Hospitals have a strange, twisted sense of humour. I was reminded of this (yet again). It appears to be the Year of Hospitals for my family. After my dad’s tryst with the medical fraternity, it is now my mum’s turn.
My mum has always been quite adventurous. When Scion and I were kids, she’d spend a good amount of time with us climbing peach trees, catching tadpoles from the pond, touching touch-me-nots, collecting ants for my ant stations and whatnot. Age has done nothing to slow her down.
So, she claims she was “walking down a steep path”. I suspect she was playing hopscotch. Whatever the truth may be, she is now in a cast, nursing a fractured ankle. (Note: I would normally say fractured “fibula”, but NG got the old knickers in a bunch when I once said someone fractured an “ulna” – apparently, “normal people” use the word “arm” when referring to such things.)
Since medical facilities are quite pathetic in the boonies we call home – where eight large whiskeys are called anesthesia, brandy is a cure for rheumatism (also erectile dysfunction, incontinence etc) and three large rums give the power of x-ray vision – Mum is now literally putting her foot up in the city.
Mum, or Dr Quack, decided that she had completely healed in three weeks. To ascertain this belief (and put our arguments to rest), we walked into a hospital to consult a real orthopaedic doctor. “Go straight and take a left” they told us at the front desk.
Here’s how they really should have given directions:
“Walk straight down the corridor. Then you have a choice. You can either hobble down a flight of stairs that has a railing for support on one side only or you can slippery slide down the steep wheelchair ramp. If you happen to be in a wheelchair, you can burn rubber down the ramp before either crashing headlong into a water cooler, a plastic basin and some chairs strategically placed right at the end of the ramp.
If you choose to veer off the ramp before you reach the end, you have no choice but to tumble off the side and free fall for about three feet. In the process, you could damage your femur, tibia, fibula and/or your humerus, scapula, radius, ulna and others. But hey! No worries, you can crawl right into the doc’s room on your bruised patellas and phalanges!”
As if this wasn’t enough, there was a swinging gate that divided the outpatient and inpatient areas outside the doc’s office. When opened wide, the gate would rebound so quickly, I noticed more than one unsuspecting person being winded with a swift whack to the solar plexus or stumbling forward with a sure shot to the gluteus maximus.
The technician in the x-ray room only made life more interesting. He patted a table that was about five feet above the ground and told my one-legged mother to “climb up”. He's lucky she had only the one working leg. It saved him a quick kick in his special place. I forgave him though. Constant exposure to those x-rays must have had some adverse impact on the few grey cells bumming around in his cranium.
In fact, I forgave them all. In fact, I have a new found respect for them. After all, we are all born ignorant. It takes hard work to remain stupid.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
How To Be A Moron At The Movies
1. Cut the queue at the ticket counter. (Silly queue-following people have nothing better to do for fun but stand and stare at the back of peoples’ heads, apparently.)
2. Enter the theatre late. Grope your fellow moviegoers inappropriately to help you find your seat in the darkened hall.
3. Stomp on feet while you sidle your way through the row of seats, lose your balance and hang your ample behind precariously over the lap of someone already seated. (This creates quite the dilemma in their minds - do I just yell in alarm or grab on, shove and hope for the best?)
4. Blab loudly with your companion about something totally unrelated to the movie (because everyone paid good money to come to the theatre to listen to your wildly exciting description of your balcony in Delhi.)
5. Keep your cellphone ringer on and entertain more calls than a 24/7 call centre handles in a year.
6. Begin a slanging match with anyone who dares to shush you. (Everyone needs to hear what an expansive arsenal of expletives you possess.)
7. Take your own sweet time ordering enough food for a small African nation at the snack counter. Then create a scene because you haven’t the money to pay for it and insist that the staff try several credit, debit and other bits of plastic to cover the bill.
8. Mourn loudly to your companion that the popcorn “back home in the States” is so much better than here - they don’t scrounge on the butter etc. (Your American Eagle Outfitter t-shirt will convince everyone you are the real deal even though your Paragon rubber chappals might raise some doubt.)
