ms crankypants

Every now and then, a stealthy catalogue distributor skulks the streets when people are at work and deposits the ‘Innovations’ home shopping junk mail on doorsteps. I’m fortunately still at the stage of life I don’t need a set of customisable bunion pads or a replica cuckoo clock so I leave the plastic wrapped mound of crap in the doorway and try not to bust my bottom slipping over until the bloody thing is taken away.

This week the Penny Miller Christmas catalogue was waiting patiently when I got home from a less-than-fun-day at the saltmines. I don’t know if Penny Miller is a real person or a marketing department creation to sound homely and trustworthy to people who buy crap, but the cover caught even my sceptical eye: ‘Don’t throw me away.’ Oh, okay, thankfully I had been beaten about the head with blunt instruments at work and obedience was the path of least resistance.

The plastic tree-shaped lolly holder on the cover caught my eye for its sheer shithousedness. Who has time to pick the best – or worst, if you don’t like your guests — lollies from an assorted bag and spear them on a plastic tree? It would always be winter at my house because I’d pick the tree dry every time I walked past the table.

Source: Penny Miller

It got better. I wish I had to buy Christmas presents for people I hated because it’s a gold mine of passive aggressive gifty shit. The savoury version of the plastic food tree is adorned with cornichons. Who the fuck has the inclination to rip baby gherkins out of a jar, dab them bone dry because no one wants little cukes dripping on the other savouries, and impale them like proud little frog penises? I almost started crying for the catalogue stylist who has to create these displays for the photographer.

Source: Penny Miller

I’ve crapped on about crosswords on toilet roll wrapping in the past, but Penny and her gang of whacky funsters have put the poo in Sudoku. Look for yourself while I have another breakdown about bacteria, where to locate pens and visitors hogging the dunny for hours.

Source: Penny Miller

Done in the toilet? Have a shower and amuse your feet with big foot bath mats. Ha de bloody ha ha, I nearly peed my pants laughing at the hilarity of putting my wet tootsies on foot-shaped towels. Genius!

Source: Penny Miller

My heart goes to the copy writer trying to flog these green shaggy dog slippers that you skid around the house in to collect dust and fluff. No, I’m sure there isn’t an easier way to climb your hardwood floor either, because everyone I know with a hardwood floor has a pair for each member of the family. And if they don’t, I’m buying them all a pair because they’re missing out on the fun of skidding under dining tables and chairs while trying not to snap their spines.

Source: Penny Miller

I hark back to cheap imported products like this when I worry about the state of our planet. If we have the resources cheaply available to manufacture so much superfluous junk, perhaps Earth has plenty of energy left. Damn crazy scientist telling us otherwise; sit down, shut up and have a snack from the plastic tree.

Crank-o-meter: cranky santa pants

November 29th, 2008 | Tags: marketing, really daft ideas | Category: marketing, really daft ideas | Comments (17)

There’s something about echidnas that makes me squeal with joy and hang out with them until they curl up in little balls and try to spray rather rank jets of piss at me.

I met this juvenile one out looking for ants (it was looking for ants, I’m too short-sighted to do such a thing). This one must have wonky vision like mine because s/he bumped into my leg before meandering off to the next ant hole.

Crank-o-meter: awwwwww

November 27th, 2008 | Tags: animals are fun, not cranky | Category: animals are fun, not cranky | Comments (6)

I tell you what, we have banded together like a pack of hyenas discussing the allocation of a felled gazelle. And with less blood!

The next step was the Kris Kringle. I drew a name out of the envelope of a new person I haven’t met who has a unisex name.

“I do not know this person. Is this a man or woman?”

“A woman.”

“Can I exchange so I get someone I know?”

“No, shut up, that’s your Kris Kringle. Go and buy a present.”

There will be no Body Shop gift packs or photo frames on my watch, so I toddled off to conduct a reconnaisance mission.

Her colleagues were helpful: “She’s from interstate.” “She has a child.” “No idea what she does in her spare time.”

Righto. Let me just call Interpol because I’ll probably get more useful information.

There’s not a skerrick of personal stuff on her desk so I can’t guess if she’s a Pilates-doing girly girl or a virgin-slaying, goat blood drinker in her weekend hours. Not even a tea cup for god’s sake, or a whacky calendar. She wears a corporate uniform so there’s nothing I can use to read between the lines.

The silent and dark art of subterfuge is my special skill and it has failed me, and I’m awful at asking innocent questions on the pretext of finding out stuff. If I were a detective, I’d beg the suspected criminal to just tell me the truth so I didn’t have to conjure a good cop/bad cop routine that would cause said crim to piss his or her pants laughing.

