I’ve been planning a vacation to Karachi for some R&R (rowdiness and retardation). I really do love visiting there, hanging out with my hilarious cousins, talking with my great uncles and aunts, picking up cooking tips from the established suggards, making cookies for my nieces and nephews and just enjoying atmosphere of the city.
But one thing that always worries me before I go is the clothes I’ll have to pack. Not only do I have to presentable house clothes (an unreasonable demand!), but I have to make sure I’ve got enough fancy stuff to handle the unavoidable parties I’ll have to attend. That means I’ve got to march my cheapskate self down to the fabric shops and concede to have bolt after bolt of technicolored cloth thrown at me by a store-keeper who, while modeling a tangerine orange and lime green toga for my inspection, assures me that this outfit is absolutely wonderful and appropriate for a young person like myself. In the US I might be offended if a man told me that a toxic fruit-salad colored outfit was ‘so you,’ but here I just sigh.
After selecting a non-offensive fabric and bargaining for an acceptable price, I have to trudge down to the tailor. There, with much difficulty, a style of suit is found that doesn’t violate every Islamic code of modesty without taking me into the realm of old-lady-fashion. We argue over when it will be ready and, again, the cost. I then have to procure a matching shawl and scarf, which will be left with the dye-wala, to color it to match my suit.
By the time my mission is accomplished, I’ll have spent about Rs 1,800 on a shalwar kameez that will be worn a handful of times during my trip before I return home and throw it into my trunk of old clothes.
Being a female in Pakistan has its few pros and many cons. One of the cons that always bothers me is the fact that if there is any dim possibility of a party, all females from the age of 12 to 30 are expected adorn themselves in the latest Pakistani party-wear not unlike an excited bird of paradise.
If you have a big family like mine, the wedding season means a party a night for about a month where women are expected to wear nice, new clothes that meet the weekly changing standard of fashionability. That means a hellova lot of suits costing thousands of rupees each that’ll only be worn once or twice before they ‘expire’ (to quote my dear cousins in Karachi), and are thus unfashionable and unwearable.
Weddings in your own near family are worse. Like princesses in a fairytale, the sisters, mothers and cousins of the bride or groom are expected to wear a different colored outfit for every party. Depending on how nuts your khandaan is, that can mean upto six different outfits, all costing anywhere from Rs 2,000-10,000.
Dressing a bride is an exercise in wasteful idiocy. For her engagement, mehndhi, wedding, valima and all the other little parties before, during and after, she is expected to be decked out like a Christmas tree in outfits each more garish and costly than the last. The wedding outfit for a woman here costs between Rs 30,000-200,000. She’ll wear it once, put it away in a box and that will be the end of it.
It’s no wonder that marriage ceremonies here incur debts that take a lifetime to pay off and fathers are rarely pleased at the birth of a daughter. I think they’re seeing all the needless party clothes they’ll have to purchase for their in-house fashion plates before they’re parceled off to the next hapless keeper. It’s no surprise that a major consideration before a marriage takes place here is not the timing and convenience for both parties, but whether enough money has been horded away to cater to such an event. My family’s housekeeper has been waiting 10 years to have enough money to host her own wedding. Though she earns very little, she too has told me that her wedding dress will cost 20,000 rupees. That’s more than she makes a year.
Men have it better. My uncle gets away with wearing a simple white shalwar kameez everywhere he goes, be it funeral, wedding, meeting or trip. My youngish guy cousins just make sure their slacks and shirts are ironed and reasonably new looking. Occasionally, if you’ve got a fop in the family, they’ll go out and buy an embroidered men’s shalwar kameez from a man-boutique or a tailored suit, but even still, they’re far cheaper than women’s clothing and a dude can get quite a few uses out of them before they’re thrown to the scrap heap.
And I know you sensible people will probably be thinking, if you don’t like it Owl, just stop attending the dang things or wear whatever you want. Yes yes, I know, you and your horrid logic. I could do that, and actually, I often do, but I risk being labeled a social pariah if I don’t conform to a degree.
So I’ve come up with a solution. Pakistan needs eveningwear rental services like they have in the West.
In the US, the average young person only attends a handful of formal events in their lifetime, so there is no point in investing a few hundred dollars in an outfit that will only be worn once or twice. The solution they have come up with to cater to the proms, weddings and rare formals are eveningwear rental services. You go into a shop, pick out the dress or suit you want from those available in your size, reserve it for an event, pay a fee about one fourth the cost of the outfit, and you’re set! You wear it on the night you need it, and return it to the store the following day. It’s all cut and dry and marvelously convenient.
