Things that I don’t understand #1

Something's not quite right.

The first installment in a slightly less bile-filled series of lists about things that confuse and perplex me. I suspect this might have something to do with my age.

1) Quilted toilet paper

A close-up of this strange phenomenon. Why would you pin-prick flowers onto your poop roll?

I just don’t get quilted toilet paper (also known as QTP). It is evidently too thick to be of 100% efficacy for one’s nether regions, and it certainly looks anything but good taste. For me, quilted toilet paper is akin to those gold plastic boxes that people put tissues into to disguise the (far more aesthetically pleasing) cardboard box. Am I alone in thinking that QTP is not to be found in the finer establishments of this hallowed isle of Great Britain? I have visited Eltham Palace. It was not there. I have been to Claridges. It was not there. But I have found it in an old lady's bathroom (not my mother's, thankfully), along with a doll in a knitted dress coyly hiding another QTP roll under her voluminous pink skirts.


2) Tight jeans with saggy bottoms

I think I am going blind

First, there were straight-legged jeans. Then there were straight-legged jeans that hung down slightly at the waist, prison style. Now there are tight tight tight jeans with saggy bottoms. Apparently they are called Drop Crotch Skinnies. Ye gods and little fishes. I don’t understand these at all. Usually sported by skinny white men with bristling beards – the sort of wiry-looking men most prisoners would avoid near the shower rooms – these trousers seem to be spray-painted on until the thigh area, whereupon they just – sag. Is this because hipsters couldn’t manage to pull their tight pants down quickly enough to go to the toilet? Did North London experience an epidemic of poopy pants because nobody could peel the denim away from their hot sweaty thighs in time to squat? Is this a clever fashion device to allow hipsters freedom of botty movement? If so, then I completely get this trend. If not, then no, I don’t understand Drop Crotch Skinnies.

3) Smart Water

Have you seen this water? Call 0900-SuckerPunch now

Water is not smart. Water is water. It should have a neutral PH of approximately 7 – not too acidic, not too full of other base minerals, but it does not have a PHD. The only thing smart about Smart Water is the fact that someone realised that some people – usually those who wear tight denim with saggy bottoms – will be willing to pay £2.50 or more for a bottle of water. So while water has been around for millions of years, some suckers at the teat of posh water bottles really have just been born yesterday.

That is all. For now.

Things that make me feel ill

                          The latest in a series of rants that began before the internet was created. 

Ok so these are First World Problems

1) Halitosis

More specifically, someone else's bad breath. 

I had a real blast of this yesterday on the train home. I was so happy to get a seat, given that the majority of the time we are packed in closer than incestuous sardines in a hillbilly can, but at what cost? At what cost, indeed. For I was next to a smartly-dressed young man with the worst breath in the world. It was so bad I had to sit with my back to him. I opened the window. I had to take off my cardigan because I was overheating with the need to puke. I sprayed my scarf with scent and held it over my face. I don't even know how he could have managed to gut-breath the carriage, given that he rarely opened his gingivitis-beriddled mouth. Even the flowers printed onto the lady's dress opposite wilted. When he got off the train at Streatham, we literally breathed a sigh of relief. Except for the girl across from me, who was dead.

2) Papaya

Nasty little ass fruit

This evil little fruit. Look at its innocent little face. I've had it in drinks before, I've enjoyed the scent of my body butters and hand lotions. Nothing prepared me for the satanic devastation it caused to my tastebuds. It smelled so nice! The juices I have been drinking seemed so rich and nourishing. So when I got the chance for some fresh papaya at a five-star hotel in Thailand, I thought my breakfasting dreams had come true. I loaded my plate with delicious fruit and returned, starry-eyed, to my table and prepared to savour the delights. What a load of ass. Literally. It tasted like ass. I tried it twice, to be sure. It resembled an ass's ass. The ass of a donkey. The sour, vomit-laden assfruit of a dead donkey. The supporating puss-filled colon of a putrefying mule carcass. I suspect my rotting-gummed friend above has been licking papaya. 

3) Farts

Other people's, of course. Mine smell like roses. Or KFC. Sometimes both. I don't understand why people do not seem to enjoy the wind of my labours in the same way that I do. They cannot appreciate art, evidently. However other people's dropped wind is the breath of the devil and all his hellish minions. It is the foul air that emanates from the pit of sulphur and lime, the demesne of all that is wrong. And when it happens on a train, a tube, or in a hospital waiting room (oh that one was the worst - death farts from hideously ill people) ... ugh. But the very very worst, the Titan of all worseness.... the fart of a cat. Just take my word for it.

4) Mint Choc-Chip Icecream

Have you ever licked between the toes of an ageing, tuberculoid polar bear? No? Well try some mint choc-chip icecream and enjoy a similar experience (best to hit the polar bear with a tranquiliser first). After tasting this delicacy, hit yourself with a tranq gun. It will take away the burning pain in your mouth and make everything seem good again. Food colourings, creme de menthe, a frozen putrescence. And that's just what's in a polar bear's toejam. This 'delicacy' even has its own Wikipedia page. Disgusting.

5) Death socks

Socks worn by other people. Socks that have not only been worn by other people, all day, but then end up on your side of the sofa. Socks that you realise, half-way through a film, are stroking your arm. Your bare arm. Touching the skin. Your skin. Dear saints have mercy. Also to fear are the socks being pinged off a pungent foot and waved around near your face. PROTECT YOUR EYES! Protect them from the foot-bogies that will ping off into your mouth, if it is open.