It might have to be a whoopee cushion. Even human enigmas like whoopee cushions.

Crank-o-meter: it’s too late for mail order

November 25th, 2008 | Tags: human behaviour, i do care | Category: human behaviour, i do care | Comments (4)

I don’t have many gadgets yet the rule of thumb in my chest of drawers, third drawer in the kitchen and the study drawer in the picture is that there are at least three unidentifiable cables for every electronic device in the house. All but one are black and only a couple have a brand name or other identifying feature.

this is not all of them

Good god, all I want is to make my mobile phone talk to my computer because Bluetooth seems to be in an alcohol-induced coma and smacking things isn’t helping.

Stuff it, I’ve learnt to e-mail photos from my phone *ner ner ner ner ner*.

Crank-o-meter: bloody hell

November 23rd, 2008 | Tags: technology | Category: technology | Comments (4)

Most news stories and documentaries about reaching the summit of Mt Everest focus on victory, the percentage of climbers who make it to the top but don’t get back and nifty trivia like the first transsexual woman hopping up on one leg while wearing a stripey poncho. They forget about the ephemeral details, like what happens when nature calls.

An enterprising Nepali climber is promoting a portable toilet that accepts, captures and neutralises the human waste of mountaineers who leave their crap scattered about the mountain. Apparently climbers meet the call of nature by letting it all hang out in the open or dumping behind a rock.

Mr Sherpa led a waste-busting climb up Everest earlier in the year and the team found the following: almost a tonne of cans, gas canisters, kitchen waste, tents, helicopter parts and the remains of a climber who died in 1972. They also brought down 65 kilograms of human waste.

What does a poo weigh on average? A hundred grams? So, by my calculations and allowing a small margin for slow decomposition in a cold climate, that’s about 700 human droppings. Not much in the overall scheme of things, considering 11,000 attempts have been made to reach the summit and constipation is a reality of life for the fat-laden diet of a climber, but really, the top of the world shouldn’t be anyone’s toilet.

What’s the bet the containers are filled and left on the mountain with empty oxygen bottles and other waste? It’s interesting how fully-stocked equipment is acceptably heavy to cart up the hill, but empty containers are suddenly too heavy to bring down once the mission is achieved or aborted.

Crank-o-meter: I don’t think dung beetles live on everest

November 19th, 2008 | Tags: environment, sport | Category: environment, sport | Comments (7)

If you have young children looking over your shoulder, or still believe in Santa Claus, close the screen. Please.

A few taxi owners and drivers populate my family tree and one told an early Christmas story that has warmed the cockles of my hardened heart.

The taxi driver passed a pub where a Christmas party was behind held, and Santa hailed him down. He was dressed in full red and white kit and accessorised in kind with a fluffy white beard. This Santa was regulation size XL without the need for padding under his belt (and, if I may be crude, the person telling the story said he almost needed to coat Santa in grease to push him in the door, such was the grandness of his figure).

Santa jumped in the taxi, lamented that his workmates had wives and were going home to make sweaty, alcohol-breathed love to them, and he was feeling left out.

“Take me to the brothel!” Santa declared.

And to the brothel he was taken.

Somewhere in a suburban business where money is exchanged for time and make-believe intimacy, a woman with sore legs and worn girl bits was probably looking forward to knocking off and laying her head on her own pillow. But, she’d better not laugh and better not cry due to her last job of the night, because Santa was coming to her town.

If I ever hear anyone denigrate the role of prostitutes in society, I’m going to tell this little story about a big man in red.

Crank-o-meter: working in the pub(l)ic service doesn’t seem so tough

November 17th, 2008 | Tags: entertainment, sex | Category: entertainment, sex | Comments (4)

Today’s idiot, a man from Brisbane, is in hospital being treated for severe burns after trying to destroy a nest of ants by setting it on fire.

It would be hard to find a person who hasn’t witnessed a, “Gee, that was close, how’s your eyebrows, mate?” moment with someone trying to torch an ants nest, kick-start a barbecue or turn damp wood into a bonfire with a few litres of petrol from the jerry can. I personally find the WHOOF sound unpredictable and terrifying, but I’m a conservative sort when dealing with ignition sources and combustible materials.

The man’s going to be all right, but I doubt he was in a condition to enjoy the helicopter ride to the hospital.

Self-service pest control paid for by state emergency services and hospitals: cheaper than the local contractor any day.

