How clean is your house?"Part of my kitchen floor are thick with dust, grease, part of a broken mug, a few mummified oven-chips, a desiccated used teabag and a couple of pieces of cutlery", says Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic. To most people, that's filth. To some of us, that's dinner. Tell us about squalid homes or obsessive cleaners.
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 13:00)
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Wipe your feet on the way out...I'd driven for hours to meet up with a journalist, covering a story in deepest, darkest back end of nowhere. It was late, the rain was hammering down and it was looking like I was facing a night in a b&b.
I was only there on 'standby.' The way it generally works is this: Journo knocks the door and asks for an interview/quote. I was there to take pics if they agreed, and copy any pictures relevant that might be to the story. Stereotypical tabloid journalism.
Very often it ends up in a polite no thanks and a door firmly shut in the face. Usually journo gets a quick quote, but nothing in depth and I just sit there picking my nose. Sometimes you get invited in and get the story, pictures, coffee etc...
We got the last scenario.
The house was cluttered, obviously well lived in, but generally tidy. A dog was barking in another room and I was being given death stares by the slightly neanderthal looking teenage son of the woman being interviewed. I made myself look busy, putting camera gear together as the interview was wrapped up. I was slightly worried about another possible scenario. The one where you get locked in someones house and get your head kicked in...
...interview got finished. Things got handed over to me. All I could think about was not getting a kicking closely followed by finding a pub... I got on with my thing...
"Sit there. *click* Look at me. *clickclick* Hands like this. Hands like that. *click* Now stand there. *clickclickclick* Cross your legs. That's it, keep looking at me. *clickclick* Fold your arms. Hang on, I just need to change my lens..."
...And as I took the two paces over to my bag, I slipped. The unmistakable slip I remember from being eight years old and walking to school. The kind of slip that usually ended in me being called 'pooshoe' for the eternity that was a schoolday. A full on, foot long, skidmark on carpet inducing, balance destroying slip.
I looked down at my foe. On either side of the greasy brown smear stood what remained of possibly the biggest dog egg I had ever seen. A considerable amount still clung to my shoe, and now the 'skin' was broken the smell hit. The room went quiet for a second, only to be broken by my colleague starting to retch.
"Big dog you've got then?" was all I could think of to say...
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TheMattInAHat has a particular... odour..., Thu 25 Mar 2010, 22:10,
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