So that is my harebrained, and slightly borrowed, idea for today. There you go.
 |
Sometime between now and the winter solstice, I'm scheduled for a nap. I've been in dire need of one all week. I keep running myself on half a tank of sleep, and each day waking up is harder and harder. I’d register a complaint, but I don’t think there’s any intergalactic Department of Insomnia out there that I can hold responsible for my fatigue.
But I shall shutteth up about that. I‘m endeavoring to complain less, though it‘s one of the few things I do well, and instead attempt proper blogging.
Lets see, normal people like passing on good news, right? My good news is I got my much needed raise, an assistant and the promise of some time off, so I’ll be staying on at my job. Bad news is, no going out in a ball of flaming, angry, neglected hamster glory. You guys, I’m sure, will be very disappointed. I have, however, managed to do some retaliatory poking, so there. Plus, the office flunkies have been instructed “to do my bidding.” Mwuhahahaha. Course, I haven't nuttin to bid, but it’s the sentiment that counts.
Fatman still lurks though, but I think he now has a slight understanding of my potential volatility. Beware little man, I can go off at the slightest provocation, and then it’s gonna be a rain of lemon squash and tepid water on both your houses. Or something like that.
What’s another ‘non-depressive thought’ (as per the orders of Dr Naffi) that I can share.... I like green parrots - the default Pakistani tota. We’ve had a couple for pets and they had the greatest comedy value.
The usual Indian-ring necked parrot is about six or seven inches tall, not including the tail, and weighs less than a computer mouse . They’d be cute, except that along with their diminutive size comes an absolutely monumental superiority complex. Really, these flying arm-less pears have the mistaken impression that they are the dominant species, and we are the just walking perches/chewing sticks that they deign to let live.
We used to have a parrot whose name was Sweet Pea. Of course, nothing about her was sweet, so she was dubbed a ton of other names, including the Green Menace, Craven Raven, She That Bites The Hand That Feeds Her, the Horrid Beast, Destructor Bird, She That Squawks, and the Toxic Revenger. She couldn’t fly, and used to putter around the house, quietly walking along the floor and chewing to bits anything that she could reach. She killed our leather-bound reference books, many pairs of my shoes, Abez’s new purse, and even made the Playstation controller analog buttons bald of their rubber coating.
Try and put her away, or take away the thing she was damaging, and the silly animal would stand up straight, stretch her neck out and do this eye thing, which generally meant, one more move and you‘ll rue the day you questioned my superiority. For an animal with a head the size of a large marble and a brain the size of a pepper-corn, she was pretty successful. She would contract and relax her pupil while looking down on you, doing a remarkable impersonation of a gangsta thug. And generally, she’d win, because if you ignored her warning system, she’d go off not unlike a car alarm, and make your ears ring for hours.
Whenever I’d be feeling bad, or bored, or just bleh, I’d walk up to the bird, and throw down the gauntlet for a staring contest. She won there too, because I’d end up laughing myself silly at her posturing. Like I said, she was always good for a laugh.
She ran away , our little Sweet Pea. Walked out the backdoor one day, never to be seen again. I actually wish she was still around. I could use a good laugh.
I AM UNPAR JAHIL, PLEASED TO MEET YOU.
It’s most definitely time I learned some Urdu. I was sitting here, sipping on chilled watered-down buffalo milk while eating the last piece of German chocolate cake (made by yours truly, loved and appreciated by all while it was with us) and I nearly busted my brain trying to read the milk box.
Incidentally, for you gaijin and ABCD’s, milk in Pakistan comes in two forms, in a tetrapack, which is like a juice box, or in a knotted plastic bag handed to you by a guy on a motorcycle, dipped out of a huge metal jug strapped to his bike. Since we’re not too fond of illness, though we still manage to get our fair share, we stick to the pasteurized tetrapacks for safe measure.
Anyways, the writing on the milk box was in Urdu. I can *cough* read Urdu, but it’s, um, not anything to write home about. I probably couldn’t pass muster on the Unesco literacy definition, which requires you to be able to read the newspaper and write a simple letter in the given language, along with do arithmetic with the numbers. I can’t count past 30 in Urdu, let alone do Urdu math (who remembers the words for plus, minus and divide anyways?) or read the papers, though I have rather unsuccessfully written a few letters in the language.
