So I’ve moved back to my home town after 8 years of studying. I always knew I’d come back so I’m not THAT surprised. I love the country life. Sure, cities have their plus points (friends, services, convenient shopping…) but then there is also peak hour traffic which, I’ve noticed, extends noticeably into non-peak hours of late. I’d prefer Chinese bamboo torture over driving in bumper to bumper traffic behind a taxi covered in WWE wrestler stickers and blasting kwaito (music which is local, homegrown, ethnic and also utter trash!).
Country life should be chilled out. Wake up early go to bed early. Farmers in straw hats ferrying loads of cabbages to market in beat up old Toyotas. Fishing and fresh food. Home baked cookies and unsliced rusks. You get the idea, all rustic like…
Where I live, things are a tad more exciting though. Just yesterday a gang of armed robbers held up a local shop. Police in the area actually coordinated a road block and nabbed the bastards in a surprisingly well oiled operation. Well, when I say ‘nabbed the bastards’ I really mean ‘chase them into the mielie fields and shoot them to pieces’. If I was a criminal I’d definitely decide to lay low if I lived hereabouts. In fact some of SA’s most hard core criminals come from around here. ATM bombings and mall robberies in Johannesburg (who robs the mall!?) have links to rural Kranskop. Not to mention old Jacob Zuma’s posse down the road in Nkandla (which has recently overtaken Dubai as the world’s fastest growing city in the middle of nowhere).
Yes things do happen out here in the bundus. The best part of it all… NO TRAFFIC!
I've met so many people who think like this. I usually pick it up after one or two in depth conversations. These people probably never perceive themselves in this way. It's a sad life in which the closest friend they can keep is their own reflection in the mirror. This however, doesn't seem to bother them in the least...
If, perchance, I too fall under this category please tell me so I can perform brain surgery on myself crossing fingers that I will lop off the right portion and become a worthy human being again.
In case you were wondering, this is just a general post aimed at finding out if I am (have become) what I hate. If you think you know who I am leave an honest comment (I can take it !!! *crushes an empty appletiser can onto his forehead*)
I know it’s only natural to be attracted to certain smells (perfumes, food, coffee, baking…). It’s almost like some invisible force has lassoed you by the nose and has decided to reel you in. It can happen so quickly too. For example, I’ll be walking past a bakery without a thought of going in to buy anything before, “WHAM!” (fresh cheese bagel smell) first my eyes widen, then my head will turn toward the direction of the source and before I know it I’m walking out the place choking on drool while carrying a bag of goodies. I become like Gollum clutching onto the one ring after that. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if I subconsciously scowled at a few random innocent bystanders and stroked the bag on the way to my car (yes, I’m THAT helpless when it comes to fresh bread… don’t judge me).
(Ignore the ferret in that bagel... my Photoshop skills have some way to go.)
It all sort of makes sense when you think about it. There is often a nice reward associated with good smells… now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a ladies nice perfume for example is positively linked to the size of her…eyes. I will concede, however, that most men (ones that don’t use moisturizer on their hands at least) are likely to turn their heads in the general direction of a lovely feminine scent to… look for potential; simply because if something smells pretty, it may just look pretty too.
(pauses to think)
Okay okay, rereading the last line of the previous paragraph, I realise how this point of view could be perceived as shallow and possibly lead readers to think that I’m some sort of fetish driven pervert. Before you jump to false conclusions about me please look at yourself and think about the last time a beautiful scent of perfume or cologne wafted past you in a corridor. Now nod in approval as you remember how helpless you were when you turned to look at the source of the fragrance. GUILTY I SAY!!! At this point you will find that you either turn back in shame (us modest lot do this…) or you look again to take in the details and fantasize about how that person would look drenched in vanilla custard.
(b.t.w. if you nodded for that second part then you are in fact a sick and freakish weirdo… go get help, it may not be too late).
My apologies if this post seemed a little rambly up to this point. I am in fact building up to the big question and slightly confusing situation I find myself in. You see I think smells help us to form a sort of emotional link to their respective sources. I think it has something to do with the familiarity and positive/negative feedback associated with a smell that makes it have so much control over a person.
This is exactly the reason I can’t understand what it is about the smell of pencil sharpenings (yes, good old fashioned wooden pencil shavings) that draws me to them?
There is something about that quite distinctive smell that I really REALLY like. If they ever sold essence of pencil sharpening or aerosol in the shops, I would totally go out there, buy the stuff and proceed to douse all of my stationery and office desk drawers with it. Heck I’d probably even eat a pencil sharpenings flavoured muffin!
Why?
I haven’t the slightest clue… this is where I was hoping my readers would be able to help me. Is it just me or is there anyone out there with a similar affection for a completely random smell. (Then again, maybe I do need help…).
