A Day In The Life ... (apologies to The Beatles)
There was a move not so long ago for rat racers to escape the trappings of city life and join the rat race to The Country. I am not sure if it is still in full swing because I have effectively removed myself from the trappings of social interaction with normal people. It seems this extreme relocation trend is also promoted by glossy magazines, I used to buy one of them until the novelty wore of – there is so only so much of interest happening in The Country. These glossies document successful transitions from rat to meerkat and they make it look so easy. Country living has its perks but the glossies only write the good stuff because who wants to read about smelly water, insects of all shapes and sizes and symbiotically sharing your home with a varying number of toads.
In case there are people out there who think Blue Mondays only happen to those who are officially employed in a 09:00 to 17:00 job, not so, my pretties, not so! Try this on for size:
Monday, 10 April 2006
06:33 Wake up with a fright and stare at the ceiling. There is something I have forgotten to do and Maw is going to turn me into a newt. Oh yes, send her an SMS.
06:35 Charge upstairs to the computer. Get info, send SMS.
06:36 Go downstairs, climb back into bed to find His Royal Canine-ness lying in My Space (it is so cute, he always lies on my side because he likes my smell. I know, I know, I am a sucker). Try and move 300kg of dog to one side and manage to procure 2 centimetres of bed and duvet for myself.
06:40 Start snoozing, Flyboy’s ‘phone rings. One of Flyboy’s strange bosses: When is Flyboy going to haul his butt out of bed and get it to work? *
07:00 Drink coffee Flyboy brings me in bed (I am so spoilt).
07:30 Log on to the internet because I can, I don’t have any work and I am LOAFING!
08:30 Realise that the cleaning lady supplied to us by the farm is not coming in again, EVER. There is an extremely long story attached to this and it involves Flyboy’s Strange Employers but I really don’t have the energy or blood pressure to spare to relate this one – it’s too fresh in my mind and the vein in my head has just started throbbing again.
10:00 Engage in the following conversation with The Viking:
Katt says: From Kyk's blog, he saw this on a T-shirt: “There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who can read binary and those who can't.”
The Viking says: LOL, that's funny.
Katt says: I think it's brilliant.
The Viking says: You DID get it??
Yes, he is my friend. My life is complete, I have no need for enemies.
11:20 Phone Flyboy and ask him what is going on because there are a thousand very excited, bouncy heifers making a beeline straight for our house (we have no fence around our house, the strange employers have been promising one for two years now and we have been waiting for one for two years now). Nothing can wreak havoc like a heifer!
11:35 Stand outside and flap hands and wave arms like a human windmill to entertain the heifers that stare at you and would burst out laughing if they could.
11:40 Maw ‘phones me mid-flap to tell me that Paw, who didn’t want to go to the doctor last week, is about to be admitted to hospital with chest and heart problems. Throw another stone at a heifer and miss as usual – I throw like a girl.
11:42 Stand and stare at the mielies and wonder if the driver can stop the world because I REALLY WANT TO GET OFF!
11:45 Flyboy arrives like a knight in shining armour to join me and put a united human windmill front against the marauding heifers.
12:00 Look at my watch and think it’s time to go home now, I have done a whole day’s stressing in 5 and a half hours.
12:15 Watch the heifers retreat past the newly baled feed, watch the heifers start ripping the plastic wrap off the newly baled feed and eating the feed because the fence was not put up around the bales.
12:16 Decide not to ‘phone anyone and tell them the bales are being decimated. Close the blinds obscuring the view to the bales, leaving the heifers to stuff themselves. Smile because I am so evil and I am enjoying every really childish second of it.
My afternoon was spent doing housework. I was contemplating rather performing my own lobotomy with a steak knife and a spoon because the procedure promised to be a lot more fun. Then I realised that I would probably have to wash the steak knife and spoon first and if I was going to do the steak knife and the spoon I might as well do the rest of the dishes.
PS: This wagtail really has a complex, I think he is anti-social. He is at it again, peck, peck, peck at his reflection! I think he is going to hurt himself.
* Flyboy works on a farm owned by a family. Officially his bosses are the brothers and the father. Unofficially his bosses are the brothers, the father, the mother, the brothers’ wives and their spawn, sorry, I mean children. Oh, and important to know, these people are RELIGIOUS! Well, you assume that is the case when someone who tells you how much of a kick he gets because he is able to just write out a cheque of R100 000.00 for his church just like. Or is the word hypocrite? Did I say that? Anyway, it’s just that their Bible and my Bible don’t say the same thing. Theirs doesn’t appear to have a New Testament but I am not going there.
