It's been a peculiar day today. I almost lost my hand, thanks to a newspaper; I angered some Belgian football fans on Twitter, I drew a cartoon elephant for no reason and I accidentally ate a wasabi crisp, thinking it was Ready Salted.
I coughed and spluttered through the kitchen like a parched man through the desert. There is something psychological about expecting one flavour and encountering another. Wasabi! I mean who's making Wasabi-flavoured crisps?
Turns out Junko had brought them back from Japan. Makes sense.
As for the man-eating newspaper, it's that vacuous irrelevance that calls itself the Midweek Chronicle that I'm lambasting this week.
Oh this week, and yes, every week! Every Tuesday it gets wedged into my letterbox, half-in, half-out, acting like a kind of sluice gate for all the heat in my house to help warm up the street.
I get back and see it there, poking through, taunting me. Go on, try to get me out, I dare you, it teases me.
Tonight I gave it a stern yank and the letterbox clinked and sliced straight into my finger. I hopped around for a bit, making a noise like a chimp.
I wouldn't mind so much if the thing actually contained any useful information. Nope. Every week the front page headline is something like: 'Divorce and separation can be a civilised affair'...
... which annoys me on so many levels that I can't even bring myself to scoff at the deliberate use of the word 'affair' in this parasitic solicitation of the broken-hearted.
I had a flick-through tonight for some actual news. The first big headline that wasn't a thinly-veiled advert (on about page 6) was about some swans who got stuck in a lock. I sighed and then stuffed the whole thing in the recycling sack with the others. Maybe I should write in and tell them about how I nearly lost the use of my fingers.
The football thing? Well I thought it was ridiculous. I don't know anything about football, and suddenly I was embroiled in an argument about Eden Hazard. The BBC Sport twitter feed ran an article about how the manager of Chelsea (for whom Eden Hazard plays) complained that the opposing team had 'targeted' him throughout the course of the match last night.
"He's one of the world's best players," I said, "What were they supposed to do, pass him the ball and show him to the net?"
I ought to have learned a long time ago not to comment on things I don't understand.
I drew an elephant. Then I drew a picture of an elephant drawing a picture of me. Then I thought about drawing a picture of me drawing a picture of an elephant drawing a picture of me but at that point I thought I probably should get on with some actual work. As far as I know, the company hasn't yet diversified into selling weird recursive pictures of technical authors and elephants.
Some good stuff happened today too! I realised a thing in my head wasn't as big a thing as I had been making it, we had a productive and fun worship practice, and I found a way to contribute to a work meeting that usually reduces me to a sulky silence.
Other than that I nearly died eating Japanese crisps. Oh, and would you believe it: someone had the nerve to say I was being 'melodramatic'!
Unbelievable.
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