota for next week"

"Eh?"

"There is no way I'm working another full week."

"Who is this?"

In my haste to complain I had forgotten to tell them who I was.

"It's George"

"Hello dahlin"

"Don't you 'dahlin' me."

"What's the matter my love?"

They only talk to me that way when they are trying to placate me. It doesn't work. I'm (mumble-mumble) years old and don't want some slip of a girl calling me 'dahlin' and 'love' unless the circumstances call for it (you know what I mean, wink-wink [don't tell my wife I said that]).

I proceeded to rant about my rota for the coming week and 'slip of a girl' continued to say there was nothing they could do as so many people were off sick or on leave.

Frustrated I just said "Sort it out" and hung up.

Within the hour I received a call from the office. This time there was no 'dahlin', 'love' or any kind of attempt to sweet-talk me.

A voice just said "We've covered your Saturday call's and most of your Sunday call's too. Only one call on Sunday, but it's not far from you anyway. That all right?"

Without much ado, or waiting for my answer, she hung up.

And there you have it!

Saturday off. Sunday just one call.

Pretty much as near as you can get to a 'weekend off' in this business.

After two hundred and fifty-six hours (not including driving time) work I can now look forward to a weekend off in which to mow the lawn, pull up weeds, cut the hedge, repair the shed, tidy up the flower beds (if I can find them) and go shopping.

The thought of all those relaxing activities will keep me going though the rest of the week.

Homer & Marge (Part Four)

Usually I would allow The Mad Lady the honour of posting this (to be honest I forgot about it until this morning) but she is a busy lady and does have her 'bump' to contend with.



The fridge door slammed.

Homer woke up and rolled over in bed, falling into the depression that had been left by the bloated body of his heavily pregnant, and absent, wife.

Hauling himself out of the crater wasn't easy as the memory foam mattress was trying desperately to recover it's shape now that Marge was no longer on it. That was one mattress suffering some pretty severe memory loss!

There was a sucking sound,  like a rubber boot being pulled out of mud, as he finally dragged himself out.
"God-damn woman!" he moaned.

Downstairs there was a clanking of pots and pans.  Homer looked at the clock. It was 3am.

Half asleep, he lurched down the stairs and into the kitchen. "What the hell d'ya think you're doing? D'ya know what time it is?" he growled.

"'m'ungry!" said Marge with a full mouth. "Made mythelf a ham and pineapple piztha with exthtra anchovies".

Homer's bleary eyes scanned the scene in front of him. He flicked some spat-out pizza off his chest.
"I take it that the pizza is somewhere under the ice-cream and chocolate sprinkles?" he hazarded.

"No, they're under the sponge pudding, which is under the ice-cream and sprinkles" said Marge.  "I was hungry and it's all you fault, Mister Can't-Keep-IT-In-His-Pants!  Because of you I look like a Zeppelin, my back is killing me and I have to walk like a duck.  If that ain't enough, I have cravings! CRAVINGS! I haven't had a craving since I met Mister Crawford, my high-school drama teacher.  Hehehehehe! Boy, did I crave!"

"That is disgusting! I think I might throw up!" said Homer as he sat on stool at the breakfast bar and scratched his head. "You know you'll wake the kids with all the racket you're making, don't ya?"

Marge turned and looked off the page and said "No I won't!  Tell him Mister Author."

They went to the movies some time ago.

"And?" barked Marge.

'I forgot to write that you went to collect them'.

"So?"

'So they are, er ... technically that is ... still at the movies!'

"Ta-dah!  Case closed! Kidless!"

Homer, who was idly scratching the cause of Marge's current physical condition and looking slightly confused said "Who you talking to?"

"No one of any importance." came Marge's smug reply. Another slice of her pizza was pushed into her mouth whole.

"Marge?" said Homer.

"Yeth, Oh pain in my ath?"

Homer's stomach rumbled. "I reckon, y'know, if'n I closed my eyes, I reckon just maybe I could manage a little slice of pizza".

"Dream on Mithter Drippy-Wing-Wang*!"





* Wing-Wang = the name given to the male appendage, and action thereof, when said male runs in the nude.

I Used To Be Talented? Did I?

I sat and read blog's (properly) for the first time in weeks yesterday.

I thought reading the writings of others would inspire me to write something of my own ... it didn't!