9. Start a popcorn fight with your companions. Make sure you drench everybody, including complete strangers, with your aerated cola.
10. Once your store of popcorn ammo is exhausted, poke around for more everywhere you can think of, including under the bottom of your neighbour. (What better excuse to cop a good feel, eh?)
11. Bring in a whole brood of babbling, whining children who do not comprehend the language in the first place. (Nothing aggravates fellow moviegoers more than having a 90-minute film translated word-for-word into some vernacular dialect.)
12. Ensure that the aforementioned children carry with them one or more of the following items which can be liberally applied onto fellow moviegoers: Bubble-blowing solution, sticky chewing gum retained on grubby fingers, snot-laden tissue etc.
13. If the film goes off due to a technical glitch, remain seated and do nothing yourself, but ensure that you keep yelling, “Hey, somebody tell them! Somebody do something. Why is everybody just sitting?”
14. If you choose to do something about it yourself, stand up, turn toward the projection room and clap your hands – because the equipment is probably clap-activated, right?
15. Place your cup of gooey chocolate mousse on the next seat just as your neighbour is seating himself/herself down.
16. Apologise profusely and offer the now squashed remains of the mousse to placate your highly upset neighbour.
17. Remove your shoes and rest your toe-jammy feet on the seat in front of you.
18. Squat down in the middle of the exit stairwell, placing your precious helmet next to you, mindless of the stream of people almost tripping over you. If the movie did not have enough action, someone tumbling down the stairs in real life should satisfy everybody’s bloodlust.
2. Enter the theatre late. Grope your fellow moviegoers inappropriately to help you find your seat in the darkened hall.
3. Stomp on feet while you sidle your way through the row of seats, lose your balance and hang your ample behind precariously over the lap of someone already seated. (This creates quite the dilemma in their minds - do I just yell in alarm or grab on, shove and hope for the best?)
4. Blab loudly with your companion about something totally unrelated to the movie (because everyone paid good money to come to the theatre to listen to your wildly exciting description of your balcony in Delhi.)
5. Keep your cellphone ringer on and entertain more calls than a 24/7 call centre handles in a year.
6. Begin a slanging match with anyone who dares to shush you. (Everyone needs to hear what an expansive arsenal of expletives you possess.)
7. Take your own sweet time ordering enough food for a small African nation at the snack counter. Then create a scene because you haven’t the money to pay for it and insist that the staff try several credit, debit and other bits of plastic to cover the bill.
8. Mourn loudly to your companion that the popcorn “back home in the States” is so much better than here - they don’t scrounge on the butter etc. (Your American Eagle Outfitter t-shirt will convince everyone you are the real deal even though your Paragon rubber chappals might raise some doubt.)
9. Start a popcorn fight with your companions. Make sure you drench everybody, including complete strangers, with your aerated cola.
10. Once your store of popcorn ammo is exhausted, poke around for more everywhere you can think of, including under the bottom of your neighbour. (What better excuse to cop a good feel, eh?)
11. Bring in a whole brood of babbling, whining children who do not comprehend the language in the first place. (Nothing aggravates fellow moviegoers more than having a 90-minute film translated word-for-word into some vernacular dialect.)
12. Ensure that the aforementioned children carry with them one or more of the following items which can be liberally applied onto fellow moviegoers: Bubble-blowing solution, sticky chewing gum retained on grubby fingers, snot-laden tissue etc.
13. If the film goes off due to a technical glitch, remain seated and do nothing yourself, but ensure that you keep yelling, “Hey, somebody tell them! Somebody do something. Why is everybody just sitting?”
14. If you choose to do something about it yourself, stand up, turn toward the projection room and clap your hands – because the equipment is probably clap-activated, right?
