(*Kimmy-boy comes down and picks up the phone:) ‘Who speaking?’
‘This is Timmy! Tell me, are you ronery tonight?’
‘What? We happy with telephone provider!’
‘It’s not about that, you stupid git! I’m calling to tell you you SUCK monkeyballs!’
(*Kim looks up ‘monkeyballs’ on Google Translate on his dial-up connection – luckily, on a second phone line – so five minutes later:*) ‘I NOT suck balls of donkey! Only horse! How dare you insult me like that?!’
‘You have the intellectual capacity of a lobotomised amoeba with a learning disability and the sex appeal of my morning stool after a night of binge drinking! Fuck you, Kim!’
(*looks up everything on Google Translate - ten minutes later:*) ‘Oh, you devil! You will PAY! I send you bombs now! HAHAHAHAHA!’
‘Great!’
*hangs up*
As always, the end justifies the means...
Yours,
Your Potato King
WISDOM – II
*dramatisation*
‘Hmmm,’ frowned the woman, ‘that doesn’t look good.’
‘You don’t look so good either, but you don’t hear me yapping on about that.’ I wanted to yell out in a rush of nervousness.
‘Oh, really?’ I courteously replied, of course after having closed my mouth after the woman was done looking into it.
‘Yes, your mouth is too small, I find it astonishing you can even fit a phallus in there.’ She mumbled, her face looking into some paperwork.
‘I know, my therapist said it was one of my not so hidden talents.’ I had to admit I uttered it with some pride.
‘I will bite off you teat, you vile woman!’ my mind boggled, what is it with hospitals that it always brings out the worst in me?
‘So the thing is, we can operate on two separate days or do it all at once, either way, it’ll hurt like hell!’ Comforting words.
‘All at once of course, put me on drugs and do what you want in my mouth!’ Fighting words.
‘Do you have any questions about the operation?’ a standard question on which she wants a no for an answer, even though I’m paying 21.53 quid for this appointment to make an appointment (really, that’s all it is).
‘While you’re operating me, could you also check if my appendix is okay? See, I’m a hypochondriac and I’d really appreciate it if you could just take a look...’
‘But your appendix is nowhere near your wisdom teeth!’
‘And eyes are nowhere near your feet, but I can see them anyway! Just take a peek as you’re opening my mouth to epic proportions.’
‘That’s not possible, I swear!’
‘Oh you lazy bitch!’
‘Just try to look for it, okay? Make an effort for crying out loud!’
‘Alright! Sheez! Tough customer, you better take it down a notch or I might accidentally slip with my surgical knife...’
‘Maybe YOU should take it down a notch or I shall have to contact my Russian mobster friends who will abduct you and sell you into slavery!’
We started fighting for about ten minutes after which the woman left crying and leaking blood from her nose. I picked some of it up (a risk, I know, who knows where the bitch had been?) and drew a copy of her signature on my bill so that I can claim my money back from my insurance company.
Life is always a battle.
A STRANGE MEETING
I was sitting next to myself. A version of me had materialised and it was now facing me. He looked at me, but said nothing.
‘What do you want?’ my insecure question died out in the dark.
The sound of the refrigerator humming took over again. I guided my hand to touch the double’s face, to see if it was real. I discerned nothing unreal about it, him, me. I needed to know why.
‘Are you real, I mean, really real? I just... don’t see how there could be two of me. Sure, I did have an undeveloped twin brother, but he was thrown away moments after I was born.’ I realised that it was me who actually killed him, using my umbilical cord as a strangulation device, so this can’t be him.
He waited a few seconds and then stood up.
Out of nowhere I felt a blow against my head, knocking me out of my sofa and onto the ground. Disoriented, I screamed ‘Who the fuck are you?’, but no reply came, unless it was in the form of a sharp kick in my stomach. I crawled away, looking for something to lift myself up on, still not thinking of striking back at him.
I looked up and saw him holding something, an object, aimed it at me, but before I could tell what it was, I felt it colliding with my jawbone, breaking on impact (something made of glass, I suspect). I let out another agonizing scream, and grabbed hold of what appeared to be the radiator, attempting to stand up. The shattered glass had cause blood to pour out of my body, but strangely enough there was no pain. I looked at my attacker, hoping to get an answer, expecting to receive another blow. Damn my pacifism! He paused.
Through the red curtain in front of my eyes I looked at his face that was now damaged too. And I hadn’t even struck him. I wondered if he was my dead twin. The evil one. Or maybe I killed the good one, which would make me the evil one, but that can’t be right. He has to be the evil one, he’s the one who started fighting.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked me. (he asked ME!)
‘What the fuck do you mean? You’re the one fighting me!’ His question baffled me.
My reply didn’t satisfy him. He beat me down on the ground again, this time using some kind of truncheon. I realised I had to fight back. I grabbed him by his feet so as to make him fall down. He tripped and banged his head on the ground, the moment his head touched the ground, I could feel a shot of pain racing through my head, making me half unconscious. I got up in a fit of rage and started kicking my attacker, but with every kick I gave, I could feel pain distributing itself on the respective parts of the body I had been kicking.
