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Friday, 26 September 2014

Of Mixer Taps and Spiritual Solace

Are you in need of spiritual solace? We're in need of spiritual solace - fuckloads of it.

We read somewhere that a helpful response to things being vile beyond measure is to force oneself to feel grateful. Apparently, according to the article we read once on the internet, the human mind is neurologically unable to feel gratitude and other emotions (like irritation, say, or plumbing-induced spine-chilling horror) simultaneously. Kind of like how, if you get one of the academics in your life to bore on and on about their favourite topic, they will be unable to simultaneously bore on and on about other topics. (Yeah, shit simile, we know. It's been a long day. On this subject we have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer.)

Anyway. We're lucky in not having to think long and hard about things to be grateful for, belonging as we do to the category of people who are quite often overcome with untimely and sometimes inconvenient gratitude. (If you've ever seen us drunk, you will know what we mean.)
Apart from being constantly, non-stop, round-the-clock grateful* - to the point where we know for a fact that people have believed us to be a bit retarded - for having access to functioning plumbing and cholera-free water, we can quite often be found, when not frantically busy with academic and other endeavours, musing on the awesomeness and kick-arse-ness of our friends.
Today, for instance, on the train, we found ourselves reminiscing about a lovely weekend we spent at Mr and Mrs Smith's house, and smiling - yes! Actually! Smiling! On a commuter train stuck in the arse-end of nowhere due to a signal failure on the kind of day that you fear to tell small children about lest they develop permanent trauma and a debilitating stutter - at the thought of the zing, joie-de-vivre and well-stocked booze cabinet of Mr and Mrs Smith.

Do you know Mrs and Mrs Smith? If not, let us enlighten you. Mr and Mrs Smith live in a house filled to the rafters with fantastic and functioning bathrooms, cheese, cocktail shakers, and lovely, lovely wine. They like having people round, and cooking awesome food, and they're totally fucking delightful people to hang out with. Is having such friends reason to be grateful? We'd say so.

Mr and Mrs Smith have, if we remember rightly, three bathrooms in their house, and very grand and mixer-tap-enriched they are, too. The one we found ourselves thinking fondly of today, however, on the cursed commuter train, was the little downstairs bathroom, tucked away near the back door, the one with all the shoes and wellies in it.

*except, of course, when in the UK. Let us on no account cease to be appalled and horrified by British plumbing.


THERE ARE POLKA DOTS ON THE BLIND

So much loveliness!

Mixer tap, lovely soap and even lovelier lotion! 
It's like a waterfall of spiritual solace washing over your soul!

Another nice thing that happened today, apart from us reliving pleasant memories of Mr and Mrs Smith's bathroom on the train, was that not one bus driver but two bus drivers were very nice to us. Two! God, we love bus drivers! Oooh, actually, did we mention that we met a lovely coach driver named Tony on a coach trip to Bath this summer? Awesome dude! Let's all be collectively grateful for all the nice bus drivers out there!

[We pause here for a couple of seconds to give you all time to run screaming for the hills.]

Because they're some of our favourite things and we fucking well deserve it: A divine mix of Father Ted and Elvis!


Festive video - Father Ted, Rock of Ages

Related Reading
If you, too, are appalled and horrified by British plumbing, you may find solace here:
Les Conduites Dangereuses - For Once It's Not Just Us Ranting
All posts about Mr Smith and Mrs Smith
Philosophy can, or so we've heard, offer spiritual solace: De Consolatio Philosophiae
If you are in need of some unbridled joy, get it here: Unbridled Joy

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