what rhymes with chaos?

INAPPROPRIATE SHARE HOUSE BEHAVIOUR

A brief but essential guide for those making the difficult transition from solitary living to cohabitation.

1 Air guitarring way too enthusiastically.

Obviously a small amount of air guitarring is permissible, nay, REQUIRED in good company. However, full on, down on your knees ‘guitar face’ soloing is highly ill advised. This goes double for head banging, particularly after that time that I slammed my head into the coffee table during the solo to ‘good times, bad times.’

2 swearing at the toaster

This probably shouldn’t be done in any case. I mean, it’s not the toaster’s fault that you slept in because you were so busy dreaming that you could speak French and had to save Scarlett Johansson from attempting to sing Tom Waits songs only to awake and find that only the first part of that particular nightmare was the invention of your imagination. It’s not the toaster’s fault that the fucking toast takes so fucking long to fucking cook fuck fuck shit FUCK! And no throwing the toaster at the wall doesn’t help, it’s not the wall’s fault either.

 

Was it all just a horrible dream?

3 Wearing embarrassingly effeminate underwear that your ex girlfriend bought you and you really, really wouldn’t wear anymore if it wasn’t so goddam comfortable.

Okay, so the relationship was an absolute train wreck (and I don’t mean page 12 footnote mention train wreck, I mean prime time, front page, widespread devastation and carnage level train wreck) but I did get this one really comfortable set of boxers out of it. Sure they have what I would LIKE to refer to as stallions but am aware most people would prefer to identify as ‘ponies’ printed on them, but damn, so comfortable! Might have to stick to wearing them underneath other clothing items of the slightly less humiliating variety. Such as my brown flares with the 'Bowie’ patch sown into the bum.

when I say: y'all say:  

4 drinking alone

Thankfully, drinking alone becomes substantially more difficult when surrounded by other people. However, this will mean an end to passing out on the couch whilst watching Black Books with a bottle of cheap red wine and a bowl of half eaten microwaved pasta four nights a the week. The other after affects of drinking alone, such as karaoking the fuck out of heartbreak classics, particularly those that explicitly refer to oneself as a woman, are also now banned.

5 incessantly asking editing advice

Does this scene work? Is this characters voice appropriate for their cultural background and level of education? I’m not sure about the ending…Do the supporting characters need tweaking? Should it have ninjas? Should it have zombies? Should it have pirates? Should it have zombie ninjas pirates who take over a condo in California that neighbours a cemetery on one side and a celebrity rehab facility on the other?

Gets annoying doesn’t it? Well, if you live with me you sure as hell better get used to it. I have to bring these characters to life and I need your help. If you don’t help me its like you aren’t helping to raise a child. WHICH IS ALMOST LIKE MURDER!

Besides, for every one question I verbalise I have another 10 748 buzzing around in my head, just imagine how annoying that gets.

Okay that’s all for this week. You may resume your meagre existence til then.

THE END

Was that okay? Did it read 'glib' or 'self-depreciating'? Do you think they’ll like it?

REVIEW OF MY JOB INTERVIEW

 
First of all, I didn’t even want the stupid job anyway, okay? And no, I don’t mean that like when a girl says she’d rather have her face pressed into a sandwich grill than go to dinner with me and I say: ‘Fine, I didn’t like you anyway!’ I mean I REALLY didn’t want the job.

It’s just that real jobs, by which I mean any form of employment that won’t make me want to immolate myself in a vat of hydrochloric acid, have become awfully hard to come by. And yes, I am referring to the GFC, GED / all my brothers all up in the club yeah you know me. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but lately it seems that the GFC is getting blamed for all the woes of the world.

“Can I have a job?”
“No. GFC.”

“Can I borrow your car?”
“Gee I'm sorry, but um...GFC you know?.”

The GFC is like the Jews, it gets blamed for everything. Also like the Jews, it seems to control an awful lot of our financial concerns. (I’m part Jewish, I’m allowed to talk like that.) I imagine the GFC to be a Woody Allen-like figure awkwardly stumbling around attempting to juggle a plethora of neuroses and mumbling anxieties and trepidations to itself in a quiet, whiny voice.

So that, my would-be oppressors, is what brought me into your office yesterday afternoon. That, and NOT any desire to be ‘a valued member of a synergised corporate family invested in maximising the fiscal concerns of a vast conglomerate of unified parties.’ Your promotional material sounds like it was written by Scientologists. You should just build some sort of worship hall next to the water cooler and you could try and convince people to work in exchange for ‘purifying their souls of imperfections through the process of work based re-invention’ rather than paying them.