15. Place your cup of gooey chocolate mousse on the next seat just as your neighbour is seating himself/herself down.
16. Apologise profusely and offer the now squashed remains of the mousse to placate your highly upset neighbour.
17. Remove your shoes and rest your toe-jammy feet on the seat in front of you.
18. Squat down in the middle of the exit stairwell, placing your precious helmet next to you, mindless of the stream of people almost tripping over you. If the movie did not have enough action, someone tumbling down the stairs in real life should satisfy everybody’s bloodlust.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Relatively Speaking
If there were de-addiction centres for blogging, I’d quite possibly be one of the first ones to be presented there, kicking and screaming my protest in a straitjacket.
I realise that my obsession with blogging has reached unhealthy levels. I am constantly on the lookout for interesting subjects (and by that I also mean annoying, stupid or just regular amusement on two legs) to blog about.
When my sibling Scion kicked his leg through the seat of a dining chair in a bizarre accident while reaching for rose cookies, giving himself a nasty bruise on the chest, my immediate reaction should ideally have been a concerned, “Oh, my God! Are you all right?” Right?
No. Instead, yours truly looks at him quizzically, wondering at the mass of arms and legs entangled in what was once a perfectly intact dining chair. Then, as he hopped over to a sofa to nurse a wounded knee, to my horror, I felt the stirrings of an awful giggle fit.
Because in my head, all that I could think of was, “With bruises like that, people would think the hero had been out rock climbing or rappelling. Instead he earned those black and blue hues reaching for rose cookies. I wonder how I can incorporate this on my blog?”
With that, the damage was done. I burst out laughing. Luckily, my family has more funny bones than an elephant graveyard and pretty soon, Scion was chuckling away while still groaning with pain.
A few weekends ago, I had a couple of social functions to attend. A cousin’s engagement and a friend’s wedding reception. While I quite looked forward to the latter, I was in two minds about the former. Family obligation and all that jazz is not a reason that sits well with me since I do not feel guilty remorse at skipping one of those. I only view events in terms of “boring” or “not-so-boring”.
And then I looked at my blog. Uh-oh. If I did not act quickly, A Touch of Tabasco would soon belong to the World Wide Cob Web.
A community gathering, eh? Perfect. With some luck, I could find some material there to blog about. And so, with a much willing heart, I went - ears flapping and eyes peeled. I did pick up a few perils of wisdom such as how one must always place potted palms on a veranda as they prevent old people from falling. Don’t you just love illogical data of that sort? It gives me something to try and attach logic to while in the company of coma-inducing individuals later.
I found myself having a surprisingly enjoyable misandrist-oriented conversation with a very well-spoken, witty old lady with an in-your-face attitude. She did not have anything to say about the strategic use of potted palms, but she did have a lot of rather amusing observations, collated over several years, about the males of my tribe and their general attitude toward us alien non-resident types.
However, one cannot spend an entire evening in the company of an octogenarian, maverick or not. I soon found myself surveying the room again with an uninterested eye, slightly disheartened that I had no material for a new blog post after all.
Blame it on the heavy rain that evening. But suddenly, a bunch of cousins came crawling out of the woodwork. Now, I have this thing about cousins. I always thought that Cousin Binky, her brother Cousin I-don’t-think-horror-movies-have-enough-bloodshed A, Cousin I-am-also-your-uncle-because-of-rampant-in-breeding-bordering-on-incest Whisky and Little Miss Britain were the only cousins I could relate to. We are all social outcasts of sorts - what with our tendency to converse in English all the time and such.
Most others, (and I say “most” because there could be exceptions who do not spring to mind at the moment), are just too old or too young or too... well... different. I am barely past the initial polite conversation about coffee, hockey, rainfall and work before they mentally stick a skewer through me and roast a misfit-cousin-on-the-spit while chanting in a tongue I do not comprehend.
So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to stumble upon second cousins who were well, in the same generation, and more importantly, quite “PLU or people like us” as Bin somewhat snobbishly puts it. A bunch of previously undiscovered cool cousins? I think my luck’s finally beginning to turn.
I came looking for blog-worthy snippets and I stumbled on flesh-and-blood smarty-pants company. It also means I can finally ditch the octogenarians. And that’s not such a bad thing even for a snooping material-hungry blogoholic.
