Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: buttocks, debt, fish, hicks, house, lard, villagers, yokels
Originally uploaded by harean
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, your average Aasvogel is not a completely socially backward bird. While Finches are gregarious and Bulbuls vain, the Aasvogel is often spotted wearing shorts so obviously synthetic, so hideously floral, that the original flowers depicted could possibly not occur in nature. Unless Mother Nature has to throw up now and then. Even bees, insects so depraved that they fiddle with plant genitals all day must have STANDARDS.
In my defence I can only offer this argument: I love the shorts in question. I am irreversibly, unconditionally and unabashedly besotted by this luminescent blue-green pair shorts. Our love is special. These shorts have been with me through it all, from snorkeling off Unawatuna to watching a young Alan Strang have lots of horsey related orgasms in the recent production of Equus. (Divert. Equus. Rocked. Muchly.) It has successfully contained my ass despite my recently widening proportions, and if it’s going to keep the faith, I’d sooner go naked than be one to give up on it.
On some matters however, the Aasvogel is more discerning. Sophisticated like. Like when I decided to sacrifice the lion’s share of my projected earning capacity for the NEXT DECADE to build a house. Much has to be said about this house. How it was transformed from something the previous owners ran away from barely resisting the urge to set fire to their sandals as they dusted it at the gate to something I that I now retreat to with joy in my self inflicted poverty.
But that which should be said about the building of the same house would at some stage involve a lengthy inquisition into the maternal pedigree of the whoop of gorillas who escaped from Zimbabwe to pose as my builders. Of how I cheerfully paid these charlatans large amounts of money I will not earn in the future, to cause me material harm and mental anguish. Of how my bankers have decided that since now that I am their bitch after all, they can make crank phone calls to me. To tell me that my last payment didn’t go through, and how they would be send someone to chop off my goolies, throw it into my house and set fire to it all, if it wasn’t against the BASEL II banking reform regulations. Refer the debt/liquidity chart above for more details. I also added to my vocabulary the more technically challenging sweary words I have not used hitherto. Swearing, it turns out, is like fucking. Motivation is nothing. Technique is everything.
But house was built, builders were strategically shaved and no one could hardly tell the difference in the end. After the poo was washed off the walls, that is. Which left me to manage the last hurdle as it were. That I now lived in what could only be charitably called: the provinces. The first sign was that my address is both unpronounceable as well as mildly embarrassing. It doesn’t trip off the tongue lightly as much it tries to knot it with your tonsils. Then came the time I met someone while swimming off Galle and introduced myself with my still new address. The response was not what I expected. “Ah I’m from Angoda too!” one chirped while his friend sniggered. SNIGGERED, THE BASTARD. Oh God, I wasn’t even living there yet.
My neighbourhood is a… village. It may be a village 20 minutes from Borella with all the modern day conveniences and vices, but it’s got fully grown men lounging about the local tea shop at 11am on a Monday morning, people who keep their freaking doors open all the damn time and the local criminal dogsbody currently in the payroll of a failed Provincial Council politician’s son down the road. The casual fearlessness of people you meet on the road, who’ll look you in the eye and kill you if you speak funny. And that’s just the women.
As with every rural setting there are a number of roles that I was thrilled to find filled. I’ve noted Local Harmless Addict #1. I’ve never met #2. Leading me to the conclusion that the local economy can only support one drug addict. I’ve been approached by Useless Male Proto-Patriarch who’s been delegated minor gossiping and the spreading of small rumours. Then we have The Neighbour Who Keeps Asking for Stuff. I was glad to know they existed long before I even moved in. But something niggled at me for a while, a shoe, perhaps a rural bathroom slipper so to speak, that had not dropped. I was waiting for something. Heaven knew what.
The great nesting process was relatively painless although physically draining. Got. My. Shit. Barely. Together. Success! I had achieved a crappy milestone in middle class mediocrity; I had more debt than I had cash generating assets. Who cares? I lit candles, mopped the cut cement floor. Waited for the friends of the Aasvogel.
Much later, as we allowed a single well toned guitar and the acoustics of the front terrace to transport us, I heard it. As did all my guests. Down the road, a slurred commentary was offered at high decibels asserting that a certain lady was of ill repute. And that he doing the asserting would show she with the reputation, a thing or two, if he could only manage the complex motor skills involved. And profanity, sweet profanity breaking the now otherwise silent night. Even the crickets were listening for the juicier words. I leaned back, relieved. I had found my Local Drunk and Abusive Husband.