Now, somewhere in their upbringing the patriarch of the family read in their Bible that it is a sin to sleep late and he successfully drilled this into his whole family. So, they all get up early, drink coffee, scoff down a dozen rusks a piece and start looking busy. The result is now that the whole crowd of them resemble ants at 04:00 in the morning, driving around on motorbikes or in vehicles, greeting each other, fetching milk, proving to each other that THEY ARE AWAKE and thus not sinning.
They have also taken it upon themselves to save the ex-city slickers from sin by ‘phoning them at an ungodly hour to make sure that they are also awake. *sigh* After they have gotten all the staff on the farm running around like headless chickens and foaming at the mouth they all go back to their respective homes and consume a standard breakfast of large quantities of starch and meat – they have been eating the same breakfast since they were old enough to eat solids. This consumption of food takes about three to four hours – we suspect that they all have a snooze during this time because really, no one can chew that slowly.
At about 12:00 they all drive around on their motorbikes again so that staff can see they are actually working.
The definition of working: a) driving around on a motorbike = farming/working, b) driving around fast on a motorbike = you are in a hurry and thus farming/working fast.
At about 12:45 they look at their watches and say ‘Oh dear, it is late, I have to go’ and then they go and feed their faces with more starch and meat in the form of a full meal. Then they sleep off the full meal until about 15:30.
After the siesta they get up, drink coffee, eat a dozen rusk (only mother’s rusk because no one can bake rusks like mother). A 16:30 do some more ‘farming’ by checking on the staff, yelling at them for not doing all the 6 259 things they had to do, add another 3 481 things on the list that have to be done by 17:30 or else the staff will work late without compensation because it was their own laziness that made them work late.
They don’t eat supper because I mean, that would be just plain pigging out and then they are in bed by 20:30 because they are So Tired and they worked So Hard. And the cycle repeats itself.
Someone recently suggested to me I should write a book about the Strange Employers because there is an endless supply of material. I have already broken a rule, I promised myself I wouldn’t even write about them on my blog because then I would have to go for therapy and shock treatment again. Then the nice men in white coats will stick injections in my bum and wire my jaw so I don’t bite people... But maybe I am better now and I can cope with it. Hm, I’m thinking.
In case there are people out there who think Blue Mondays only happen to those who are officially employed in a 09:00 to 17:00 job, not so, my pretties, not so! Try this on for size:
Monday, 10 April 2006
06:33 Wake up with a fright and stare at the ceiling. There is something I have forgotten to do and Maw is going to turn me into a newt. Oh yes, send her an SMS.
06:35 Charge upstairs to the computer. Get info, send SMS.
06:36 Go downstairs, climb back into bed to find His Royal Canine-ness lying in My Space (it is so cute, he always lies on my side because he likes my smell. I know, I know, I am a sucker). Try and move 300kg of dog to one side and manage to procure 2 centimetres of bed and duvet for myself.
06:40 Start snoozing, Flyboy’s ‘phone rings. One of Flyboy’s strange bosses: When is Flyboy going to haul his butt out of bed and get it to work? *
07:00 Drink coffee Flyboy brings me in bed (I am so spoilt).
07:30 Log on to the internet because I can, I don’t have any work and I am LOAFING!
08:30 Realise that the cleaning lady supplied to us by the farm is not coming in again, EVER. There is an extremely long story attached to this and it involves Flyboy’s Strange Employers but I really don’t have the energy or blood pressure to spare to relate this one – it’s too fresh in my mind and the vein in my head has just started throbbing again.
10:00 Engage in the following conversation with The Viking:
Katt says: From Kyk's blog, he saw this on a T-shirt: “There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who can read binary and those who can't.”
The Viking says: LOL, that's funny.
Katt says: I think it's brilliant.
The Viking says: You DID get it??
Yes, he is my friend. My life is complete, I have no need for enemies.
11:20 Phone Flyboy and ask him what is going on because there are a thousand very excited, bouncy heifers making a beeline straight for our house (we have no fence around our house, the strange employers have been promising one for two years now and we have been waiting for one for two years now). Nothing can wreak havoc like a heifer!
11:35 Stand outside and flap hands and wave arms like a human windmill to entertain the heifers that stare at you and would burst out laughing if they could.
11:40 Maw ‘phones me mid-flap to tell me that Paw, who didn’t want to go to the doctor last week, is about to be admitted to hospital with chest and heart problems. Throw another stone at a heifer and miss as usual – I throw like a girl.
