Friday, May 07, 2010

When things fall apart (not by Chinua Achebe, although that was a very good book indeed)

Once again, I seem to be here to spew some venom into the world. Yes, you read that right - VENOM. By which I mean someone out there was unable to read my mind and decipher the exact meaning of this piece of professional communication from my side:

 ".... Uhm. Stuff. You know. Pretty and shit. Vintage. Yah. Get it?.."

and has now therefore deserved my uninterrupted (at least until the coffee's done) spewing ability.

What the hell is she talking about? Snakes on a Plane again? What's with this reading snakes' minds all about? 

Oh, I know! She must be making an obscure reference to that one Harry Potter with the hissing serpent in it, whose thoughts Harry Potter, or was it that red-haired boy, could read, thus making an insightful commentary on the sliminess of it all, whilst drawing a parallel to the UK election? Right? That must be it!

Yeah. Right. That totally must be it. Sheesh...

What would you, as an English speaker or not, take with you intellectually if I told you that someone out there has been kind enough to donate a marketing space for our charitable organization and that we are looking for 'vintage-y' items, cool/cute decorative items, expensive items that would be better off sold to raise money for the community than donated directly to the community, to sell at this marketing space?

Would you package up your old underwear and your paint-stained, torn t-shirts and cart them over to my house? Would you give me a 'decorative item' with (very!) explicit sexual imagery on it to be sold at this family friendly space? Would you drop off tons of things with huge company logos plastered all over them? Would you toss some dirty glassware in a bag and expect it to stay whole in a cardboard box underneath a ton of toys covered in a mixture of what very well might be feces, snot and some red-ish sand?

Would you?

Would you do that to me? Personally to me? And then on top of it all, would you give me un-constructive criticism helpful advice on how to run this specific sale?

Would you dare?

You wouldn't. Because you are an intelligent human being. And you wouldn't even be thinking of me, you would be thinking of the people you would be doing this for. You would be light years from the school of thought that can only be summed up with "they should just be grateful with whatever I can give them, even if it means not cleaning any of it, with a twist of one man's trash is another man's treasure especially if the other man is filthy poor and should just be happy with my already gnawed to oblivion leftovers, since they can still be used for soup or sucked on."

You would still assume everyone is worthy of respect and has dignity, right? You wouldn't be one of the  expat wives/ ladies who lunch who are very vocal about "doing charity" because watching television and going to the gym just don't get the same wow-effect from the friends back home.

You wouldn't be cheap. And you wouldn't get venom spewed at you in digital form.

So no. No parallels to the UK election. I have bigger fish to fry this weekend. By which I mean broken glasses to be tossed, that costume 'jewelry' to be untangled, parallel-universe vintage-y clothes to be washed and ironed, and those trash bags to be carted somewhere far, far away where the smell of the used and moldy 'vintage-y' clothing can never, ever reach my nostrils again.

Also, I have a migraine. So there's that to be nursed too. With coffee, wine and venom. The trio of the gods.

Fancy meeting you here my old friend migraine! How did you find me again? Oh I know, you probably heard of me from our mutual acquaintance, Stress, right?

Think of me this weekend, and put some good karma into the universe to cancel out my bitchy. Please!

2 comments:

Tonia said...

I wouldn't because, obviously I'm a decent human being or the universe wouldn't allow me to read your blog, but also because I'd be slightly too scared! Hope the sale raises tonnes of money.
UK elections? General feeling of Meh all round here: the man with the scary smile is still in charge, only now he's joined by the man with the unnaturally smooth forehead (seriously what is with that?) and the man that impressionists will have to conjure a personality for. Good times.

caroldiane said...

I think you must feel better for having spewed out that venom - the headache must be gone by now and you are on to coffee/wine etc and a successful garage sale! Good luck!