» Personal Hygiene

dirty thoughts
I didn't always wash every day until a few years ago, I figured as long as I didn't smell it was ok. Now I try to, I think it's psychologically important to be under water every day. Maybe the Christians and the Muslims have the right of it with the whole baptism / wudu / ablutions thing. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how much I completely fail to achieve my appointed tasks, at least I’m clean every day. Except today, when I snoffed my alarm by accident, (hit stop instead of snooze) and woke up too late to get in the shower. I feel rough as, and not just because I was up too late playing with photoshop for that damn comp.

Men don’t seem to realise that women have a very rarified sense of smell and we are not turned on by staleness. I can barely breathe when I’m with one of my mates, and have been known to ask “Did something die and rot in here…? Oh no, it’s just Dan” (aka Stinky Dan, Fat Dan, Ginger Dan, or on occasions, Big Fat Stinky Ginger Dan). He smells. Bad. I’m sure all of Leeds must feel nauseous. Dan, if you are reading this, I love you, but sort it out mate. You reek. You too, Tommy Smooth. Chicks might dig scars, but they don’t go for skank. Wash your clothes as well as your person. Especially if you want someone to put that in her mouth.
Hear me now.

One of my mates at uni was a total stinkfiend. We once had to gang up on him because he smelled so bad. Someone ran a bath and then we took a leg / arm each and threw him in., fully-clothed. He just sat there sulking in his wet hippy rags – I had to wade in and wash him in the end. Skinny monkey boy had sores in nasty places.
He'd sod off to India every winter and live in ditches getting wasted with skanky hippies. One time he came back with the usual amount of gear up his arse, and having performed his act of expulsion & reclamation, settled down to veg on the sofa in front of the TV. It was only several hours later after a procession of people had been round to say hello again that he announced “Oh yeah, I think I might have head lice, maybe fleas too, I’m not sure, there is definitely something living on me”. Bastard. I shaved his head... as I cut each dread off I could hear the tiny rain of parasites falling onto the kitchen floor. Still makes my skin crawl to think about it.
(Tue 27th Mar 2007, 11:31, More)

» Racist grandparents

My racist Grandad
One of my Grandads was a terrible racist, who frequently referred to my Chinese housemate at uni as (famous prostitute) Susie Wong to her face. No amount of explaining how offensive this was would make him stop.

He hated anyone from the Indian subcontinent particularly, referring to them as "dirty serfs who smell funny", and refused to visit his new GP when he found out he was a Sikh. He died at the ripe old age of 100, offering his bigoted disdain to the carers who came in to wash and feed him to the very end. We had to pay a lot of extra sweeteners to keep them coming. I suspect some of them were stealing from him but I didn't blame them at all. He was a racist, sexist* git. (* Once asked me why I was bothering to go to university and get a degree since as a girl I was taking up a valuable space that would be wasted when I got married and had kids).

He worked for most of his life for a bus company in the East Midlands, including during WW2 when he remained home in his "reserved" occupation. He became a manager in the 50s, and refused to allow non-Caucasians to work as conductors or drivers for his company on the grounds that they weren't smart enough to be given the responsibility. One day in the late 80s, someone actually took him to a disciplinary tribunal over this, which he looked sure to lose until it was revealed that the claimant had lied on their application form about a qualification they had. The case was thrown out, and he held a little victory party at his (all-white) bowls club to celebrate. When I talked to him about it afterwards, he informed me triumphantly that, "Just goes to prove what I've always told you - you can't trust a darkie".

For balance, my other Grandad left Leeds to go to Burma in the war, returning home with a fixed belief that "folk are folk wherever you go, no matter what colour their skin is, they've all got kids and they all like a joke and a song" along with a strong appreciation for curry. He was lovely and I miss him greatly.
(Fri 28th Oct 2011, 17:08, More)