A Merciful Dog. Pt.1

Not much has happened in the last few days other than my constant, bitter and bloody war on ants.
Perhaps I have become naturalized (note 'z') and this is why I no longer think the hollering all-consuming WASPs are worthy of comment, instead following the example of the ethnic minority servant class who just watch them impassively, as one would the actions of any other dumb animal. Of course this isn't quite true, just today a latino grocery store clerk and I, while sheltering from a torrential summer thunderstorm, were far from impassive as we watched blonde athletic girls with very wet t-shirts running from their cars to the store.

Now that we've fulfilled our breast anecdote quota, I'll just spend the next few posts relating tales of some of the more singular characters I've met in the gnu and auld worlds.

Crazy Lady I

I forgot to mention this one when covering the Orangemen's assault on my premises. While we were waiting at a bus stop in order to catch, wait, yes you've guessed it, a bus, we were approached by a crooked yet rotund figure who wished to tell us something we already knew. As we thanked her for her help and support in this difficult time, she detected our foreigner way of speech. Spake she, "Where ye be comin ffrom, strangers?"

After proffering the usual, "Englandbuthe'sfromHollandandthey'rejustvisitingbutIlivehere" and it being received successfully, I made a critical error of judgment. You will guess what it is when I describe her t-shirt: a picture of the stars and stripes (standard) below which was a Union Jack (less usual but some sort of fashion symbol here) and above both, the words 'Still Proud, Still Strong' (oh crap). So I asked her about her t-shirt.

Apparently she had been to the Kingdom, and like it 'a lot'. She particularly felt empathy for its shared predicament with Freedom, namely the influx of 'foreigns', a term which I rapidly discerned to mean 'people who are not white', and the accompanying lowering of 'standards'. I was troubled by these statements, not least because most people standing around at bus stops in Freedom fall squarely into the 'not white' category. Sagely she informed me that while black people had been treated badly, they had also caused a lot of problems. In a completely unanticipated turn of events she revealed that she didn't like the new president, chief amongst his failings being that he 'wasn't born here' has 'a muslim background' and 'doesn't understand the people who really live here'. I haven't been paying attention to these issues, having filed the requisite documentation in the 'irrelevant/politics' section of my memory, but at the very least I am fairly sure that Saint Obama has a very Christian foreground (albeit with the minor complication of a hate preacher) and furthermore I am convinced that 'understanding' the common man is a sign of serious mental delusion not desirous in the leader of the most powerful nation on Errf. However I held my peace, not wanting to interrupt the flow lest it erupted suddenly and violently, covering me in blackened teeth and cat hair. It was around this point that I began to think that perhaps she was the famous 'I don't trust him, he's a muslim' madwoman that McCain had shown extreme heroism in defusing on live television. Certainly the likeness was uncanny, but then I realised that no, this was simply the uniform of the deranged trailer park nationalist (female): grey hair styled by static electricity, worryingly yellow blotched t-shirt, terrifyingly stained skirt and the whole ensemble finished with a thick coating of feline fur.

During this exchange my visitors had been very supportive, keeping their distance and feigning extreme interest in the bus timetable. Finally the bus came and I tried to flee the conversation, except that she sat near us and intermittently shouted 'English', to get my attention when her thought organ had birthed another deformed child that she wished to share, when in a just world it would have been aborted with a claw hammer. Foremost on my mind was that we were now most certainly surrounded by people who could fairly and accurately be described as 'not white'.

Just as we reached the sanctuary of our destination she fired her parting shot.
"Course it was the Dutch who brought slaves here in the first place".

Stay tuned for:
Crazy Lady II. She who feeds gulls.
Jonathan the Shaman
Kevin