I’d like to see myself as the type of person who gets right to the point of a situation without any fart’arsing around. Sure some people detest that, it’s not long before these people realize that they don’t HAVE to get along with me if they don’t want to and quickly run…far, far away. It’s a huge advantage seeing as I don’t have to put up with people that don’t want to put up with me. If this doesn’t make sense to you let me rephrase.
At the end of the day you don’t get to know your enemies well enough to make enemies in the first place… thus I have no personal adversaries. I’m not even sure what having one would be like to be honest. I’m just assuming that adversaries = bad news and no benefits. I could be entirely wrong about all this though… an adversary may provide hours of joyful plotting and strategizing. Or in the case of Discworld, trolls and dwarves just fight against each other because they always have and they don’t know any different (at the end of the day having an adversary gives you something to do…). If you have one please leave a comment to enlighten me. In any case, I think I can say with a highish degree of confidence that the people that do know me half expect me to say something inappropriate…so I basically get away with stuff that others would be keel hauled for.
For example, this chat conversation I had with an anon friend this morning.
Gmail status of anon friend: XXX is boiling, grr.
Ebrahim: whats the matter? just put your aircon on...
Anon friend: we don't have one
Ebrahim: so get onesimple hey:D
Anon friend: yeah... because I can buy one with my measely salary :p
Ebrahim: i suppose you could wait till you reach menopause (sp?) i hear that women get cold and hot flushes... you just need to wait for the right one to come along.
Anon friend: wow... I'm not even going to consider that as an option
Ebrahim: you only have to wait around 15 years before your ovaries become shrivelled up enough.are you comfortable talking about this stuff?
Anon friend: now there's a great conversation to have with a guy friend, lolit doesn't bother me actually
Ebrahim: (phew!) Sophia Bexter: lol
Ebrahim: still feeling hot? (just though i'd remind you uncomfortable you are...)
Anon friend: thanks :pyeah I am... I feel like running through a sprinkler
Ebrahim: hey lets go for dinner this week.i'll introduce you some of my large german friends(as in tall)
Anon friend: that sounds good
…
hmmm. I just this second forgot the point of this post... (There was one, honest! It was a Duzi too!) oh well I'll remember it later when it's too late to make a difference.
I’ve always ripped on women for watching soap operas (or soapies). Don’t rip my head off just yet, I know loads of women that despise soapies and admit that I’m making huge assumptions here. Still, it’s my blog, I shall assume away with no further deliberation.
Soapies REALLY confused me, how could someone possibly spend so much time following the completely unspectacular, annoying and obviously FAKE life of a soapy character? I’m quite happy to put up with and occasionally enjoy a show that is fake and doesn’t hide it; even some reality shows are bearable. But soapies try so hard to fake reality that it completely destroys any sense of immersion into the plot. The fact that plots are so shallow and disturbingly mundane doesn’t help either... For instance, people don’t talk aloud to themselves when they are alone, reality doesn’t split society into good guys and bad guys (90% of people are just plain ‘neutral don’t give a crap’ guys) and we definitely don’t come back to life after having been killed off once. I could easily go on for another few pages on this topic; alas there is another more significant point to be made regarding soapies.
Soap Opera Digest!!!??? Holy Crap!
Back when I was at WitsUniversity, and living with my gran, I would sit and chat with her after campus. We would happily converse about the good old days, recipes, her health and such, you know, usual old people talk… In any case our happy conversations would last exactly till (and not one second longer) the Days of Our Lives started on TV. My gran would instantly switch over to soapy mode.
For example (imagine grannies voice NOW): “…so my mother used to make white people food because, (queue days of our lives theme song) That Sami is such a Bitch! You should see what she did to Kerry…”
I’d sit around for a few minutes to be polite before ‘going to the kitchen for a snack’/‘needing to meet some friends’/ ‘going for a long toilet break’. What I didn’t count on was the fact that those minute doses of soapy culture together with observing my grannies behaviour made me realize the point of it all.
In fact what I came to realize was a bit scarier than a mere rudimentary understanding of why people of sane mind watch these programs. This stuff goes deep into human nature, the origins and development of conflict, violence, poverty, education, peer pressure… all stuffed into one super-concentrated energy drink we call a television. A blog post cannot possibly give this subject the attention it needs.
…I’m glad I realize this now (as in, this very second). I must end this post before my head explodes trying to explain it all to you. I haven’t even started and I’ve nearly reached my word limit.
So, about the very significant point I wanted to make about soapies… I won’t put it in here because it just wouldn’t make sense any more. Instead, I will end off with a bit of a conclusion (just to give you that sense of completion).
My opinion of people that watch soapies has changed from:
“You’re a bunch of desperate, lifeless, loonies” to
“You watch that soapy, you probably need it”.
You have a brain; just use it to fill in the bits of reasoning between those two statements. Sorry for the build up to nothing… again. I promise I’ll try to finish the next post.
