260 Thousand Times Redundant

The other night I met a guy who's here on contract from the US of A to investigate possible terrorist threats during our hosting of World Cup Cricket. I told him, in more diplomatic words, that he needed to get his green paper cause he's about 260 thousand times redundant. I mean, this is BIM- all a we does spy 'bout hay- ain' nuh forner come tell we wu's wha'.
I could just see him at his desk, waiting for Cable and Wireless to be right there where he needed them, fixing his ADSL so he could surf through social security numbers and bank accounts. Meanwhile, everything about the terrorist- his plates, his dates, his rates- are being observed, collected, memorized and circulated by the little old lady next door. She then forwards it to the bigger younger ladies on the bus who pass it on to 'de bad men pon de block'. It then gets branched off to old rummy's who still want to be young and little boys trying to be old who in turn carry it to school so they can impress the little girls on the pasture all within earshot of the yard fowl. Before my man from the states can so much as type in the terrorist's name, every man, woman, child and animal from Bridgetown to Bathesheba knows what rice the terrorist prefers, the ring tone he uses, his briefs size, who he's fucking and how often he has a bowel movement. And by this time he's also got some infamous nickname- something really apt- like Osama de Flamma.

The Communicable Card

It was quite a shocker to be told this blog has been added as a link on Barbados Free Press. I even went and checked for myself and yup, I'm there. I then dug through the archives of my brain to see how much damage I'd done myself- chuckling at the shit in my pig pen story- the water works dude- all a dat- and I've come to the conclusion that my readers could only want more of my sarcastically cynical yet highly entertaining Bajan intrigues because I certainly haven't been added for my bouts of melancholy reflection. The irony is that the intrigues are often what set off the melancholy- but anyway, on with the show.

If Bajan Bellyaching is what ya'll want - dats wha wunna goin' get. My mission, until I become too disgusted, is to focus on the stuff I try so desperatley to ignore so that I can do my little bit of fame justice and at the same time, satisfy your scary cravings for tales of Kocurkovo.

Tonight's gripe is with GAIA's parking 'system'

I roll up to the card dispensor and I'm thinking about the last episode of Top Inventor with the toilet seat couple who showed a slow motion poo germ explosion of what happens when you flush, even with the toilet seat down. I'm not generally a hypochondriac but the brown mushroom bomb of bacteria has engraved itself on my senses. So as the card shoots out, I'm thinking...how many people have used this card before me and how many have just pissed on the side of the road? I'm willing to bet that the statistics are equally high on both counts. I give the card a once over and check for stains.

I park. I wait. I holler at my son for rolling on the ground, touching up the poles, examining the soles of his feet, sticking his fingers up his nose and then sucking off the experience. He coughs- (the rain, of course)- I give him the card to hold.

I wait some more.

I'm ready to leave and as a well seasoned parking card user, I make my way with luggage and child to the Parking ATM adjacent to where I've skillfully parked the car only to find the money eater has been heavily scotch taped with a note that probably reads OUT OF ORDER but I translate -aloud- I HATE THIS AIRPORT AND THEIR STUPID CARDS!

I trudge back to the human being on the other side of Arrivals, on the other side of my car.

One dollar is paid for my convenience.

I trudge back to the Parking ATM, cross the road, get in the car and drive to the card eater. The card eater is not hungry. He tells me to go back and pay for my parking. I yell at card eater "I've paid for my parking you ass!" I put back in the card but the eater won't budge. I'd forgotten that when talking to machines you must mollycoddle them like men or they seize. I press assistance instead.

The human being asks me how much I've paid. I say "I now left you, I'm the one with the boy." The human being says, "just leave the card on top of the machine" and she graciously buzzes me out of Parking Prison. I place my card on top of a stack of cards and shudder thinking of the chaos that poor human being must have had to endure when the flow of traffic was heavy.

Now I admit, I'm not too bright but I can't figure out what, other than coat my hands with a film of bodily fluids thus making my parking experience in the Kocurkovo airport that much more social, was the purpose of the card. Does anyone know?

