Roses are Red, when Life is Blue...

Thought I’d escape to a rose garden to find some answers and fresh air during lunchtime. Turns out that all I found was roses. And air so heavily scented with the roses’ perfume, I could almost taste it. It didn’t taste like answers and the roses didn’t talk to me like I almost expected they would. Oh, they were ever so pretty, but utterly silent.

There was no dramatic soundtrack to accompany the moment, and no epiphany to bring peace to my inner turbulence. What do you do when you want something you just can’t seem to have? What happens when the past comes back to remind you of your failures?

Rose gardens are such disappointing oracles of wisdom. All they do is bob around in the breeze and look pretty. 

When ...it happens.

Have you ever wondered what you would do if you became the victim of a smash-and-grab, or a burglary, or a mugging...? Well I can tell you: Nothing. I did nothing. 
I didn't chase the perpetrator down the road with the intention of running him over and reclaiming my bag. Tempting, but I was stuck in traffic. I didn't fall to pieces and spend an hour crying on the side of the road. I just... went home like nothing happened.

I came to a traffic light on Friday evening, 20h30, at a traffic-congested, but dark intersection. In the corner of my eye a figure rushed to my car passenger window, shattered my passenger window, grabbed my bag from the car floor and ran off into the night. It happened in about four seconds. They say that time slows down when you fear for your life... I'm not so sure, but you do remember every terrible moment in detail. 

My whole body went numb with fear and adrenaline except for a weird, hot rush of pins and needles that pulsed into my hands and feet. And even though the perpetrator was on the run with me staring in horror at his back as he fled like a coward, I was afraid of him. I am afraid of him. There was nothing I could do. I simply put my foot on the accelerator, and got home as fast as I could. 

What bugs me is this feeling of guilt that I have. The inner argument that has been going on in my head ever since Friday, as that awful man looms outside the passenger window of my mind, his arm raise to shatter my internal safe haven...

I shouldn't have been out visiting my friends at night alone. 
But I left early, it wasn't that late? 
Was it? 
Oh no, I'm often out at night. How am I going to live?
I'll have to be a hermit. I'll have to quit half my commitments in Winter. The sun sets too early. 
I can't, I can't! I have to live!
No. I have to stay alive. 
I shouldn't have been driving that road. 
But I drive that road every day, often after dark.
It's a dark road you idiot.
But I thought it was the safest at the time. I even thought about it before I left. It has the least traffic lights and stops, and it's the fastest way home. Only 2 traffic lights, in fact, and a lovely highway. 
There are police patrolling that road constantly.
It's a dodgy road and you know it. 
I disagree. The other routes have just as many real threats, and more can go wrong on the other roads. Drunkards use the other route on Friday nights, and it's riddled with dodgy traffic lights. 
Suit yourself. Idiot. 
I should have had my phone in my pocket, not my bag.
I should have been locking my bag in my boot.
Really? I should spend an additional 30 seconds outside my car, in an open parking lot, putting my bag in my boot? 
Well it should have been behind my seat at least, not on the passenger floor.
I didn't think anyone would be able (or brave enough) to reach the passenger floor in such a rush. 
Exactly, I didn't think. I was arrogant enough to believe that I'm immune to these things. 
Oh stop it!
I should have kept a peppergun in my car, just in case. 
But then what? I gas someone else and myself in an enclosed vehicle? 
That's a good point. And he was gone in 4 seconds, like we said. That would mean I'd gas myself alone. 
Still. A peppergun might have made me feel better. 
Or worse. 
I should have..
I should have..
I should have...

My mind is racing with all these thoughts of self-blame and guilt and I suddenly just feel really ticked off. Wait a friggin minute here...! I didn't do anything wrong! I am a careful and vigilant person. If anything, I'm a bit too nice and naive, but I'm not an idiot. I did not 'deserve' this out of my own carelessness. It happened. And please forgive my use of this phrase but "Shit happens". 

And it did happen. So what now? It was such a petty crime, so not-a-big-deal. I am so grateful to be safe and un-harmed, unlike so may others. And yet... a part of me is stuck there, on that corner. I'm behind a truck and in front of a string of other cars. A man is crashing a sharp object into my car window and my mind is screaming out..

Is this it? 
Is he going to hijack me? 
What does he want?
Will he leave me here?
Will he force me to go with him?
Will he let me live?
Is this the end...???

