Aluminum Screw

My new metaphor for living in Cambodia is ‘an aluminum screw’. Not the kind of screw you would use to connect aluminum - but a screw made out of aluminum. I came upon this metaphor while installing window brackets to keep the windows from flailing in the wind. I purchased the only available brackets at the local hardware store. They have a nice brass coloring and came with matching screws. I don’t have a drill so I used a hammer and nail to prepare the screw holes. Then I screwed the brackets to the wood frame. Each screw was instantly stripped - the screws were made of such soft metal. So I use the hammer to beat them the rest of the way into the wood. The hammer head shattered. It broke into three pieces like it was made of pencil lead. So I got a rock and pounded the screw in with a screwdriver. This worked but it was no longer a pretty solution. The brass coloring is scratched and even just a few days later the screws are oxidized. Whenever someone comes to the restaurant and says to me, ‘wow, you really have the life’, I want to show them my broken hammer and blackened screw.

Conversation with a Mosquito

I had a conversation with a mosquito this morning. I may have been dreaming or I may have been in the bathroom. Usually each morning when I am showering I have the opportunity to kill the mosquitos that fed on me the previous night. The mosquito materialized in front of me and I instinctively swatted the hard tile wall with my open palm. Ouch, why do I always do that. I inspected my sore hand for the remains. Nothing. I scan the room, no sign of it. How do they do that? I thought. And in answer the mosquito said, “We can teleport short distances.” Really? I thought. “Yes, we are creatures of the tenth dimension.” I am familiar with string theory but that does not allow for tele-porting telepathic bloodsucking mosquitos, do you care to explain? “In one possible future, humans have transformed their souls into digital avatars allowing for a kind of godlike immortality.” I could see that possibility, but why would anyone want to be a mosquito? “There was an islamo-commie hacker who maliciously altered the avatar coding to turn us into mosquitos, and banished us to the tenth dimension.” An islamo-commie hacker? Are you a republican? “Well, yes...” That explains a few things. Tell me, did you suck my blood last night? “Um, no, I’m a male mosquito...” So you just cowardly buzzed around my head all night trying to get some chick-mosquito to fuck you? The mosquito hovered in view a few fractions of a second too long and I thwacked it with ‘Sideshow’ by William Shawcross. Sure enough, the tile was splattered with red blood and bits of lying, cowardly, republican mosquito guts. I call that the Shawcross Redemption.

preggers

preggers
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.