» Family codes and rituals

Banane!
My parents used to live and work in Switzerland. In fact, I was born there. Apparently, my Dad's Swiss office was a melting-pot of different European languages and workers, the only things they all shared being an aptitude for telecommunications and a warped sense of humour. My dad extracted endless amusement from practical jokes: his favourite was when his friend Michel's back was turned, he replaced Michel's handset with a banana and rang his extension. Michel whipped round, extended his hand toward the phone, and exclaimed in puzzled French: "Banane?"

That is the story of why, 20 years later, every time the phone rings in our house, Dad shouts "Banane" after every ring. I'm sure there's also an explanation for why, whenever anyone in our house starts a sentence with "So..." and a pause, another family member fills in the gap with "...haben Sie heute Tennis gespielen?", but it's lost on me.

My family are strange.
(Wed 26th Nov 2008, 13:50, More)

» Will you go out with me?

A university tale
It was the first year of university. I was eighteen, away from home for the first time, living life to the full in the big city. Naturally, this involved drinking copious amounts of gin and rose wine as often as humanly possible, whilst attempting to build lifelong friendships and meaningful relationships. Birthdays are often an extension of this, and my nineteenth was to be no different.

As it turned out, March 12th 2007 would go down in all my friends’, and friends of friends’, memories as the most debauched night out of the whole of first year. Entertainment was provided by the hapless birthday girl, who stumbled into the student bar an hour and a half late to the sound of applause and proceeded to attempt a curtsey, only to fall into a chair and demand a drink.

Now, student bars are renowned for their foul concoctions but I’m pretty sure Manchester Uni’s got the one most guaranteed to get freshers lairy. The “Green Monster” is a pint of neon, pulsating toxic ooze tasting vaguely of fruit. It consists of one orange Reef, some blue curacao and is topped up with cider. I think. This wasn’t the drink I was presented with, however. Some clever soul bought a “Turbo Shandy” – lager and Smirnoff Ice in one glass. Some even cleverer soul decided to get a fresh (plastic – classy) pint glass and mix the two concoctions together to create a Superbrew™. Well, it was grey, it smelled like nothing on this earth and I necked it in one long guzzle. To the bar!

So on we moved to the gay village, to a lovely place with £1 shots and cheap bottles of fluorescent alcopops. Uproariously (an underused word, in my opinion) drunk by now, I proceeded to flaunt my bisexuality in the worst way possible by face-raping my gay female housemate. I then went to the toilets and was lost for half an hour (apparently), until the same female housemate came in looking for me. Sadly, I was asleep in a cubicle. Getting me out of there was fun: I accidentally bashed into one of the walls in that awfully uncoordinated way that only the terminally wasted can manage and embarked into a Laurel & Hardy-esque sequence of bouncing off each of the walls of the toilet about three times before staggering through the door and sitting at my housemate’s feet giggling inanely.

The aim of this drawn-out tale is merely to prove that I was in a state of drunkenness near to alcohol poisoning levels. This was when my friends decided to get me home. A male friend of mine helped me towards the door where I was, spectacularly, sick all over his trousers and shoes before demanding pizza and cigarettes. On arrival back at halls (sans pizza) my housemate asked me where my keys were. “Inmabag,” I advised sagely. “And where is that?” she said gently. “Inbar. Hehe.” I giggled back. Fortunately the warden was feeling sympathetic and let me in, where I lay in a haze of blackness until about 7pm the next day, completely unable to touch food.

The point of this? Apart from providing my soul-baring introduction to b3ta, the friend who I threw up on later took a shine to me. Clearly my vomit is one of my most attractive features: we’ve been together nearly a year. He delights in regaling that story, and keeps threatening to return the favour some day.

Length? Missed the bouncer’s shiny shoes by a couple of feet.
(Fri 29th Aug 2008, 15:30, More)

» Phobias

I shouldn't associate with...
..people with strange phobias. It reveals entirely too much about their bizarre psyches.

Take, for instance, my father: 6'5" northerner with overly thick eyebrows, whose habitual look could conservatively be described as "vacantly menacing". Soft as a brush, but no yoof' footballer who he referees would ever know this...and none of them argue with him. Clearly none of them have ever approached him with a cotton wool ball. Apparently it's the sound...the *crunch crunch crunch*...and as for the texture - well I've been ont he planet 20 years, and in that time never have I seen him touch cotton wool. It's a dilemma for a man who loves the smell of Germolene (!) but get near him with the beard of Santa (not a spelling error, I assure thee) and he's out of his chair faster than a Bond villain in the ejector seat and cowering against the nearest wall.

Then there's my brother, who has such a fear of newspaper that he can't be in the same room as a copy of The Times. My boyfriend gave him two bottles of vintage ale for Christmas (nice) but...under the wrapping they were protected by...newspaper! Quelle horreur! Our living room carpet was nearly soaked in Manchester's finest when he took off the shiny paper. He also refuses to eat fish and chips which have been wrapped in newspaper...apparently they "smell of newspaper" and that spoils his dinner.

I also, in my extended network of friends, have met someone who's scared of beards; a middle-aged lady who can't be in the same room as someone wearing a mask; and a colleague who believes squirrels are agents of the devil...

...speaking of the Devil, remember that earthquake a few weeks/months ago (I forget)? My housemate was awake from the beginning (at 1am) until I left my room at 7.30. She called me into her room where I found her cowering in terror under her duvet, convinced that the Devil was shaking her bed "just like in the Exorcist". I had to reassure her and Google the earthquake before she would leave the blankets.

After all this, my fears of evangelists and crying children seem a lot more normal.

*I'm new, please let me in gently :)*
(Tue 15th Apr 2008, 19:24, More)

» The Boss

You'll all hate me, but...
...technically, at the age of 21, I'm the boss. I'm an elected officer at a students' union, and as such am one of 14 line managers for a lot of staff, all of whom have more experience, were born at least 20 years before me and earn more than i do. Sometimes it's tough being the boss...
(Mon 22nd Jun 2009, 22:30, More)

» Food sabotage

Not sabotage (yet)
I've just fed my snake. Snakes (well, baby ones like mine at least) eat baby mice called pinkies, which are about an inch long and pink. Having spent most of the day working trawling the QOTW, my deviant mind saw the mouse babies in a new light.

Nobody's pissed me off enough yet, but if I offer you a sausage roll, beware.

Any inventive suggestions for how (or, more pertinently, why) to feed someone a dead mouse, feel free. It's fine to discuss in the abstract...isn't it?
(Fri 19th Sep 2008, 21:47, More)