I realise that my obsession with blogging has reached unhealthy levels. I am constantly on the lookout for interesting subjects (and by that I also mean annoying, stupid or just regular amusement on two legs) to blog about.
When my sibling Scion kicked his leg through the seat of a dining chair in a bizarre accident while reaching for rose cookies, giving himself a nasty bruise on the chest, my immediate reaction should ideally have been a concerned, “Oh, my God! Are you all right?” Right?
No. Instead, yours truly looks at him quizzically, wondering at the mass of arms and legs entangled in what was once a perfectly intact dining chair. Then, as he hopped over to a sofa to nurse a wounded knee, to my horror, I felt the stirrings of an awful giggle fit.
Because in my head, all that I could think of was, “With bruises like that, people would think the hero had been out rock climbing or rappelling. Instead he earned those black and blue hues reaching for rose cookies. I wonder how I can incorporate this on my blog?”
With that, the damage was done. I burst out laughing. Luckily, my family has more funny bones than an elephant graveyard and pretty soon, Scion was chuckling away while still groaning with pain.
A few weekends ago, I had a couple of social functions to attend. A cousin’s engagement and a friend’s wedding reception. While I quite looked forward to the latter, I was in two minds about the former. Family obligation and all that jazz is not a reason that sits well with me since I do not feel guilty remorse at skipping one of those. I only view events in terms of “boring” or “not-so-boring”.
And then I looked at my blog. Uh-oh. If I did not act quickly, A Touch of Tabasco would soon belong to the World Wide Cob Web.
A community gathering, eh? Perfect. With some luck, I could find some material there to blog about. And so, with a much willing heart, I went - ears flapping and eyes peeled. I did pick up a few perils of wisdom such as how one must always place potted palms on a veranda as they prevent old people from falling. Don’t you just love illogical data of that sort? It gives me something to try and attach logic to while in the company of coma-inducing individuals later.
I found myself having a surprisingly enjoyable misandrist-oriented conversation with a very well-spoken, witty old lady with an in-your-face attitude. She did not have anything to say about the strategic use of potted palms, but she did have a lot of rather amusing observations, collated over several years, about the males of my tribe and their general attitude toward us alien non-resident types.
However, one cannot spend an entire evening in the company of an octogenarian, maverick or not. I soon found myself surveying the room again with an uninterested eye, slightly disheartened that I had no material for a new blog post after all.
Blame it on the heavy rain that evening. But suddenly, a bunch of cousins came crawling out of the woodwork. Now, I have this thing about cousins. I always thought that Cousin Binky, her brother Cousin I-don’t-think-horror-movies-have-enough-bloodshed A, Cousin I-am-also-your-uncle-because-of-rampant-in-breeding-bordering-on-incest Whisky and Little Miss Britain were the only cousins I could relate to. We are all social outcasts of sorts - what with our tendency to converse in English all the time and such.
Most others, (and I say “most” because there could be exceptions who do not spring to mind at the moment), are just too old or too young or too... well... different. I am barely past the initial polite conversation about coffee, hockey, rainfall and work before they mentally stick a skewer through me and roast a misfit-cousin-on-the-spit while chanting in a tongue I do not comprehend.
So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to stumble upon second cousins who were well, in the same generation, and more importantly, quite “PLU or people like us” as Bin somewhat snobbishly puts it. A bunch of previously undiscovered cool cousins? I think my luck’s finally beginning to turn.
I came looking for blog-worthy snippets and I stumbled on flesh-and-blood smarty-pants company. It also means I can finally ditch the octogenarians. And that’s not such a bad thing even for a snooping material-hungry blogoholic.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Of Hallucinations and Hospitals
My apologies to my regular readers, the nosy busybodies, the stalkers, the Belgian and the visitor from Ouagadougou seeking “tabasco cupcakes”.
Amidst the decision to switch jobs and a health scare courtesy my father, I had little time, inclination or inspiration to blog. However, as everything seems to be settling down now and general good humour appears to have returned, here goes.
This piece is yet another about my family since every other crazy I know has taken refuge from the sweltering summer sun (or incontinent rain cloud if in Bangalore).
