» The Best / Worst thing I've ever eaten

What a morning that was.
I am the proud owner of a lovely black labrador, called Oscar, who turned 11 last month. It was not an uncommon thing for me to be woken up for work by Oscar, who responds much more enthusiastically to my alarm than I do, and who would triumphantly demonstrate his endless vigour by licking my face should I not awaken from the land of what is most commonly referred to as 'nod'.

In December last year I was suffering from the heaviest bastard cold that I had experienced in some time, and was generally a fucking nightmare to be around. I am sure many of you have experienced a cold before and the most irritating symptom at night time is, without doubt, the inability to breathe through your nose - this incurrs a far greater risk of snoring, and a 100% chance of a totally dry (or even slightly crusted over) mouth. Once upon an ill-fated morning the time came for my alarm to attempt to revive me from the surety of such sweet slumber and, once again, Oscar had risen before me and was bounding about with typical glee before he came to make sure that I, too, was conscious - I wasn't.

It had been a recurring theme throughout the previous weeks that my open-mouthed approach to sleep did not combine all too well with his face-licking approach to rousal - the result of which had a distinctly french feel to it. After a while, though, I began to mind this phenomenon less and less, and figured that as long as I was waking up in time for work, and as long as we had a healthy supply of toothpaste, things would work out for the best.

This morning was different, however. This morning, after a bit of tonsil-tennis with a male dog, I could taste... something. This morning, after wiping my mouth, there was a slimey, greenish-brown smear left on my hand. Yes, good people of B3ta - Oscar had been out that morning to have what turned out to be an otherworldly greeny-brown lawn snake, had used his ample tongue as toilet paper, and had passed the savings on to me. What ensued was total.fucking.carnage.

When I realised what had happened, my first and foremost thought was to somehow make it to the bathroom and to plan my next course of action once there - a simple plan. What actually ended up happening was I attempted to get up too quickly and fell on the floor, once on the floor I began to dry-heave (having just woken up, I simply had nothing in my stomach to vomit). It was at this point I discovered that dry-heaving is in fact a great way of fighting the dry-mouth that an open-mouthed sleep brings, as your mouth fills up with saliva. I also discoved just how important those little enzymes in the saliva are at breaking down food and releasing the flavour. Dear God. The taste is something unlike anything I hope to experience ever again - it is quite simply the most disgusting thing imaginable. This prompted further bouts of dry-heaving.

In between furiously trying to spit out the dog poo that had successfully mixed with the saliva to form an altogether more liquid substance, and dry-heaving my stomach muscles into oblivion, I made a mistake. When you are trying to get rid of something in your mouth, and you have run out of saliva to spit it out with, you get an intriguing urge - that urge is to swallow, to lubricate your throat and encourage more saliva to be produced. This simple act of swallowing allowed me to fully appreciate the texture of quite what was in my mouth. I remember it well - I swallowed one small lump of something, and another, more slimey, bit that had some gritty qualities.

This tipped me over the edge, and I hurled harder than I ever have or will and was sick the tiniest bit, about a hollowed-out half a lemon full (the universally recognised unit of measurement for sick). I had given up on walking anywhere by this point and thus crawled my way to the bathroom before plunging my mouth under the running tap, not daring to swallow a drop for a good 20 minutes. I didn't make it into work that day. Oscar no-longer wakes me up.



Some obligatory comment about length.
(Tue 31st May 2011, 21:25, More)