So I was reading the box, which said “Halib ub naya sahoolat pack main, jisay haat say kholna nihayat asaan,” and I got stuck on nihayat. The whole thing means “Habib, in new convenient packaging, making opening by hand very easy.” Nihayat means ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very’. It‘s not a complicated word, but still, it boggled me for a few seconds. It’s definitely time to call back the Urdu tutor when you don’t know the word ‘very.’
This is just plain sad. I thought when I moved here I’d finally bring my Urdu on par with my English. Wishful thinking. I have years worth of language proficiency to catch up with and even if I studied full time and put all my efforts into learning advanced Urdu, somehow I doubt it will catch up fully to my English. But right about now I’d settle with the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in Urdu.
It doesn’t help that every where I go here in Islamabad, people are either speaking Punjabi, Punjabified Urdu, English, or Englishified Urdu, and of course, lots of other native dialects I can’t identify. In Karachi I get a crash course in Urdu each time I visit, but here, I find myself instead picking up local slang and relearning washed out English (atukmatuk means automatic, swirij means sewerage, timepass means to do something to pass the time, a ceerdee is a CD).
Right about now, if people attempt to talk to me about anything aside from the weather (garmi bahout hai, tis mightily hot) or shopping (kya main paisay ki bani hui houn? What, do I look like I’m made out of money?) I’m at a total loss. My vocabulary is so bad that my 12 year old niece, who I’m very fond of, is able to utterly and completely sass and outwit me in Urdu. I can’t even begin to respond to her witticisms. I just sit there, with my mouth slightly ajar, trying to work out why everyone is laughing and what can I say to regain some semblance of intelligence. I fail miserably each time.
So, when I’m trying to pass myself off as a Pakistani, I can only pretend to be slightly above mentally challenged. In English... well.... Unesco would vote me literate.
Barely.
I've got a bit of a problem. Aside from the fact that my brain is still mainly composed of custard, I've also recently discovered that my office superiors know about my blog. Hmm. Shall I call it a night then and run away for a hiatus or perhaps I shall kill this and resurface elsewhere? Or maybe I should let the boogery dweeb who's been reading my blog and attempting to avoid my listed complaints keep on reading it as I change this into a terrifyingly dark and horrid fictionalization of my thoughts. Play with his mind as he tries to read mine.
Btw, we quiet people, just because we're not talking much, doesn't mean it's all calm upstairs. I know Pakistanis don't know about the term "going postal" but perhaps I may give them a taste of this uniquely American way of protesting office stress. *grins*
What say you? And fat man, you might as well start commenting since you've become such an avid reader.
Perched upon my neck there is a lump. It is a lump of wires + rubber + spaghetti + dust + custard. That is exactly how my head feels right now.
I’ve been trying to do my work, really I have. I sit here, in this very unergonomic chair, trying to make sense of the alphabet soup that is the Pakistani brand of English journalism. The more I try to focus on the words, the more they dance away from me. If you’ve read Abez’s recent “Killing me softly with pineapple” entry you’ll understand why I can’t keep up with them. Some of us are rhythmically challenged. That some is me.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in greater need of a vacation than I am now. But that’s good because I’ll be officially quitting my job in the middle of this month, and not a moment too soon. All the irritating intrusions into my pathetic office, all the stupid questions (dude, I told you the same thing YESTERDAY), the politics, the ineptitude, the smell, the heat, have gotten to be too much. I’ve been working since January without more than a day off every week, and aside from Independence Day on August 14, no holidays either. The time is ripe for me to throw in the towel, and hopefully hit a few people in the face.
You know it’s time to look for a new job when you feel like subjecting your coworkers to some serious reprogramming. I have this urge to take all the various staff members who have been periodically, one by one, barging into my office under some pretense or another and grab them and stuff them into the bathroom. When a second officewala comes in, I’d rush him and herd him into the bathroom as well. Broadside all other coworkers and shove them into the restroom they’ve made smell so bad. (now do you see why it’s important not to dirty the place?) Add staff until the bathroom is full. Ignore their pleas to be let out. They’ll just annoy you if you release them.
When the very tall tech support dude comes in, the one who causes your computer to blow up monthly, neatly file him into the book shelf. On the shelf above him add the graphic designer. The receptionist will fit very well on the shelf below. When you run out of space, wait for the short, fat office major domo - the one who stands way too close and doesn’t have the body hygiene for such a near proximity. When he shuffles into your office for the fifth time today to relay orders that he’s made up, pick him up (he’s not that big ok), stuff an apple in that ever jabbering mouth and cram him into the closet. Shut the door. Turn the key. Do a little jig on the dusty and ill-kept floor.