Dad often considers himself a poster child for Murphy’s Law – and rightly so. How else would you explain how a simple hernia surgery could land one in the ICU?
Dad caused the family and his surgeon – who is now undoubtedly questioning his career choice – some anxious moments when, while coming out of a simple hernia procedure, he suffered what they call a “cardiac event”. “Event”? These medical types are nuts. How is something like this an “event”? They might as well call it a “spectacle” and sell audience tickets and dole out refreshments. George Bush Jr. goof-ups, Halley’s comet, la Tomatina, Aerosmith live in concert, the WillKat wedding – those are “events”!
Anyhow, long story short, the hospital kept him under anesthesia for a further 48 hours while monitoring him in the ICU with all the requisite life-support systems in place. While things seemed like they could go either way for a while, Dad pulled through and came out all puns blazing. While his old ventricles took a beating, Dad’s sense of humour or more aptly, his ability to cause much mirth and amusement around him appeared stellar.
As Dad came out of his 48-hour induced nap, he gestured frantically at my sibling Scion. Still attached to the ventilator along with other tubes, it was impossible to speak. Thus began a game of dumb charades.
Dad gestured and signaled while Scion – who is not exactly the best person to have on a charades team – kept guessing. “You have digital power!” he declared. No, signaled Dad. “You feel like you have swallowed power!” Scion ventured again. No! “You feel empowered? You feel powerful? You feel invincible? You feel like Superman? You ARE the MRF Man!” No!
Finally, Scion deciphered “I swallowed a digital thermometer”. That’s right. That is exactly what Dad was trying to say. Serious.
Dad kept pointing to a spot in his stomach saying the errant digital thermometer had parked itself there. He was only convinced otherwise once the tubes were removed and the hallucinogenic effect of the various drugs administered wore off.
While I made a mental note of the episode as well as Scion’s useless guesses, it struck me. This sort of thing runs in the family. Years ago, while I recovered from an emergency appendectomy, I was convinced that the surgeon had left a pair of scissors inside. Then I decided he’d left two wads of cotton. Once I reasoned that wasn’t the case, I suspected he had robbed me of a kidney. After a recent ultrasound where my gall bladder apparently turned invisible, I am now convinced they nicked that too. I haven’t got the gall, quite literally.
So anyway, after a turbulent few weeks, things appear to be settling down. Dad says those 48 hours were like an acid trip. From being carried off in an auto rickshaw to an Indian Oil petrol bunk baring his behind in a hospital gown, being subjected to medical experiments to sitting on a bench with some old men, he had the strangest of dreams. Even the despicable Ducky put in an appearance. Dad, in his dreams, saw the fellow pottering around the ICU looking for something called “an umbilical cap” for his “wife’s hernia”, which he later triumphantly declared he found at the Meerut cantonment area.
Dad’s only regret? He couldn’t reach out far enough to hurl a bedpan at the moron.
As for the rest of us, we’re now consciously watching what we eat, steering clear of Robin Cook books and keeping a keen eye on the whereabouts of that digital thermometer at all times. And of course, we’re laughing again.
Amidst the decision to switch jobs and a health scare courtesy my father, I had little time, inclination or inspiration to blog. However, as everything seems to be settling down now and general good humour appears to have returned, here goes.
This piece is yet another about my family since every other crazy I know has taken refuge from the sweltering summer sun (or incontinent rain cloud if in Bangalore).
Dad often considers himself a poster child for Murphy’s Law – and rightly so. How else would you explain how a simple hernia surgery could land one in the ICU?
Dad caused the family and his surgeon – who is now undoubtedly questioning his career choice – some anxious moments when, while coming out of a simple hernia procedure, he suffered what they call a “cardiac event”. “Event”? These medical types are nuts. How is something like this an “event”? They might as well call it a “spectacle” and sell audience tickets and dole out refreshments. George Bush Jr. goof-ups, Halley’s comet, la Tomatina, Aerosmith live in concert, the WillKat wedding – those are “events”!