I lost balance and fell to the ground, where I immediately lost consciousness.
It was hours later when I woke up. A puddle of drying blood lay around my bristled body and I could feel the pain stabbing again as I tried to get up. My attacker was nowhere to be seen. There were no blood marks where his head had been (and it was as badly injured as mine), no footprints in any of the blood puddles I had unwillingly scattered across the room.
I had no idea what had happened.
MAKING KAFKA PROUD
‘Hello, you have reached the information hotline from the tax administration, for English, press 1, for Spanish...’
‘1!’
‘Are you enquiring about the colour of your tax forms, please press 1; are you happy talking to a monotonous computer voice, press 2; would you like to rent one of the rooms of the finance department for a sexy party, press 3; for all other enquiries, press 6555778321 now.’
‘655778321’
‘The number you have chosen in incorrect, please try again or press the hash key to hear the options again.’
‘6555778321’
‘An operator of the finance department will be with you...errr... ‘shortly’. We thank you for your call. While you wait, you can choose to listen to some calming sounds: please press 1 for techno, press 2 for children’s music, press 3 to hear a fart from the head of the finance department, press 4 for techno, press 5 to hear the sounds of a dentist’s drill or press 6 if you want to sing for yourself.’
‘6’
‘You have chosen techno, please calm down and you will be helped before the day is over.’
‘aaarrghhhh!’
*half an hour intermezzo, my ear hurting from the number 7 sound bites*
‘Hello, this is Kate, how may I help you?’
‘Hi, my name is Timmy. I have a few questions about my tax forms. In what language are they written?’
‘English, well sort of. We still use terminology from the 19th century because we figure this is easiest for old people to understand.’
‘I see, well I don’t k
now what to fill in where! Who wrote this drivel?’
‘Oh, one of our mentally challenged employees. We’re all for diversity on the work floor you know.’
‘Aha, well I still would like some explanation. I have 2000 pounds I earned last year, where do I fill this in on my tax form?’
‘Ah well, you see: it depends where you got the money from...’
‘Well, from three women and a man.’
‘So you have to fill in the part you got from the women in field 76B, on form 804C and the part from the man you can put on form 334bis. If the man had a speech impediment, then you can put him under paragraph 89. Did he have a speech impediment?’
‘I... don’t ... know! He was foreign, from Latvia or something...’
‘Latvia, so you do business with Latin America?’
‘No, Latvia, it’s a part of the EU.’
‘Really? Oh yes, I was thinking of Lithuania... My mistake!’
‘Never mind, please tell me where I have to write stuff.’
‘Oh well, since they’re all foreign and you’re not, then you can put the square root of the total amount earned in box 44Q on page 28C of your tax return.’
‘Why the square root?’
‘Because then we just have to square it to know the total amount you earned.’
‘Erm... whatever! So I just have to fill this box 44Q in then? The green one?’
‘Green? I thought we coloured it blue this year?’
‘No, here it’s definitely green.’
‘That’s strange, then write it in 45P, that way we’ll know there was a colouring problem this year.’
‘....right..........’
‘Anything else I can help you with?’
‘No, please stop. I don’t.... I..... You’ve confused me enough...’
‘That’s what we’ve been doing since the dawn of time! Have a nice day!’
‘Yeah, you too... you too...’
*Click*
TIMMY IN NEW ZEALAND
I stepped off the plane, thanking the stewardesses with the funny veil dropping from their heads.
‘Excuse me, can I see you passport and arrival card?’ a customs officer.
‘Of course you can!’ my courteous reply.
‘Travelling for the first time to New Zealand?’
I say yes and tell him a short version of how I ended up here and how long I’ll be here, where I’ll go and all the things he needs to know, being very friendly and cheerful (I did have a happy hangover).
He writes some codes on my arrival card: 1, 2, 4, 9, 29, X, X, X. I assumed the numbers were winning lottery numbers and the X’s kisses for good luck.
Fifty metres on, a new customs officer asks to see my passport. He’s less friendly than the previous one, but I continue with my very friendly mood. He writes two V’s on the back of the thing and looks pleased as he sees the rest of the codes are already filled in. I assume V’s are approval marks, perhaps because the man likes the way I look.
As I continue walking, I pass three more customs officers who all want to see my passport; they all grin when they see the codes have already been filled in. I realise I am wearing an orange ‘hippie-style’ shirt. I am the only one they seem to stop each time. Past another checkpoint, a ‘4’ is put on the back of the form and the man arrogantly tells me to follow the blue line. On my way following the blue line, more people ask for my passport. Whenever they do so, I always think they want to shake hands, instead they’re already grabbing for my passport. One may think a ‘blue’ line is better than the red or green line, but that is nothing but a clever method to confuse possible terrorists and smugglers.
About 16 tables. Only Arab and Asian people sitting near them. Their luggage spread out. ‘I shouldn’t have worn this shirt,’ I think out loud.
‘Do you speak a bit of English?’ a girl asks me. I’m happy it’s her and not one of the arrogant looking officers.