Anyone else who comes in to plead for the release of your captives, hose them down with hot sugarless tea in a water gun. Pour some tepid water down their backs. Add some of that disgusting lemon squash you never asked for and sprinkle the instant coffee the cook never learned how to make drinkable on their heads. Call it a day, go home.
Arrive at home, throw your brief case against the wall, make a bonfire of your huge list of “in-house style policies” and abbreviations and official titles, toss in the professional adult shoes you‘ve been subjecting your sneaker-fed feet to, sprinkle liberally with printer ink and sing hallelujah.
I hate being stuck indoors when it’s raining. Some people are sunshine people, some folks love the snow, but me, I’m all about the rain. Right now I’m trapped in my dank, hot and musty office, trying to be a good little editing troll and do my work without too much time wasted, but I’m really not feeling it. I can hear the soft rush of the puddles in the street as their sliced by passing cars. The faint smell of wet earth has managed to fight its way past the stagnant air that circulates in the agency, promising an enlivening storm outside. It’s nice, but it’s not enough. It’s not fair that I can smell the rain but I can’t get wet.
As far as I can remember, rain has always made my day. I guess maybe it began when my father was a cabdriver when I was very young. Back then, storms meant good business for him. We knew when the dark storm clouds gathered, that dad would come home happy, satisfied and in a good mood.
I remember later, running outside with paper boats and sailing them down the road. You’d have to be quick and grab them before they were eaten by the drains. I’d make dozens, in different sizes, and launch them down “my river.”
When we came to stay in Pakistan when I was in the second grade, we saw how Pakistanis enjoy the wet. In Karachi, rain is always welcome. Children will go on to their roofs and balconies to play in the rain. Adults will sit under their sooraj danis (sun roofs for your house) and drink tea and talk. Everyone, aside from the very old and very young, will take some pleasure from the rare storms. Maybe it’s because this is a hot country. Maybe it’s because my father’s family are refugees who’ve known the pains of having to bring water from a well miles away, and have learned the hard way the value of water. Maybe it’s because we’re all bored and rain is instant party. I don’t know, but here, it is something that is always enjoyed, rarely unwanted, and generally invited in like an unexpected guest.
It's rubbed off on me, the need to enjoy rain. It feels like such a waste to hear all that water fall and take nothing from it, no joy, no fun. So, when it rains, I'm usually out there with my dog, jumping in puddles and getting thoroughly soaked.
Yesterday there was an absolutely awe-inspiring storm. Abez and I set off to the gym as the clouds were darkening and looming close. The wind had begun to pick up and the gnarled, midget trees set on the red Mars-scape that is our city were being whipped about like grass.
By the time we hit the highway the rain had begun coming down in hard, large droplets, smacking against the windshield with crisp crackling. It began to fall harder, bringing down visibility to only a few feet. Motorcycles, horse carts and trucks could be seen stopped along the roadside, sheltering under clusters of trees. Men crouched under the bellies of their vehicles or along side the length of their carts, seeking a bit of shelter from the watery missiles falling from above. Truckers used their lost time to wash their technicolored beasts of burden. Bikers stood sadly near their mounts, drenched entirely, looking longingly at we who passed in our waterproof cars. We drove on, sad to be unable to offer rides to those caught out in the storm. We’re women, they’re men. It just doesn’t work here.
Having grown up in the Mid West of the US both Abez and I are accustomed to driving in bad weather conditions, so we didn’t think twice about our choice to keep plugging along while other drivers pulled off the road to wait out the storm. Turn on your headlights, click on the emergency flashers, maintain greater distance between you and other cars, and drive slowly. That’s what your driver’s ed textbook says. But nothing in that book gave us any guidelines for what we came across when we finally pulled in at the gym.
The gym is spread out on a few acres of land, which are dotted with various buildings and stadiums. The open space gave the wind a chance to build up a frightening momentum. It hit the ground like a blast, causing waves of mist and rain to rise from the road. It looked as if we were driving across the ocean. It was water as far as the eye could see. There were some boys who had been jogging when the storm hit. We passed them as they struggled into the wind, laughing wildly, fighting to keep upright and shield their faces from the sharp pings of the water droplets. They ran in a line and again we sadly passed them, unable to offer them a lift.