Data entry, are you serious? Where did this job description come from? Do you hear five year olds listing their dream professions as ‘Popstar, Doctor, Police officer, Astronaut, Data Entry Clerk?’ I think not. What the hell made you think I would have any interest in data entry at all? Unless Data is a twenty three year old jazz singer from the Czech republic I have no interest in entering any kind of data whatsoever.

Also, your questioning sounded like it was written by Joan Rivers while she was on crack, edited by Barbara Walters over speakerphone while she was drunk driving and then ‘tweaked’ by Corinne Grant.

What the hell was with that desert island situation? Is that actually a scenario you envisage being relevant to your employees? If so, my only question to you sir, madam, and androgynous metro-sexual human of indeterminable sexual preference, is what the hell kind of operation are you running here? I mean, my geographical knowledge isn’t extensive, but I am fairly certain that desert islands don’t come into direct physical contact with inner city office buildings in any event outside of the apocalypse. And in that case all the hypothetical role-playing in the world won’t save you from the reaper’s scythe, because you know he’ll be gunning for the rich ones first.

Two stars, with the potential for the value of said celestial bodies to be significantly reduced dependant on the motions of the international market.

NEXT WEEK: REVIEW OF MY SUPPORT GROUP

REVIEW OF MY EX-GIRLFRIEND'S WEDDING

The last time I wore this suit was to a funeral. Yesterday I wore it to a wedding. In many ways it’s difficult to see the difference between the two events, save for the fact that at the former I was mourning the loss of one life, whereas at yesterday’s event I mourned the loss of two. Or more correctly, the transformation of two once highly functioning, successful, outgoing human beings with healthy social lives into one androgynous, socially retarded, mildly agoraphobic morlock with an unhealthy fondness for Ikea catalogues.

    (x 2)   +         =  

The invitation promised ‘a celebration of a perfect union’ which I initially mistook for the opening of a new ‘perfect donut n pancakes diner’ in my area. I was bitterly disappointed to discover this was not the case. Furthermore, ‘a perfect union’ requires a somewhat unforgivable stretch of the imagination in order to describe two people who met as the result of a minor car accident, and got engaged as the result of a second accident. This time located in the uterus.

The food was on offer was the culinary equivalent of a Kenny G b-side; lukewarm and unsatisfying. I think I may have obtained a mild case of gastro from the shrimp cocktail, then again this may have merely been by body physically protesting to the insipid and insufferably saccharine vows. These included lines such as “I would walk barefoot for a thousand days across burning sands to bring you my love.” I have a feeling they may have been written by the team at ‘Days of our Lives’ during an extended cigarette break.

Then of course came the obligatory: “If anyone has any reason why these two should not be married” bit that I’m fairly certain was invented specifically by movie studios as a plot device. At this point I did consider raising my hand and mentioning Cynthia’s fairly irritating habit of chewing her nails at the same time as her food, but decided it best to let the young lovers discover this in their own good time. Perhaps over a nice meal of caviar, destined to be imbibed with a small garnish of keratin protein from Cynthia’s index finger.

As I watched the girl I once shared a bed, apartment, bank account, rolling stone subscription and one minor but painful case of VD promise herself to another man, I couldn’t help but think: I wonder if the bridesmaid is single? Five Black Russians and a badly made Manhattan later her tongue being inexpertly shoved down by throat answered my question. Our brief romantic encounter ended with the two of us uncomfortably fumbling under clothes in the back of her Daihatsu, an exchange of numbers and a mutual promise to call each other that we both quite clearly knew was disingenuous. In many ways, this two hour long romantic collision was entirely superior to my last; it lacked both the painful redistribution of assets, and the rather ghastly task of having to pretend to enjoy family get togethers with drunken slightly racist in laws.

In total I give the whole affair three stars. Out of fifty. And those are only for the bartender who made up for his lack of blending with his generosity in alcoholic content. Those drinks had more ethanol than a mills and boon novel has tawdry clichés. Let’s hope the results of the wedding day are somewhat less lacklustre than the event itself, although the facebook photos of their honeymoon on a contiki tour of Thailand certainly aren’t a good indication.

NEXT WEEK: REVIEW OF YOUR GRANDMA