‘I speak it brilliantly, don’t worry,’ I say smilingly.
A whole series of questions follows. Her supervisor passes by and looks at me suspiciously, whispering loudly in her ear: ‘check everything, he’s got something on him!’ She smiles. I don’t stop talking to her, asking her about her job and how I think it’s all because of my shirt I’m there. We’re having a friendly conversation.
More questions.
‘What’s in your bags?’
‘Let’s see, in this one: clothes, underwear, a toilet roll, computer cables, DVD’s, toiletries. In the other one: my laptop, my camera, some books, my journal, more computer cables,...’
‘Anything... that I might be interested in?’
I laugh, sniff, and say: ‘Deodorant?’ She starts laughing loudly. Her colleagues would have been very irritated.
I continue saying: ‘No, if it’s drugs you’re after, I haven’t got any. The only thing in it is two cans of bourbon & coke, though I hardly think that’s an offence.’
‘Look, here’s a form in which you can declare items and this is your final chance to tell me what’s in those bags. You’ve got something and we’ll find it. Anything you don’t list here can and will be used against you.’
I fill in the two cans of bourbon & coke, sign the form and give it back to her.
‘Are you sure that’s all?’
‘Look, I haven’t got any drugs with me, okay?’
‘Sure, here’s a pamphlet for you to read while I fill in some more forms in. I’ll find them, you know!’
I ignore the pamphlet and open a tourist guide to Auckland I just picked up. I sit myself, talking a bit more about things to do in Auckland. I tell her I shouldn’t have worn the shirt.
She objects and says: ‘No, why would you want to look like anyone else. I can see it’s a part of your individuality, so you shouldn’t do that to be like everyone else!’
‘No, but if I would, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?’
‘Still, I don’t think you need to be anyone but yourself.’
‘I feel the same way, maybe just for airports then.’
She starts going through my bags, taking everything out. She says she likes my clothes. She goes through my DVD collection and tells me she just started watching Dexter and tells me she really likes it. She stumbles upon a card I bought at Melbourne airport with Jim Morrison’s face on it.
‘Ah, Jim Morrison!’ she smiles.
‘Yeah, he’s HOT, isn’t he?’ I proclaim.
‘You look a bit like him in this picture.’
‘No, it’s the other way round; he looks like me, I don’t look like him.’ We both laugh.
As she is going through my stuff, I remember the nude photo of myself I got from an Australian friend. I smile at the thought of seeing her open the folder it is in and then respond in a ‘professional’ manner. I am a bit sad when I notice her not opening the folder and just putting it away.
Thinking I have nothing to lose, I tell her: ‘Open that if you want to see me naked.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You heard me.’
Upon which she takes a peek for half a second.
Her supervisor walks past and tells her to check my jacket. He gives me another glare. No kilos of heroin found in bag number one, she goes to bag number two. She takes out my laptop, my camera (‘nice camera,’ she says), my journal, some books and my toiletries. She starts going through them and notices my contact lenses and asks me about them. ‘You wear contacts?’
‘Yeah, they’re great! I don’t have to take them out at night, really handy, because I always used to forget that!’
‘Were they expensive? I used to have them, but they’re very expensive.’
‘Oh no, I bought them online, they cost about 200 NZ$.’
‘Really? That’s cheap, man! You see I’m wearing glasses just now, right? It’s because these contacts are way too expensive!’
‘You should check it out on the net!’
‘Yeah, I will.’
Still no drugs, my bags taken to a
n X-ray machine, a search for secret compartments. Still nothing. She promises me a glass of water, but will never get me one. I don’t blame her for anything and tell her she’s just doing her job. I start reading the pamphlet in which is said that they did not pick me for my ethnicity, religion or sex. I look in the room and notice how this theory is put into practice. Arabs. I tell her how I do think what’s happening here is racial profiling. She tells me it’s nothing like that: ‘I mean, you’re white, you’re here!’
‘Yeah, but that’s just because of the shirt, basically. And I’m the only one, too.’ More Arab people line up in the waiting line to have their bags checked for bombs that did not go off.
‘Well, what we look for is certain indicators, you know. Like is it your first time here, did you book your flight very late, ...’
‘...do you look like a hippie?’ I add.
She smiles.
The final test is chemical. She puts on a pair of rubber gloves (making me ask: ‘Are you going to do a cavity search?’ She smiles and says: ‘Do you want one?’ to which I say, ‘No, not really’). She begins the test: ‘This WILL show if there’s been contact with drugs on your clothes.’ She smiles again, this time thinking I had not thought of that. And she was right, I hadn’t thought of that.
Nothing.
Nothing found, she helps me pack my bags (something I thought they wouldn’t do, and I didn’t see it happen with any of the other ones, too - she must have liked me), and escorts me to the exit. I tell her goodbye and wish her a nice day and she wishes me a nice stay and apologises for not bringing me the water. Five minutes later she runs after me, telling me she forgot to give me my passport... We both laugh and say goodbye once more.
Stop Talking To Yourself Page 4
