My Mumps, My Mumps

The other day I woke up and my face was swollen like an engorged sack. I had massively buff muscles where my cheeks once lay. It looked like Lord Jeebus had stuck a fat man's head on the body of smaller man. Or someone had squeezed me really hard around the stomach (probably for saying something hilarious in the supermarket) and all my fluids had oozed up into my head. In short, I looked like I was going to die from anaphylaxis.

I thought I must have had an allergic reaction. My dad gave me some organic bug spray containing olive oil, soap and garlic. I'd used that last night on my lime tree and some got on my skin. It smelt like dog hormones. Maybe the inert components in the spray had melded to form a super toxin. Maybe my dad knew this. Maybe he was getting me back for years of borrowing stuff and not returning. A dead kid can't take your tools. Cold blooded kill.

I shrugged it off and figured I'd left a pretty massive impact on the word already. If I was to pass it would only ensure my stocks would rise higher and my already impressive reputation would only grow like genetically modified yoghurt culture. I mean look what happened when Michael Jordan died. Everyone knows who he is now. He was on a Pepsi commercial or something and we all think about it.

I woke up at one in the morning the next day and my face was even bigger. It was like Akira. Have you seen Akira? It's this Japanese movie, Mungaaaah or whatever they call it, and this kid swells up and fights a motorbike. They're going to remake it with Leonardo Di Caprio. I look forward to that. Hollywood has a knack for making foreign films more palatable and easy for guys like me (and probably you) to understand. I'll be first in line with a bottle of Pepsi in remembrance of my favourite singer and a notepad so I can write the quotes, memorise them, and then repeat to anyone who asks me if I've seen the film, "Akira, Akira!" I will yell and then grab my crotch and do the moon walk just as Michael Jordan did.

So I get my girlfriend to drive me to the hospital. She's a doctor and she doesn't know what I have. I am sure my time's up. I'm wondering if they'll give me a special roast on the country TV station in the town I grew up in. Probably drag out my old hockey coach and he'll say 'He wasn't much of a player, in fact he probably should have pursued another sport" and then a local hoodlum will recreate the time I ollied the infamous High School three step. Shit will be all time.

Chubby nurse looks at my face and says "Oh my!" but in a Kiwi accent so more like "Oh my!" And I'm in. I'm a sick enigma. I sit on a bed and wait for the doctor. He walks in and says "You've got mumps!" and I say "No I don't". And he says "Mumps! You don't see these to often anymore. But guys you're age seem to get them, something to do with the vaccination or something". And I'm not dying anymore.  But he said "There's a risk of pancreatitis and you're goolies might get really sore".

My goolies? So it turns out I  get another shot at life (time to make a comeback album. Bit of a voice-over eulogy at the start and then a screech and I come out of the grave and say " ROUND TWO BITCH FACES!" and the beat kicks in harder than hard and I go on to describe how many jewels are in my key ring and how I have some whisky from France or somewhere) but my nuts might swell just like my face. Hard boiled eggs! This scares me and I make a pact with the godman that I'll stop my perversions if he can skip that part. It's a worse -case scenario though. Ai yai yai.

Other bad things include : meningitis, deafness, encephalitis. But the balls thing sound the worst. Anyway, the nurse gave me a blood test. Then she talked about working on the mines and how I should do that if I can't get a job soon.  She hecka bruised my arm. It's cool. I look like a smacky. Figure it will probably lift my street cred a couple of notches down at the local library. Mrs Grimball will bloody well get her web searches done pronto when I walk in. No more waiting for her to flick through pages and pages of dewy decimal waffle. Nup, she'll look up her book on tappestry and take off, I'll be able to sit down and start looking to see if there's anymore sex books or erotic fiction in the catalogue.

I'm in quarantine for a week or so. Pretty contagious. I was even vaccinated twice. Crazy.

Super Emo Holiday Part Ex

Down the road from my house, in a semi-industrial enclave, sits a small shop called "MR WEEZEE SATAY". Whenever I see it I question the use of 'Weezee'. Why go with weezee? Is it some sort of boast? "We use so much of the peanuts that it make your throat constrict all anaphylaxis like!". I could make them a television ad. The theme song could be a strained "Wheezee - wheezee" which gets more strained and breathless with each repetition. This would be an excellent ad and Mr Weezee would probably like it so much that he would allow me to eat his special satay off the lino of his office floor like I have always wanted to. I don't think Mr Weezee chose his profession wisely. A name like that is more suited to a purveyor of insulation batts or an asbestos removal consultant.

I've actually met an asbestos/environmental consultant before. He didn't really wheeze. He was more a wet man. A bit clammy around the ears. Besides a bit of perspiration around the old clams, he was a pleasant fellow.

Last night I saw a young man who looked like the physical incarnation of primary school sex joke. He was all sneaky and slight of frame. He had a shaved head and seemed to be smirking about someone drinking a piss or a stiffy or poofters sword fighting or wankers cramp or how Mrs Clancy-Warrel is a fat bitch who would probably kill her husband if they had sex. Someone should have locked him up. I can't believe there are such perves inhabiting Perth's Public houses. Barnett has gotta do something, he really does.

Every now and then, I hear a hiss

It's like a million o'clock on Monday morning. I can't sleep. So I'm sitting here, face full of computer glow, thinking things and living dead.

Last night I had a head full of booze and stomach full of golden fried potato and pizza. I'd pushed the seams, like I do so often. Now I'm eating biscuits and my head hurts - I didn't drink a coffee until about 4 in the afternoon. I feel sick without it. My head starts to beat and I feel a bit hung overish. Like a sailor who's been out at sea for so long that they start losing reality, all they've got is dehydration and the roll and lull of the ocean(plus sunburn and the worst smell ever in the pants).

I really should start lifting weights. I think this often. There's not much muscle in the muscle of my arm. A little flex doesn't produce much tension. I could really go some muscles me "check out my muscles"wow nice muscles"thank yee".

And every now and then I hear a hiss. The house hums and chokes. My fridge - he's loud. Rrrrr RRrrrr rrrrrrRRR.

Some dumb birds are still awake. Dumb birds. It's night time. Wattle wattle birds. Wattle wattle. I wonder if the street lights tell them it's day time. Dumb birds.