11:42 Stand and stare at the mielies and wonder if the driver can stop the world because I REALLY WANT TO GET OFF!
11:45 Flyboy arrives like a knight in shining armour to join me and put a united human windmill front against the marauding heifers.
12:00 Look at my watch and think it’s time to go home now, I have done a whole day’s stressing in 5 and a half hours.
12:15 Watch the heifers retreat past the newly baled feed, watch the heifers start ripping the plastic wrap off the newly baled feed and eating the feed because the fence was not put up around the bales.
12:16 Decide not to ‘phone anyone and tell them the bales are being decimated. Close the blinds obscuring the view to the bales, leaving the heifers to stuff themselves. Smile because I am so evil and I am enjoying every really childish second of it.
My afternoon was spent doing housework. I was contemplating rather performing my own lobotomy with a steak knife and a spoon because the procedure promised to be a lot more fun. Then I realised that I would probably have to wash the steak knife and spoon first and if I was going to do the steak knife and the spoon I might as well do the rest of the dishes.
PS: This wagtail really has a complex, I think he is anti-social. He is at it again, peck, peck, peck at his reflection! I think he is going to hurt himself.
* Flyboy works on a farm owned by a family. Officially his bosses are the brothers and the father. Unofficially his bosses are the brothers, the father, the mother, the brothers’ wives and their spawn, sorry, I mean children. Oh, and important to know, these people are RELIGIOUS! Well, you assume that is the case when someone who tells you how much of a kick he gets because he is able to just write out a cheque of R100 000.00 for his church just like. Or is the word hypocrite? Did I say that? Anyway, it’s just that their Bible and my Bible don’t say the same thing. Theirs doesn’t appear to have a New Testament but I am not going there.
Now, somewhere in their upbringing the patriarch of the family read in their Bible that it is a sin to sleep late and he successfully drilled this into his whole family. So, they all get up early, drink coffee, scoff down a dozen rusks a piece and start looking busy. The result is now that the whole crowd of them resemble ants at 04:00 in the morning, driving around on motorbikes or in vehicles, greeting each other, fetching milk, proving to each other that THEY ARE AWAKE and thus not sinning.
They have also taken it upon themselves to save the ex-city slickers from sin by ‘phoning them at an ungodly hour to make sure that they are also awake. *sigh* After they have gotten all the staff on the farm running around like headless chickens and foaming at the mouth they all go back to their respective homes and consume a standard breakfast of large quantities of starch and meat – they have been eating the same breakfast since they were old enough to eat solids. This consumption of food takes about three to four hours – we suspect that they all have a snooze during this time because really, no one can chew that slowly.
At about 12:00 they all drive around on their motorbikes again so that staff can see they are actually working.
The definition of working: a) driving around on a motorbike = farming/working, b) driving around fast on a motorbike = you are in a hurry and thus farming/working fast.
At about 12:45 they look at their watches and say ‘Oh dear, it is late, I have to go’ and then they go and feed their faces with more starch and meat in the form of a full meal. Then they sleep off the full meal until about 15:30.
After the siesta they get up, drink coffee, eat a dozen rusk (only mother’s rusk because no one can bake rusks like mother). A 16:30 do some more ‘farming’ by checking on the staff, yelling at them for not doing all the 6 259 things they had to do, add another 3 481 things on the list that have to be done by 17:30 or else the staff will work late without compensation because it was their own laziness that made them work late.
They don’t eat supper because I mean, that would be just plain pigging out and then they are in bed by 20:30 because they are So Tired and they worked So Hard. And the cycle repeats itself.
Someone recently suggested to me I should write a book about the Strange Employers because there is an endless supply of material. I have already broken a rule, I promised myself I wouldn’t even write about them on my blog because then I would have to go for therapy and shock treatment again. Then the nice men in white coats will stick injections in my bum and wire my jaw so I don’t bite people... But maybe I am better now and I can cope with it. Hm, I’m thinking.
posted by Katt at 3:24 pm
3 Comments:
And here I thought my job sucked. I've quoted you, by the way.
No psychosurgery please !!!
we need all your brain power
here.
"a Blog a day, keeps
dementia away", sorry I
stole that quote, but very
appropiate here though.
Who says country life,s
dull?!!
To Kyk: I can't believe you did that. I am so flattered. In the words of Sally Field "You like me, you really, really like me!"
To P & E: Wise words. My blogspot actually helps me cope, I've learnt to laugh about things. If someone gives me grief I just smile because "You are gonna be blogged!"
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