The road looked viable, though it had inches of water on it and its own rhythmic tide. When we reached the roundabout from where we’d turn to go to the women’s section we had to accept defeat. We had followed the slightly submerged road so far with few problems, aside from a worrying feeling that our tiny car was being bullied a bit too strongly by the insistent wind. You could feel it lift slightly and shudder when a gust broadsided the car. But when we came to the lower-lying turn, it was truly like driving into the sea. We had picked our path, looking for the highest part of the road, and hit the gas. What we met though, wasn’t a compliant road. It was a wall of water. It washed straight over the car, covering the windshield and all the windows in gray froth, and came in through the windows and out of the dash. Our feet sat in a few inches of water and I, who had been trying to enjoy a bit of the weather from a crack in my window, was completely soaked.
What’s that saying, the cautious live to fight another day or something. Wisely, instead of testing the buoyancy and shipshapeness of our pocket-sized car, we turned around and headed home.
Subhanallah.
Something is not quite right with me lately. It’s as if my brain is bound by a tourniquet. My thinking is skewed, my memory is shot and I’m at a loss for words. It’s like I’ve been sleep walking the past week. I do strange things, and lose myself and the train of thought I was mometarily riding at the drop of a hat.
For example, a couple days ago I was making chicken pot pie. I boiled the chicken and was making the stock base for the white sauce. I very painstakingly chose my spices and boiled them with the broth till I had the right consistency. When it was ready, I had to strain out the remaining whole spices. I found the strainer, grabbed the pot, stationed it over the sink and carefully poured it out. No really, I poured all the broth down the drain. I was in such haze that I only faintly realized that I was doing something wrong. By the time I figured out what it was, I’d poured out almost all the broth.
I also misplaced the salt shaker. I looked everywhere for it and found it, guess where, in the fridge along with the box of corn starch that I’d also somehow misplaced there. Not surprisingly, I found the milk and the butter in the kitchen cabinet.
Last night as I was sleeping I thought I heard my alarm clock so I woke up, hit the snooze and went to go do wudu for Fajr prayer. I came out, unfurled the jainamaz and prayed. When I turned around to reset the alarm for my work time it said 2:30. I thought maybe we’d lost electricity and the clock reset so I went to find my watch to figure things out. My trusty black banded watch reported the same time. I also noticed that the alarm for the dawn prayer was still set. It had yet to go off. So last night I prayed my Fajr at 2:30 in the morning for no reason at all.
Yesterday I went looking for a book to read before I went to bed. I was shuffling about around the bookshelf and briefly sat down on the floor to look through a pile of books. When I found the one I wanted, I stood up and very stupidly smashed into the elliptical trainer machine, which I had pushed to it's present location only a minute before. I am now the proud owner of a 3-D purple bruise the size of an orange on my leg.
As Abez has mentioned we’ve begun going to a local gym to get some exercise. We’ve been fairly regular at it, but habit hasn’t stopped me from forgetting generally important things, variously my shoes, change of clothes and ID card, every day we’ve gone. It’s become a routine now when I get there to dryly announce, “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve forgotten today.” I've a feeling Abez will answer with a "What now?" only to find I've forgotton myself at home as well.
Over the past few days I’ve also managed to spoon a whole spoon of sugar into my shoe (with my foot still in it), drop an egg on my leg and misplace many important things.
Sigh.... let it be known. Senility comes soon after 21.
X-TREEEEME Popcorn Catching
This is only for you especially brave and extreme types. The weak of heart, tongue and stomach need not apply.
First cook up a large pot of popcorn the old fashioned way, on a stove, using oil or butter, not in a microwave or air popper. In order for this game to be played to its extreme utmost, you must make sure that most of the popcorn is burned (since you only recently rediscovered kettle corn and had never before drawn near a stove when making popcorn) and those that are not burned are only half popped.
Then pour obscene amounts of salt on the still piping hot corn. Bring all corn, still in sizzling container, to a slightly open area. Turn on your over head ceiling fan on full blast. Quickly grab the hot, burned, over-salted, under-cooked kernels, throw them into the air and attempt to catch them in your mouth.
This sport is made all the more difficult by the fact that you’ve burned your fingers, got salt in your eyes from the fan, chipped a tooth when an unpopped kernel rebounded off your teeth, made your entire mouth sore by eating very hard over salted corn and laughed so hard your cheeks are aching and your sides are throbbing.