Crank-o-meter: think

November 15th, 2008 | Tags: human behaviour | Category: Uncategorized, human behaviour | Leave a comment

The not playing well with others theme continues to the joy of everyone in my path. Stella the horoscope lady on the radio said we’re in the grip of a very powerful full moon and Scorpio is biting Uranus, or something to that effect, and it’s making everyone a bit tetchy. I love astral outsourcing of personal accountability!

I toddled along again to the radio course last night for a session in broadcasting law. I have studied the concepts previously, so I thought I’d sit back and relax while trying not to gag from the nose-burning stench of someone’s tinea. My god, how the first warm night brings out the aroma of mating fungi, accumulated toe gap sweat and hints of low-budget parmesan. Gee, I might ask if I can host a wine tasting segment with my aptitude for describing yummy smells.

There was no time for dying in the reeking pong because Battle of the Idiots was being played to my left and right. We were discussing copyright and the brain-straining concepts of ‘if you don’t create something, it’s not yours to use without permission and, if you don’t own something, it’s not yours to use at all’.

So Contestant One pipes up and asks if he can play his Limewire downloads.

“Did you pay for the music?”

“No.”

“That’s easy. The answer is no.”

“Oh.”

Contestant Two didn’t take the hint that it was time to let it go rather than put his possibly smelly foot in his mouth.

He asked, “What about my .mp3 collection?”

Ooh, a collection!

“Did you pay for the music?”

“No.”

“Any format that’s downloaded without purchase doesn’t give you legal use, so, no.”

Contestant Two kept going.

“Does anyone check what we bring in?”

I hope he uses the illegal tunes guru persona when pitching a show concept to the programming committee. Less competition.

Crank-o-meter: paying artists for their work, what a concept

November 13th, 2008 | Tags: human behaviour, shittypants | Category: human behaviour, shittypants | Leave a comment

I don’t know what happened today because I didn’t cross the path of a garlic necklace-wielding black cat that was walking under a ladder, but what a shithouse day for dealing with the other people.

Two old work friends were in the area so I rounded up some colleagues and organised a lunch venue, time and sorted out some car pooling. Call me now to organise your next major event ‘coz I am in control of situations.

Somewhere along the way I had forgotten one person and, rather than forward the message to him or ask me why I had omitted him, she copied all of the e-mail recipients asking why he was on my shit list. Yeah, bloody classy, thanks a lot.

The name of the café is one of those assortments of letters that doesn’t make a pronounceable word (like some personalised car numberplates, and I sit behind them in traffic wondering what on god’s earth FOCKC1 means), and I couldn’t look up the phone number. So I dusted off my battered sense of goodwill and drove to the place to let the owner know a group was coming for lunch. Bugger me dead, the place is shut on Tuesdays.

There are no other cafés in the area and I was a little bit red faced. I did think about smashing the front window and firing up the hot plates to save the day, however, I wasn’t happy camperish enough to prepare and serve food to the e-mailing bitch without adding dishwashing liquid to her Pad Thai.

I called the person with the furthest to travel and sorted out another place, then made another seven phone calls to advise of the change. All seven laughed aloud, referred to my blondeness and queried why I am paid to be in charge of Very Important Stuff at work. Fuckin’ choke on your lunch and see if I call an ambulance.

Anyway, I survived lunch without hurting anyone and in the afternoon I realised the zip on my pants had broken. I do not know how long I was flashing my jocks to the world. You know those social gaffes like toilet paper stuck to your shoes or your skirt stuck in your pantyhose and everyone pretends to be too polite to tell you but, really, they’re secretly glad it’s you and not them? It’s my favourite feeling. I spent the rest of the day re-tracing my steps in my mind to see if I needed to apologise to anyone for temporarily blinding them.

In a lucky break, I stopped at some shops on the way home and saw a new dry cleaning and clothing repair shop. Hurrah for a change in luck! I grabbed my pants, ran inside and waited for the nice young lady to book ‘em in.

She said the zip couldn’t be done today. I said, “That’s OK, I don’t want them done today. Whenever is fine” She said the woman who sews isn’t there and they couldn’t be done today. I replied again that I didn’t want them done today as I have other pants like the zipped-up ones I was wearing. She said she didn’t know when the seamstress was due to return. I ended up asking if the woman was due in at the shop ever, and she said yes. I finally got my pants booked in for whenever. I didn’t dare ask for them to be dry cleaned as well.

Tomorrow is another day. No lunches, I’m wearing a skirt and I don’t give a shit if the sewing lady has migrated to Mawson Base with my pants.

Crank-o-meter: staying home with the door locked

November 11th, 2008 | Tags: human behaviour, shittypants | Category: human behaviour, shittypants | Leave a comment