» Redundant technology

David and the insects.
Not entirely sure if this counts as being on-topic or not, but any excuse to tell one of my favourite stories from my childhood and all that.

~~~~A few wavy lines ~~~

It was about eight years ago now that I first met my cousin, who we shall refer to as David, for that was his name. My mum’s sister lives in Spain, thus we rarely get to see her, but we as a family needed a holiday and being a tad low on funds had to go and stay with her. I had been warned beforehand by my mother that David had severe learning and communication difficulties and that he might be difficult to understand at times – being a young lad myself I hadn’t had much experience with things like this. Needless to say, my 11 year old mind ran wild with images of a seven-limbed gargantuan, perhaps with an extra eye or head.

Upon our meeting I was pleasantly/disappointingly surprised. He only had four limbs, two eyes and one head. It also became apparent to me that David was a very smart guy, and was quite capable of stringing a sentence together. In fact the only noticeable thing regarding his disabilities was his inability to grasp correct grammar when either speaking or writing (irregular verbs especially were a problem and anything that had the audacity to be in the past-tense was awarded the suffix ‘ed’ for example ‘I was’ became ‘I wased’, ‘I had’ became ‘I haded’ etc. – you get the idea). Other than that though he appeared to be normal.

(For those qotw purists out there, this is the bit involving technology). I was getting along with my new-found cousin quite well, but things really moved along when he invited me to his bedroom (settle down at the back there!). Turns out this guy LOVED insects and all that goes with them – praying mantis bed sheets, stick insect curtains, stag beetle lampshade, every toy going that looked remotely bug-like. The crowning joy of this collection, however, was an enormous ant farm that took up almost an entire wall of his bedroom and, this being a time when ant farms were cool (especially to ten year old boys), what an ant farm it was – glass walls, blue neon lights for when it gets dark, several other gadgets and gizmos designed to make watching the little guys all the more enjoyable. It was an absolute masterpiece (quite technological – see, its slightly on topic) of retro equipment.

We went back the following year, all was well, Mum and Aunty were twittering away as Mums and Auntys tend to do. I overheard that in the winter David had had what was described as an ‘episode’ resulting in the destruction of his beloved farm, and that the ants had run riot in the house for a few days before they could get an exterminator in to deal with them. I was slightly gutted for the loss of that late 90’s must have piece of kit. My guttedness was premature, however, as dearest Aunt went on to explain that David had worked hard and built a new farm - a much smaller one - but a farm nonetheless. As is only natural I went to investigate, peering into his room I saw him pining over a tiny little Perspex box containing about 17 ants, with a blue torch underneath to replicate that neon effect. I could see that he was over the moon with his creation, so I thought I’d play along for a bit. I’ll never forget his response when I asked what it was – he smiled warmly and said "It’s my re-doned ant technology".

Do you know what? I apologise for neither length nor lack of funnies. *Re-lurks*
(Thu 4th Nov 2010, 21:39, More)

» Drunk Parents

One mild summers eve, a few years ago now...
My dad had set out with some of his nearest and dearest friends for a tipple or two at the local alehouse, and was expected back several hours before he eventually stumbled through the door absolutely annhialated. I had seen him drunk before, so this was nothing new in itself, but he must have been feeling particularly michievious on this occasion as he did something strange that gets funnier the more I think about it.

Almost immediately after entering the house he began sorting through all the DVDs in our possession at the time. After a few seconds he held one aloft with a proclamation of 'this is the one'. He had picked out 'V for Vendetta' and demanded we put it on and fast-forward to 'nine minutes and forty two seconds in'*. Once this had been accomplished we found ourselves at the scene where the girl returns to work the day after the Old Bailey has been blown up. After a minute or so he paused the flim, leapt up from his seat, pointed at an extra in the background and loudly informed everyone that 'he went to school with her and once fingered her in the park'.

Leaving everyone with this thought he ran upstairs to bed in glee and passed out with his clothes still on. My mothers expression can only be described as being not dissimilar to her expression at that exact moment. Breakfast the morning after was a frosty affair to say the least, but when quizzed about his exploits he revealed that his statements were in fact not true; he had never met the woman he singled out that night. In fact he had never even seen the film 'V for Vendetta'.

My dad was great.
*May not have been the exact time, but you get the idea.
(Wed 2nd Mar 2011, 13:00, More)

» Protest!

The worst i've seen to date...
For a man of not particularly advanced years I’ve seen more than my fair share of conflict, especially during the last decade or so. When you have attended as many as I, eventually you realise a pattern tends to emerge with struggles of this kind; it will start off with the best of intentions and be fairly well behaved, but tension will build the longer it goes on without a definitive result one way or the other. More often than not all it takes is an act of selfishness and stupidity from one trouble-making individual to throw the whole affair into chaos, and the higher the stakes, the more vigorous the reaction.

One particular occasion stands out, however. I had been invited by a friend to attend what was being advertised as an ‘event’ (though we all knew what it really was and understood that this wording had been employed to put police off the scent). The area was fairly rural, and the venue chosen for this most potentially violent of gatherings was outside an old castle that had now been converted to a house for some self aggrandising ponse, but still appeared regal enough to act as a landmark that could be seen from afar, and thus was more than suitable to attract the attention we were after.

Surprisingly few had actually turned up meaning that I had been able to position myself quite near the front – which was all very well and good until the Neanderthals toward the back started to throw things, at which point (despite the relatively small number) it turned into a frenzy. I personally had done nothing to antagonise these morons yet they still hurled anything and everything they could find at whoever was in proximity – inevitably I was hit by something from behind. It felt like Hulk Hogan had sledgehammered the back of my head and my surroundings started to spin as I went into a sort of daze, unable to move for what seemed like an eternity. No sooner had I pulled myself together and tried to move away than I was hit again from behind by some un-evolved ape. It was at this point that Toad and DK came speeding past me... so I switched the fucking thing off and stormed out of the room.
(Sat 13th Nov 2010, 18:25, More)

» Annoying Partners

So... the other morning I was having a poo.
It was one of those poos where everything just falls into place.

I have mentioned in a previous qotw that I am woken up each morning by my dog, Oscar, licking my face (this was no exeption), and I soon became aware that a worrying degree of bowel evacuation was required. I started things off and it seemed to be quite a regular one, no frills and all that, but it was soft and warm enough to merit the term pleasant.

I didn't have to push anymore by this point, as gravity was now on my side and this majectic turd slid from my anus to its final resting place. I realised by this point that I had gone an incrediby long time without pinching, and by now I was revelling in my own brilliance.

The next stage of this particular poo saw a number of silent farts come out, whilst poo was still coming out. This is an experience that I feel is best portrayed by likening it to how a woman must feel when a man has ejectulated in her anus or vagina and, though his penis is still inside her and is effectively filling up the hole (hopefully) some semen leaks out through the almost water-tight seal between vaginal wall and penile shaft.

As I recall, there were 5 of these farts before this monumental toilet treasure called it a day - I didn't even have to clench to finish it, it just ended by itself. Then, before I could take in the extent of my movements, my rectum refilled itself so that I could extend my enjoyment - this truly was a re-loading time that the Royal Artillery would have been proud of. This one was exqually as delightful and pengent as the last had been, though sadly not as long.

Anyway, long story short she was pissed off that I had poo'd on her in her sleep... I mean what the fuck is that all about!? Needless to say I got rid of her.
(Sat 6th Aug 2011, 22:10, More)