Now please don't go away thinking that I thought that what I'd read was drivel.  That's not it at all.
In fact most of what I read was as funny or informative, as I'd expected it to be.  It's just that yesterday my mind was not firing on all cylinders (friends would argue it never did).  I had trouble stringing sentences together in conversation, so writing anything of interest for my blog was just not going to happen.

Yes folk, it is exceptionally arid around the proximity of my brain these days.

So I put my mind to something simpler ... I designed an adjustable fly screen system which can be inserted into any open window or door and I even knocked up a prototype ... but I digress...

In my other blog (Four Paws Animal Rescue) I don't have to think too hard. The stories that appear there happen and I just pick up the thread (and more often than not, the text) from whoever it happened to.
After that, it's a simple case of presentation, publishing twittering and facebook-ing.

It basically runs on the 'steam' of others and all I do is make it look nice.

Yesterday, as I read blog's and looked at the comments made, I yearned for the days when I was capable of  kicking out witticism after witticism (some may disagree), stir in a few vaguely but badly disguised insults (thank you for the threatening emails), and generally make a nuisance of myself (as my mother always said I did). 

But I am in the doldrums ... stationary in a sea of sea-y stuff  ... and I can't think of a blasted thing to write about.

This?

This isn't writing!

It's moaning!

I am bemoaning my own (temporary I hope) lack of imagination and talent and lamenting the departure of my 'stay-up-at-all-hours' blogging drive.

Overworked, under paid and now robbed of that small amount of creative ability which once entertained people in their thousands ... OK, in their tens ... by an employer that thinks 'private lives' are only for the privileged few.

I don't know what will become of me, having fallen so low, but just in case I'm finding out the locations of all the soup-kitchens and free park benches in Cardiff, stocking up on anti-depressants and I've started a potato vodka still in the garage.

Let's hope it's enough.

Yours sinking fast

The Daddy of The Sym

 

Another Week Draws To A Close

Today's side-order of rain has given me a good excuse not to mow the lawn.  Soggy gardens and a little bit of rain has never stopped me using the petrol mower before, but today it's an excuse that will have to do.

Just in case 'the wife' has other idea's, I've hidden the can of petrol.

My working week is drawing to a close and the new one is already looming!

All in all though, I've had a good, but busy week. Everything has gone smoothly and there have been no problems of any significance. Although my day is technically not over as I have one more call to make.

The gentleman who still awaits my visit is very concerned whenever I see him.

If I do my job ... he doesn't like it!

If I don't do my job ... he doesn't like it!

Ok ... so really, he just doesn't like his situation and lets his frustration out on me and my colleague (double handed call due to the client's infirmity).

Over the past week we have cleaned him from top to bottom (literally), dressed and undressed him twice daily.  We are always polite and friendly whereas he has at various times questioned out parentage, requested us to go forth and multiply, offered to assist our exit of the premises with his foot and told us to get off whilst giving us a slap!

Am I pi$$ed of by his behaviour?

Not in the slightest!

I've been seeing this young man for six years through the various worsening stages of his condition and I can assure you ... everyone of you ... that you would like him if you met him.

Everyone does!

Seeing him always reminds me of why I started doing this job.

Tired and over worked as I am, I will always have time for him.

Taking It's Toll

I've got to admit that I'd much rather be flat on the sofa and snoring rather than writing anything for my blog.

But time is short and my mind is still sort of buzzing.

That tiredness I told you of is taking it's toll and I find myself quite often on the verge of snapping at someone who doesn't deserve it.  The one person I probably do snap at, albeit unknowingly, is my wife, Julie.  She put's up with it like a saint! But I'm sure if it get's too much for her ... well, she has a pretty good right hook is all I'll say!

When your are tired everything bugs you!

The voice of a woman on the radio this morning just infuriated me.  She was one of those wimpy, over girlie-fied types with a scratchy Olive Oyl voice and she used the word 'like' as a punctuation mark several times in every sentence.

I know, I could have listened to music or driven in silence, but that is the thing about being irritated by something or someone ... you listen or watch so that you can have a really good moan about it.
It sucks you in and you just have to continue listening.

And I did moan!

As she spoke I turned the air blue with my colourful complaints and comments.

It lasted for little more than fifteen to twenty minutes but, boy, did I feel better!

My rant (as I was driving it probably amused other road users) at this infuriating woman not only woke me up a little but also made me feel a lot better disposed towards actually working with people with learning problems today.

Speaking of work ... I have to go!