I am still afraid, looking over my shoulder. My sense of freedom, humour and enjoyment of life is shivering in the corner of my mind, asking if it's safe to come out yet. In time, it will be ok. But for now, I have to clutch onto one thing to help me feel in control, and that is the fact that it was out of my control. I am not to blame. For that reason, I refuse to discuss the matter with anyone any further. I refuse to have people carelessly speculating on what I should have done, what I could have done, what I might have done, if I'd done it different, what I could have decided, should I decide I should have done it different....

As if I am somehow to blame.

No. No more. It happened. And that's it.

Rant of The Day: For The Ladies

Dear Brand Manufacturer,

When you remove a bra design that you have been manufacturing for years from your range, you are not simply discontinuing a style. You are plunging billions of women across the globe into darkness; ripping the proverbial mat from beneath their staggering feet; pushing them over the edge of a cliff, spinning them into a never-ending void of blackness and uncertainty.

There are those of us who find bra-shopping to be a most loathsome task. Those of us who spent our delicate, teen years struggling to find that perfect fit. Comfort, support, confidence. And finally, at the age of 23 – yes twenty-three! – my twelve-year search was rewarded. And, bless you, dear manufacturer, this bra was kept on the market all this time, ensuring my comfort, support and confidence for a blissful five years. Such was my trust your product that my most recent purchase didn’t even warrant a fitting – I simply walked in, grabbed my size, and walk out. (after paying, of course)

This weekend, I dragged my sorry self out to my nearest Edgars in (slightly desperate) search of one of my beloved undergarments only to find that you have discontinued this particular item, and all similar items, replacing your entire range with what I can only call “Granny-bra’s”. Now, some years have passed since my first purchase of my favourite bra, but I resent the underlying suggestion that I should now be moving onto Granny-bra’s. You have left me no choice but to make the drastic move to another brand altogether.

An infuriating hour of trying on what felt like thousands and thousands of bra’s, different sizes, different cuts, and I found myself absolutely confused about what size I really am, sending hysterical messages of despair to my husband about my body, which is obviously deformed beyond human recognition – obviously, if I can’t get a single bra to friggin fit the same way that my old one used to….!!!!!!

*deep breathing*

And so, dear manufacturer, I bid you farewell, and the song “No it isn’t” by the band, +44 is our parting song…

Please understand:

This isn’t just ‘Goodbye’

This is ‘I can’t stand you’

Simply DistuRbED

I can't sleep. It's 11.30PM and I've been lying in bed for roughly an hour feeling disturbed.

You know what it's like, when you have something troubling you deeply, and you just can't quiet your loud mind. I would love to confide in you about the screaming thoughts within my mind, but instead I have decided the path of denial for now, and will be accounting my sleeplessness to one harrowing incident that occurred today.

It all began when I discovered on my way home that, by some grisly misfortune, an entire album of Simply Red had found its way onto my iPod. How could this be? Is this some kind of morbid joke? What kind of psycho would do a thing like this??

I was driving on the highway, and so concentrating on the road inevitably forced me into enduring more than 30 seconds of a song - I reiterate: circumstaces forced me to listen, I swear it...! And that's where the really disturbing part comes in... I couldn't bring myself to skip the song. I just..... couldn't.

Some kind of dark magic must be involved in all this, for I have spent my life believing that Simply Red is creepy. Something about that man just makes my skin crawl... and here I was in my car... captivated. I may have belted out a note or two when the spell cast really took hold of me.

Come now, listen to this...

"For Your Babies" - Simply Red

Gosh, what a sexy song, the kind to which one could gaze adoringly across a candlelit table into the eyes of the one whom you love... despite the fact that the song has a distinctly creepy title!

And this...

"The Air that I Breathe" - Simply Red

How can you not melt at how he caresses each note, literally making you believe that you are the air he breathes... And yet, is it just me, or is the the notion that "Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe, and to love you" is a bit obsessive and... stalkerish...? Ok, ok, in Simply Red's defence, it's not his song originally... but he does a darn good (stalkerish) delivery of it.
And ok, admittedly the actual music video is quite compelling, and not stalkerish at all.

Oh my. And now I have just admitted to listening to more than one song. *hangs head in shame*

This new-found discovery that I am not only able to tolerate Simply Red, but actually like him is most unsettling. I fear I am changing.

And so here I sit. Midnight now, dark rings under my bloodshot eyes, eating caramel straight from the tin.

I am so disturbed.

Rant of the Day: The Droids are Coming!