Anyhow, long story short, the hospital kept him under anesthesia for a further 48 hours while monitoring him in the ICU with all the requisite life-support systems in place. While things seemed like they could go either way for a while, Dad pulled through and came out all puns blazing. While his old ventricles took a beating, Dad’s sense of humour or more aptly, his ability to cause much mirth and amusement around him appeared stellar.
As Dad came out of his 48-hour induced nap, he gestured frantically at my sibling Scion. Still attached to the ventilator along with other tubes, it was impossible to speak. Thus began a game of dumb charades.
Dad gestured and signaled while Scion – who is not exactly the best person to have on a charades team – kept guessing. “You have digital power!” he declared. No, signaled Dad. “You feel like you have swallowed power!” Scion ventured again. No! “You feel empowered? You feel powerful? You feel invincible? You feel like Superman? You ARE the MRF Man!” No!
Finally, Scion deciphered “I swallowed a digital thermometer”. That’s right. That is exactly what Dad was trying to say. Serious.
Dad kept pointing to a spot in his stomach saying the errant digital thermometer had parked itself there. He was only convinced otherwise once the tubes were removed and the hallucinogenic effect of the various drugs administered wore off.
While I made a mental note of the episode as well as Scion’s useless guesses, it struck me. This sort of thing runs in the family. Years ago, while I recovered from an emergency appendectomy, I was convinced that the surgeon had left a pair of scissors inside. Then I decided he’d left two wads of cotton. Once I reasoned that wasn’t the case, I suspected he had robbed me of a kidney. After a recent ultrasound where my gall bladder apparently turned invisible, I am now convinced they nicked that too. I haven’t got the gall, quite literally.
So anyway, after a turbulent few weeks, things appear to be settling down. Dad says those 48 hours were like an acid trip. From being carried off in an auto rickshaw to an Indian Oil petrol bunk baring his behind in a hospital gown, being subjected to medical experiments to sitting on a bench with some old men, he had the strangest of dreams. Even the despicable Ducky put in an appearance. Dad, in his dreams, saw the fellow pottering around the ICU looking for something called “an umbilical cap” for his “wife’s hernia”, which he later triumphantly declared he found at the Meerut cantonment area.
Dad’s only regret? He couldn’t reach out far enough to hurl a bedpan at the moron.
As for the rest of us, we’re now consciously watching what we eat, steering clear of Robin Cook books and keeping a keen eye on the whereabouts of that digital thermometer at all times. And of course, we’re laughing again.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Letter to My Six-Year-Old Self
Dear Six-Year-Old Basically Blah,
Look what I found! Your first “published” article.
Remember how proud you were because it was the first article in the school magazine that year? I suspect this was one of the worst editorial decisions ever made in the history of editorial decision making. It would be safe to assume that this caused a considerable decline in the number of student applications made to the school the following year.
You ought to be ashamed putting something like this up for the world to see. Here are a bunch of reasons why:
Firstly, which kid in their right senses keeps tadpoles? Were two goldfish in a bowl not fascinating enough for you?
More importantly, where did you get these peculiar mutant tadpoles? They appear bigger than the dogs and even the cows. If indeed those odd hunched creatures with the unicorn horns are cows. What is your standard excuse - “The tadpole ate my homework” or "The dog that ate my homework was eaten by my tadpole"?
The big cow appears to be a paedophilic pervert. I will not go into the details.
Are all your dogs two-legged? And I use the term “dogs” loosely, since it appears the third such creature is actually a paramecium.
Your MOTHER keeps those tadpoles in a bowl? Really now. This is a bit of a stretch even for your family of oddballs. But congratulations on publishing that bit of fiction to all and sundry. I believe your mother resented attending PTA meetings for months afterward, having to deal with the shame of being called the ‘crazy tadpole lady’. You are quite the tale weaver. Would it be more truthful to say that your mother looks after your precious tadpoles when you go off for months together to boarding school?
Also, here’s a revelation: When those mutant tadpoles grow into little frogs and hop away, your sneaky mother replaces them with more before you come home so as to avoid your throwing a tantrum. You could never tell the difference, you pint-sized pinhead.
