Anger to the point of fudge. Don’t make her fudgy. I don’t speak Fudgish.

Posted: October 23, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

This week my wife mothered our kids (including two baths nights), cooked all our evening meals (getting better all the time), worked her job in the Justice policy sector (one day commuting to London and back), sold our car (made a heavy note wad at it), studied evenings for her post graduate degree (late into the nights), hoovered (for fun apparently) and otherwise generally put up with me.

Forgiveness is important with this kind of wife, as it’s no wonder she didn’t have time to thank me for doing the washing up one evening, which I did do fairly loudly.

I would have done more this week, but I was too occupied watching her in astonishment. In honesty, I would have been watching her regardless of how many tasks she was doing, as she is invariably my favourite thing. I even like her handwriting, and I know I like her handwriting, which is an odd thing to know you like about someone.

What don’t I like about her, aside from her husband?

She’s got a bit of a temper. Only a bit, because she tends to leave the lion’s share of her temper about my head and neck following a dispute, such as me suggesting post-graduate education is less important than washing up, by me.

Then again, it is that same temper that I find oddly charming, on those rare occasions I see it make its way towards other poor unfortunates.

It’s somewhat as I’d imagine it to be, if I were the Arizona deserts watching little planes flying very fast towards and even faster away from little island in the French Polynesia sea.

I remember in an Australian town called Hahndorf, we’d been to a local petting zoo to pet some lambs and camels, ostrich and emu. Both ostrich and emu, this is important.

Afterwards, we were in a little sweet shop on the main road, and my wife mentioned in conversation with the owner that we’d been at the zoo.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Well, an enormous ostrich!” my wife remarked.

The owner paused, leant back in his chair and looked out the window in a manner that suggested he just read the gospel of instructional manuals of ‘how-to-be-arrogant’, and said with his hands behind his head:

“Yeah, we call ‘em emus over here, love.”

He ran a sweet shop. Once. Who knows what’s become of him since?

He’s probably being arrogant somewhere, deceased.

All the same, I all but giggled as I clutched my candy canes in a trembling and sticky fist, watching my wife slowly lean over the counter in an all-encompassing manner and gently ask him:


“Fucking idiot?”

Good question, if confusing in that way questions you’re not meant to answer can be. He answered, and he was incorrect in and of his very being, dialogue aside, though I’m pleased to say I did my duty as a husband and global citizen of sweet shops and coaxed my wife out of the shop with the promise of there being some enormous ostriches out there someone which might match her temper, so she should try it. Also, I had some fudge.

Fudge heals all wounds. Apart from those that happened to that sweet shop guy. He needs hypnosis.

My wife then shared the fudge with me, and it was brilliant, in-Australia-and-not-in-trouble, fudge. We ate it together.

She has many other qualities I also adore, but now I’m hungry and the washing-up really needs doing loudly.

Sam

Humanity Won; Kangaroo Didn’t

Posted: April 22, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty., culture, Matters that Matter, writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I have never been more proud of my species than the occasion on which I watched the video of an Australian man squaring up with and punching a Kangaroo.

To begin, this was not one of those cruel kangaroo-boxing charades as per the Victorian era…it was a kangaroo that deserved to be punched and man that deserved to do the punching.

To set the scene of this wonderful moment, it begins sadly.

A young Australian man has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, meaning that his life is a great deal more ‘over’ than the rest of us currently walking around.

This being so, the chap is still luckier than a fair many people; because he has his friends who are insistent on taking him out to live life whilst it’s still liveable.

So this friend takes his very ill pal out to do what they both enjoy most; hunting with their dogs in their jeep.

Here is where the video begins.

A shakily held camera (a shakily held camera is forgivable considering cancer) atop the jeep, Aussie outback whizzing past and distressed calls of the men looking for their dogs which appear to have disappeared.

As it turns out, they had a fear of what had become of their hounds, and the fear was confirmed.

The motor pulls to a stop and a man, the friend, leaps down and begins walking towards what we can now see; a large dog in the unfriendly embrace of a very large Grey Kangaroo (‘the big kind’).

The man is walking towards the two animals with manly purpose; and here’s why that’s brave.

A Grey Kangaroo is about 5-feet-something tall and filled with testosterone and all the muscly meat that entails.

Have you ever seen a shaved chimp? Whilst casually reaching for a banana you’ll see their arms ripple with all sorts of unnecessary-yet-insisted-upon-by-nature muscles, and a kangaroo is no different.

In a permanent ‘look at my muscles’ pose, a lone male Grey Kangaroo is highly aggressive and will happily consider your garden as it’s new pot to piss in.

Along with this, the kangaroo is deadly owing to one weapon in its arsenal; the tail.

Usually seen as a mere aid to its hopping about the wilderness, it is in fact like a crocodile’s tail; filled with muscle and unyielding bone, not prehensile but it’ll make you apprehensile (but only if you’ll excuse poor puns) when you discover it’s trick.

When fighting, kangaroos might look as though they are indulging in a bitchy little face pushing fight, with scratching being the order of the day, but this is not the end all. For the deadly strike, the kangaroo will lean back on it’s bewilderingly now-leg-like tail (currently holding its entire bodyweight) and proceed to kick out with its legs into the abdomen of the opponent.

Picture a tripod bouncing across the Australian landscape, only you didn’t realise this until too late and now its going to involve that third leg most unfairly in a fight.

The force breaks bone, and should claw catch flesh: the belly can easily be carried off and away.

To tackle this takes guts, as it is your ‘guts’ that can also quickly be staining your bush shoes and the kangaroo’s toes.

That is what this man is walking towards, with oh-so-perfect a purpose.

The kangaroo sees the approaching Aussie male, and let’s the dog escape (with which it appreciatively flees).

The man is now right up to the kangaroo, and there is a hell of a lot of testosterone in the air this afternoon.

He and the kangaroo both square up, with the Roo bulking out and the man shaking loose like Bruce Lee as he adapts to a boxing pose.

And then, the man promptly puts his hand though the kangaroo’s chin.

Through it’s chin.

Butter.

Like UTTER BUTTER.

And I’m standing up and yelling “YEEEESSSS” at this, in my cosy bedroom at home, thousands of miles away and two weeks later.

The kangaroo waves is arms in pathetic yet vital little spirals in effort to keep balanced whilst it leans back dependently on its deadly secret weapon of a third leg.

The look on its face is of be-fucking-whilderment.

Befucklement.

It does not have the processing skills demanded of it now to understand the tuned ability of this incredible species: humanity.

Exactly how to stand so as to generate adequate power for the punch, precisely where to aim and land the blow through the now-since-buttery chin of the kangaroo, and the compassion of heart to not have your mate’s trip spoiled by the loss of another great friend to our species: dogs.

The kangaroo is entirely and irrevocably undone by the chap’s species, his knuckles and his good form.

The standing up for your species and your mates is the pinnacle of what we should be spending our time doing and this could not have been better (like BUTTER) exemplified here.

Kangaroo defeated, humanity the victor, this Australian man nods his head in appreciation of the occasion (“Yeah.” would fit well here) turns, and walks away, back to his dog and his mate to enjoy the rest of their trip together.

My hero and yours.

The statement is ultimate.

The next time we have a chance do this this it might be Aliens…so get your shit together, do some push-ups and hug your mates.

Well done sir; bravo humanity.

Sam

Video here: http://youtu.be/FIRT7lf8byw

(Disclosure: A kangaroo WAS mildly hurt during the making of the article, but it was being a bully dick and deserved it.)