For added difficultly, popcorn kernels can be caught on fire and voracious lions can be released in popcorn catching arena before beginning.
If I have to eat okra one more time I’m going to hurl. You’ve been warned.
Abez, my father and I have become learned of the sad bachelor ways now that our house is running at half capacity. We’ve gone from being a six at default, eight at average and 14 at max household to being a household of three bums.
Problem is, my darling abbu is still shopping for the former circus house (which is what we called our place in the US, it was always full up with friends, relations and gate crashers), so we get our groceries by the kilo. Take it from me, you’ve never lived until you’ve had the displeasure of washing, sorting and cutting pounds of nasty okra, which I rate the worst vegetable ever invented (it‘s green, it‘s ugly, it‘s slimy and there are only three known viable uses for it - gumbo, salan and slingshot ammunition).
To top it off, a week has passed and we still haven’t managed to hit the bottom of the pot of okra salan. Woe is we. If it lives any longer we’ll name it and give it the spare room.
Once I decided to make some cauliflower salan, which used to be my favorite when I was a kid. That was when the house was still at five, so cooking up a pot of food wasn’t a bad idea. I played the part of dutiful female and bought, washed, cut and cooked about 3 pounds of cauliflower and 1 pound of potatoes.
The stuff was good, but then disaster struck. Abez got appendicitis and my dad simultaneously opened a restaurant. Suddenly my dad and my kid brother, depended on to consume most edibles, were eating three meals a day at the restaurant and Abez wasn’t up to solids. My mom isn’t big on Pakistani food, so she stuck to her sandwiches and salads and left poor sad me, who isn’t a big eater on the best of days, to finish off the pot. I did it but I have never liked cauliflower since and I NEVER WANT TO SEE ANOTHER ONE AS LONG AS I LIVE.
I shouldn’t complain though. It took me weeks to get any produce in the house at all. My dad, bless him, is as much of a space cadet as the rest of my odd family, so he often forgets to stock the house. It’s no big deal, since we can always just order out at the best restaurant this side of The Village, where the service stinks but the food is great and the owner is *cough* like a father to me. And in a land where people still go hungry, it’s in poor taste to whine about plenty, so I should just shut up.
It’s been more than a couple months since “The Great Downsizing,” and I’ve come to realize that there is a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t get done when the wonderful mother and handy dandy brothers aren’t around.
For instance, the refrigerator will probably never be cleaned again. Why? Because that has always been mom’s domain. I handle the kitchen, Abez does laundry, and mom does the fridge and other unsavory mom-ish duties. Plus, you just can’t clean out a fridge full of near-dead food when you don’t have a ravenous indifferent teenage male to stuff full of dubious leftovers. Well, I exaggerate, we’re not that bad. I do throw out anything older and more feral than the dog and I try to keep it less than toxic in there, but it‘s not as shiny and sanitized as it would be if my mom was around.
You’re also more apt to run around in holey and wrinkly clothes when the mominator isn’t there to mend them and sass you for being too lazy to iron. This is good and bad. Good, because who said house clothes, linens and shawls need to be ironed anyways, and bad because you begin to look homeless when your jalbs have unwanted ventilation. Don’t I sound *cough* chic?
My sister and I attempt to pick up the slack, but without the nagging powers of a mother to motivate, we just manage to keep up with the important things.
Another thing you only notice after you lose your household default burly dude: boxes and suitcases are left sitting around because my huge little bro isn’t here to hoist them to their proper places. Occasionally, when we’re feeling rough and tough (with our Afro puffs?) Abez and I will huphuphup and nearly kill ourselves trying to lift and tote heavy things, but mainly we leave things be at midget level. I guess one of my gigantor brothers will put them away when they come back.
All the knives are dull too. It’s not that the rest of us don’t know how to sharpen a knife, but we just don’t take the same maniacal pleasure in digging out the whet stone and going at it like some bleak executioner the way my always brothers have. We could always tell when my eldest bro had been feeling bored when the knives were suddenly razor sharp. It’s all good though, cuz duller knives means fewer incidents of Abez’s “How to mortally wound yourself....” And the butter knives, who lead the saddest and least fulfilled lives out of all cutlery, get more use, as their sharpness finally exceeds that of the paring knife.
Stupidity and hyperbole aside, the moral of today’s story is family is very important. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, so be nice to your relations while you‘ve still got them around. They can't be replaced.