Here’s a little lesson about life while we’re on the subject of amphibians. Seeing as I am much older and somewhat wiser now. You are better off when frogs go away. You have far more trouble when frogs come hopping into your bowl…err…life. In addition to being slimy, they, most importantly, never turn into princes.
Well, don’t feel too badly about all this, 6-year-old BB. You will be glad to know that that precocious and loquacious little girl with the affinity for all little creatures of the animal kingdom still lives on in this woman who is now hurtling toward “old age” faster than your mother could replace those errant tadpoles.
Oh, and do keep writing! It makes your life far more interesting and eventful in more ways than even you can imagine. So brace for the years ahead, moppet.
(No kisses and hugs because I know you hate them.)
Cheers,
Present-Day Basically Blah.
P.S. Whatever you do, do not become friends with this KO person. She appears to be delusional and harbours suicidal inclinations, judging from her article in the same magazine:
Note to the school magazine editorial team:
I am totally baffled as to why you would choose such an article to begin your magazine. Was it because your other choice was this?
I suppose it stands to reason that this could cause some fears among parents about the safety of their kids, considering that their first grade teacher appears to be a molting, stilt-walking Sasquatch.
Read the exchange my discovery sparked off with KO here.
Look what I found! Your first “published” article.
Remember how proud you were because it was the first article in the school magazine that year? I suspect this was one of the worst editorial decisions ever made in the history of editorial decision making. It would be safe to assume that this caused a considerable decline in the number of student applications made to the school the following year.
You ought to be ashamed putting something like this up for the world to see. Here are a bunch of reasons why:
Firstly, which kid in their right senses keeps tadpoles? Were two goldfish in a bowl not fascinating enough for you?
More importantly, where did you get these peculiar mutant tadpoles? They appear bigger than the dogs and even the cows. If indeed those odd hunched creatures with the unicorn horns are cows. What is your standard excuse - “The tadpole ate my homework” or "The dog that ate my homework was eaten by my tadpole"?
The big cow appears to be a paedophilic pervert. I will not go into the details.
Are all your dogs two-legged? And I use the term “dogs” loosely, since it appears the third such creature is actually a paramecium.
Your MOTHER keeps those tadpoles in a bowl? Really now. This is a bit of a stretch even for your family of oddballs. But congratulations on publishing that bit of fiction to all and sundry. I believe your mother resented attending PTA meetings for months afterward, having to deal with the shame of being called the ‘crazy tadpole lady’. You are quite the tale weaver. Would it be more truthful to say that your mother looks after your precious tadpoles when you go off for months together to boarding school?
Also, here’s a revelation: When those mutant tadpoles grow into little frogs and hop away, your sneaky mother replaces them with more before you come home so as to avoid your throwing a tantrum. You could never tell the difference, you pint-sized pinhead.
Here’s a little lesson about life while we’re on the subject of amphibians. Seeing as I am much older and somewhat wiser now. You are better off when frogs go away. You have far more trouble when frogs come hopping into your bowl…err…life. In addition to being slimy, they, most importantly, never turn into princes.
Well, don’t feel too badly about all this, 6-year-old BB. You will be glad to know that that precocious and loquacious little girl with the affinity for all little creatures of the animal kingdom still lives on in this woman who is now hurtling toward “old age” faster than your mother could replace those errant tadpoles.
Oh, and do keep writing! It makes your life far more interesting and eventful in more ways than even you can imagine. So brace for the years ahead, moppet.
(No kisses and hugs because I know you hate them.)
Cheers,
Present-Day Basically Blah.
P.S. Whatever you do, do not become friends with this KO person. She appears to be delusional and harbours suicidal inclinations, judging from her article in the same magazine:
Note to the school magazine editorial team:
I am totally baffled as to why you would choose such an article to begin your magazine. Was it because your other choice was this?
I suppose it stands to reason that this could cause some fears among parents about the safety of their kids, considering that their first grade teacher appears to be a molting, stilt-walking Sasquatch.
Read the exchange my discovery sparked off with KO here.
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