Slippery

Sometimes I think I'd be better off in a cave.
To grow gills and hang out at the bottom of the deep.
Or sprout moss and get lost under a tree.
Maybe yet, a combination of all three.
Hard to catch a moss covered fish in the dark dot dot dot

Too Much Bajan Ruralism For Tired Bones

After two long nights on the town in a stretch, massive amounts of driving and office work, a serious conversation, bad news about a baby and a near 6 hour turn men into horny, slobbering goats while boosting my ego session, I was too exhausted to stand.
I was supposed to put on a hairnet and dispatch grease balls to grease balls (or rather small, oily, fishless flour cakes to rum drunken, piss on their hands customers) but instead, I sat on the grass near the playground and found a drop of joy in the smiles of children genuinely happy to see me shouting "Auntie Nicole!!" and even bending down to throw their arms around my withered bones.

The PTA carry your own key session was just too much Bajan ruralism for me to endure in the condition I was in, however. Tracker is sweaty and shirtless, on his back, jucking the sky to calypso. Every sing song in between is a Celine Dion/Whitney monstrosity. Big boys are carrying around their babies proudly, scoping the dark park for the pusher man. Bigger women are standing up in clusters of bling watching like foreman and hollering at some child to behave.

It was fun. But not when the spirit's requirement is a bed.

I eventually got up and left when the cellphones started ringing and the country began to inform itself that (last update I received) two young boys smashed a truck on the black and white bridge in Blackman's corner and subsequently died. There was a hum of "yuh mean de young dark boy wid de plait hair?", "de boys dat does cyarry de grass?", "dat ain't dem truck- a man di give dem dat fuh drive.", "you pass down dere and see?", "Go' Lin' dere muss be bare people out dere, yeah."

There was no mallice in the way the information was passed and actually people looked kind of sorry but there was a definite sense that they would rather be there at Blackman's corner, catching a glimpse of the wreckage before two sons carried them away than in the park supporting a PTA fundraising event. And I decided, if they would rather be there than here, I can go home. And I did.

Right Hay When You Want Dem

The lapse has been long, I know. I have been preoccupied somewhat and impeded somewhat more. What could possibly impede me from sharing with my readership the tales of life in the sun, one may ask? Well…in part…rain. But not rain exactly rather the brain drain that rain summons in a land run by kocurs.

Be direct- you demand. I shall try.

The latest kocurs come in the form of Cable and Wireless, our telephone dictators, who dangle us by the balls as they force us to listen to the calypso rendition of how they’ll be right here when we want them for a minimum torture period of 20 minutes each call. I have had to endure over an hour of how they’ll be right here when I need them- and of course- they are not.

The rain.

Every time it rains my phone begins to crackle getting progressively worse until it cuts off entirely. I called them early to correct the fault but of course, they didn’t rush and my phone went off. It was only when I pleaded that a lonely house with no phone is a danger waiting to happen, that they fixed it- that was today- a mere week after the problem began. So my phone should be working.

It should-but it is not.

Once the phone was repaired I was subsequently soft disconnected which means I cannot dial out. Although I have paid my bill, apparently I should have known better than to do so at the no line-up country post office. Ah me! No line of course means that everybody besides me knows that the post office doesn’t have a good working relationship with the phone company. I should have known better, the C&W operator informed me. In future, just because the bill says I can pay at the post office doesn’t mean that I should pay at the post office.

So you mean to tell me, I start, that I must pay for a service that does not work with a bill that has not arrived in a timely manner and still pay for my mobile bill which has had to work extra hard for the loss of my land line and my internet service which I cannot use whilst ensuring that when I pay, I do so in a location that is both awkward and time consuming so that when my phone actually does work, it will not be cut off?

Basically yes.

'We will reconnect your phone shortly', I am told. 'What is shortly?' I ask. 'In a few minutes', I am told. 'Is it on now?' You ask.

Of course not.

I spend another 20 minutes listening to how Cable and Wireless will be right here when I want them just to be told the very same thing by another very stoic operator.

And still one week and 24 hours later I am without phone.

(Please note that this blog was originally typed and saved on word to be cut and pasted on this blog a mere one week and 30 hours later.)