It's a Monday morning, 06h30, and a public holiday - Easter Monday to be precise. It's been a long weekend, consisting of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today. And I have a serious bone to pick with the universe. We're talking a femur-sized bone, a big one.


I have not been able to sleep late, not once over this weekend, no not once. Technology, it seems, has raised it's ugly head, and all those people who have been prophesying about droids taking over the world... well, in my sleep-deprived state, I'm starting to believe it's true.


Thursday evening, it was with great glee and self-satisfaction that I turned off my alarm, and asked hubby to do the same - which he assured me he would do. And into bed I snuggled, might I reiterate with great glee and self-satisfaction, looking forward to sleeping in, and allowing my body to wake up naturally, no beeping, no twittering, no nothing. Sigh.


Friday morning, what should wake us up, but hubby's phone alarm - this, at 06h45, only an hour later than his usual alarm. There aren't many words to describe the internal inferno that took place in my heart, as the imaginings of boiling his phone alive as it screamed for mercy took over my mind. Once sufficiently cooled down, I managed to politely ask "What alarm was that?!" He responded as though stating the obvious, which I should have known, that "It's my public holiday alarm... you know, so I can get up and do stuff."


What....????? Is......?????? A public holiday alarm.......????????? Surely, something that defeats the whole purpose of a public holiday? Moving along, I couldn't fault hubby for his productive nature, and so I consoled myself that I still had three mornings of this long weekend, and I would surely get a nice lie in out of at least one of them.


Saturday morning. 04h00 AM. The house alarm goes off, signalling that a passive outside has been triggered by movement. To the panic stations!! Hubby is up as quick as lightning, running from window to window, huffing and and puffing the sleep out of his system. This window, that window, back to the alarm panel to check again which passive it was, back to the window. Of course, I was equally concerned for our safety, and so I chose to remain in bed and... well, pray. I'm not sure I prayed very much for our safety, because I recall praying more that the alarm system would spontaneously go up in flames leaving us in eternal peace forevermore, to sleep for as friggin' long as we so please...
As is custom with me when I'm woken up anytime after 03h00 AM, I couldn't really get back to sleep, so I lay, and had a staring-competition with the alarm panel, seeing the evil lurk behind those red little LED's... Quite sure I saw the hint of a sinister smile, it was at this point that I started to realize that perhaps technology has got it in for us after all...


Sunday morning, hubby had arranged to have a gardener come in for the day, and do some work. At 06h45. Sigh. Having been forewarned of this, I was neither surprised, and only a little bothered by the alarm going off. And as such, I was able to drift back into a light, pleasant slumber. Which was disturbed five minutes later by hubby's phone ringing, the gardener's way of letting us know that he was waiting outside our gate. I managed to maintain a exterior of absolute cool and calm, but if I must be honest, my insides were boiling and bubbling, and all but evaporating out of my ears, as I plotted the cell phone's demise once more. I've decided that boiling alive is too merciful for such an evil, it must be pulled apart piece by piece. By piece. By little piece. Yeeeessss.


So it was with gentle persistence that I informed hubby last night that there are to be no phone alarms on this, our final day of the long weekend. He wholeheartedly agreed, and together we gushed about how wonderful it would be to sleep in and wake up... naturally! On this united front, we went to bed....


At some point during the night, our house alarm started beeping in a frenzy, signalling not that there is an intruder, but rather that the power has gone off. Yes. The &@#* alarm wakes you up to tell you that the %^&@*$* power is off. Why, thank you Alarm, I can now lie awake and ponder the future of this country, and what it will be like when we all run out of fossil fuels and have to run to work on foot and rely on the sunshine alone to warm up our geysers and when we all go to bed when the sun sets and there's no more TV and wait.... NO MORE FRIGGIN ALARMS GOING OFF FOR NO APPARENT REASON.....


*deep breathing exercises*


Somehow, I don't know how, but somehow, through the hissing steam coming out of my ears, I managed to fall asleep again, and found comfort in the fact that I could still enjoy a lie in this morning... until 06h00. Which is the time that hubby's phone made a rather cute little chirp. It wasn't an alarm, nor phone call, nor a message, and the total length of the chirp couldn't have been more than three seconds. In fact, it sounded what I would imagine to be technology's equivalent of a little giggle.


As little as the sound was, it was all that was needed....

You woke me up... You better be on fire or something...

And so it is that I'm once again awake. And now that hubby's phone is laughing at me outright, quite certain that technology is making it's first advances on warfare with humankind, using the stealthy strategy of sleep-deprivation, until we are all nothing more than cussing, crazy-eyed, hollow people, having incinerated our own insides with fury and desperation....

Keep your bloodshot eyes open, Fellow Inhabitants of this Planet, they're coming for us!!!!

Rant of the Day: Spam

Spam. We all hate it right? And yet those cheesy chain-mails keep going around and around and around… I wonder why. I wonder how, if we all truly hate it the way we claim to do.  

The worst kind of spam-mails are the ones that carry with them the threat of bad luck until the day you die, and in fact bad luck even after you’re dead, and after your children have grown old and died, and then maybe some more bad luck after that, if you’re really unlucky… if you don’t forward the mail in question to at least a million people that you know are going to curse you profusely for flooding their inbox with heaps of bad luck. I’m not sure what bad luck is like for dead people, maybe their remains are consumed by a particularly nasty worm, but for all the chain mail I’ve deleted (after cursing the senders profusely), I’ve got a lot of it waiting for me in my grave.

I always wonder, why would you send that to me? If you really believed that this stupid mail was going to bring me, your friend, bad luck, why would you send it to me?? You’re not a friend, you back-stabber! First sign of impending doom, and you pass it on to me?! And you’re blind! And stupid! Only blind, stupid people believe in chain-mail-luck. Did something good happen to you 17 minutes after sending that mail to 17 people, like it promised you would happen? No?? Imagine that.

I might appreciate the kind of spam-mail that brings a laugh with it. Some tasteful humour. A funny image. Even an inspiring story. A well thought-out poem. But the moment I see those famous six words, “If you don’t pass this on…” I experience a reflex-action that jerks my computer mouse to the delete button, before I can even think about it any further.

What a waste of bandwidth. What a waste of my time. What a waste of nasty worms.

End of Personal Rant. *takes a bow*

Rant of the Day: Sipho the Street-Corner Sign-Holder

Every morning on my way to work, I pass a gentleman who stands in the road with a sign. The same man, the same street corner, the same sign. As per the sign, which is his only way of presenting his Curriculum Vitae to the world, his name is Sipho. He has experience washing cars, and is looking for work. Sipho is a friendly chap, with bright, nearly-shining eyes, and a big smile of straight white teeth. Basically, as far as street-corner sign-holders go, he is not altogether unpleasant to drive past.

This morning, as usual, Sipho was there, waving and smiling at the passing traffic, sign in hand. Just before I drove past him, someone behind me slowed down and hooted for his attention.

Sipho appears to be about 40 years old, but at that moment his face lit up, and he almost looked like a child, presented with a gift. He did this strange little dance-run towards the car that had hooted at him – such enthusiasm could not be matched! The car had slowed to a near stop – I was so thrilled for Sipho – and then as he reached the vehicle, they accelerated and drove away, leaving Sipho stranded in mid-dance.

Perhaps I’m in a sensitive frame of mind today, but my heart sank to my feet, and I cried for him. I can only begin to imagine the disappointment that must have washed over him, and I wanted to throttle whoever was in that car; I want to maim their cruel existences into nothing. How could anyone wish to crush someone’s spirit in such a brutal act of callousness?

I don’t understand some people in this world. It’s a beautiful Friday morning, why start the day with such unkindness? Why set out to hurt people that have done no harm to you? What is it that makes you such a bitter and twisted person, that your only means of feeling any better is to squash the people around you?

I pity you, you miserable creature. I can not even call you a human being, because there is nothing humane about you. 

Thought of the day: Do-overs

 I have put some thought into my life, and have decided that if I could have a do-over of the entire thing, I would pursue my dream of becoming a singer. Other than my obsessive love for music, I am not really a musical person. I don’t particularly have any outstanding vocal talent, although I can hold a note. A weak note, but I can hold it.

 No, the reason I feel that I could pursue this dream is that it has become apparent in recent years that vocal and musical ability just isn’t a requirement to fortune and fame anymore. You’ll have to forgive my bitching on this matter – I guess I’m just baffled as to why certain people are even on the charts. I have no problem with different genre’s, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about taste, I’m talking about talent.

 In fact, I have just now changed my mind: I will not become a singer. I will become a rapper – this is where musical standards are the lowest. One rapper I admire for talent is Eminem. While I’m not a fan of his somewhat distasteful lyrics, that boy can rap. Respect, with a capital R.

 But since talent is no longer a requirement, I would get my bling on and become a rapper… if I could have a do-over, that is.

All right, that’s all I had to say.

*Personal rant over*