Sep 04 2011
5 Comments
Anecdotes, Fiction, Humorous, Open Letters, Three minute read

Message From the Ants: You Are Powerless Against Us

TRY TO STOP US!

Though we love our new apartment, one of its only flaws is the continual potential for an ant infestation.  The potential was realized this afternoon, when I heard a scream in the roommate’s room. Concerned, I rushed in and happened upon my roommate being held down by a giant masked ant with a knife at her throat. “Man,” I chuckled, “this infestation is both exceedingly ugly and worse than I thought.”

But really, there was a literal river of ants flowing from the balcony door, around the corner, and into a crack in the wall. I’m not great with numbers, but there must have been at least one or two, maybe millions, or something like thousands of ants endlessly streaming into the wall, carrying an unknown substance to their queen for her to feast on. Powerless to stop the flood, we left the apartment and discovered upon our return that they had vanished, only one or two unpopular ones left behind. As we commented on how bizarre the experience was, I found a tiny note in the corner of the room near the ants’ escape crack. It was typed out very clearly and left little to the imagination, except for picturing the tiny ant computer. Here is the note, as it was written but slightly larger and edited for profanity.

Dear pathetic human scum,

I assume by now you’ve noticed we have no regard whatsoever for your existence. It matters very little to us the arbitrary barriers you have placed on our earth, or the packaging in which you wrap our food. You cannot keep us out. We are tiny and there are millions of us. You are large, pasty, gangly, and one. You can’t even crawl up the sides of tile wall or build tunnels into the earth. Did you really think your two opposable thumbs would be a match for us? The thought is laughable. Between us, we have billions of limbs. In one hour, we could make a statue of President Obama  the height of the Empire State building out of our severed limbs and then dismantle it. You could write three emails.

Do you know how many possible entrances there are in your room alone? What about just the area surrounding your bed? Thousands. There are thousands of ways for us to invade in the middle of the night, swarming across your face, tickling your nostrils until you wake up and begin screaming. As you thrash about clumsily you might take some of us, but you can’t actually believe this will affect anything. You might be bigger than us, but our combined weight is a number your puny brain is incapable of comprehending both because of its size and because it is rendered in kilos, so I’m not even going to waste my ant breathe. The trick we performed earlier was meant to send a message: you are weak and powerless. Your degrees mean nothing to us. Bam! We’re there. We’re a river. We’re a thick, writhing mass that makes the carpet look alive. Boom! We’re gone. You have no idea what happened. You’re in the dark. You’re drooling, clueless, as you will remain.

We are in the walls. We are in the ceiling. We have this entire place surrounded and if we ever have the cause to investigate a sugar or pie situation, there will be no mercy. We will throng and our queen will feast. Bring chemicals if you must, just know that where one falls three rise to take his place, each a little crazier than the last.

Best regards,

Patrix “7 leg” O’Norkle, ant representative and part-time gym attendee (credit: MB)

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Sep 03 2011
4 Comments
Open Letters, Three minute read

Dear Future Tenant: Nothing You Do is Original

Oh sweet damp and dusty nights to come

One day, future tenant, all this will be yours. The house plant, the wobbly table, the bizarre equipment in the corner of the balcony that may have been used for torture….it will all be yours, to keep and to hold forever until your lease runs out after a year.

I remember when I was like you, wide eyed with wonder as day by day I discovered the rich variety of ants in our apartment and the necessity to keep everything as sterile as a freshly boiled set of vampire teeth. I, too, chuckled as I realized that none of the lamps in the apartment were equipped with light bulbs and ruined the Italian coffee maker by putting the top part on the stove, causing it to produce water permanently scented with burnt rubber.

The bathroom was a stranger to me as well, especially the shower square with its curtain that you must encase yourself in like a sausage while watching as water still shoots onto the floor despite your best intentions. And yes, I recall the nook, that precious nook in the corner of the first bedroom where I would while away the hours drawing both straight and curvy lines and think about to whom I could send them to as a time-released prank.Those were some of my better years. The ashtray of my mind was not yet full and I saw with youth’s vigor and hope.

And the balcony. Yes, I remember that balcony very well. I had dreams of buying a soccer ball and juggling on it without pants. Sometimes I walked to the edge of the balcony and looked out over the empty street, bad pop music sounding from a distance. It was my world. It will never really be your world, since it was mine first.

And of course, the bizarre bed contraption in the corner. I can see it in my mind’s eye and on this webpage very well. When I first laid eyes upon it I thought it a dilapidated piece of junk, good for nothing except soccer ball storage or unwanted guest accommodation. Upon closer inspection, I found it was something much more special, as if God himself had sent it to us, His final touch on creation and the 2nd greatest gift to mankind. Yes, future lessee, you will be the proud temporary owner of this bedswing, perhaps the only one in the entire world. And yes, the mattresses will be continually damp and half their mass is an accumulation of dust and previous tenants’ skin cells absorbed into them over the years.

But don’t let that take away from the experience of lying on the bedswing, moving slowly yet haphazardly both forward and side to side. As you absorb the view of the roof’s underbelly, perhaps you could imagine the man (or woman) that created this thing and why they did so. Were their beds too dry and dust-free inside? Did they want to reinvent the waterbed with chains, nails, and wood? Were they trying to make a cabinet and didn’t read the instructions correctly? Did they wear glasses? Love their mother?

I’ll let you think those thoughts for yourself, though I’m sure I’ve already thought of all of them since I was here first. I am not the original tenant. Nor am I the owner. But make no mistake, this apartment will always remember me, since I’m going to build a larger and even more bizarre device that will leave the generations to come wondering what happened to that girl and where did she get enough peanut butter to fuel a rocket launch. Just you wait.

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Sep 02 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Three minute read

A Lighter and a Muse

A peanut, tweezers, and thing of floss for size comparison.

On a run to purchase ingredients for an intrepid night of pie making in post-revolutionary Cairo, we also picked up a lighter for our kitchen stove.

Though it has all the class of a 7-11, I have found within it incredible meaning beyond its mass produced tackiness. For me, it symbolizes some of my feelings about the move to Mohandiseen and my new life there more perfectly than any lighter has ever symbolized anything.

The raw picture of uncertainty and irony on the body of the lighter is enough to move one to tears or sleepiness. “S..OKY” is scrawled across it, a grotesque, hairless face with inhuman eyes, a cavernous mouth, and unexpectedly straight teeth blocking the middle letters of the word. Were the head not there it might read “SPOOKY.”

As I thought about this later on, the adjective resonated with me. Isn’t every time one moves into an unknown place a little spooky? Mohandiseen itself is eerily quiet and pleasant to walk around in, with a bizarre number of trees and expensive coffee shops. Couldn’t this be scary to someone who is used to living near only one expensive coffee shop around the corner from a Pizza Hut? Stricken by the unexpected depth I found in the fifty cent kitchen device, I probed further.

The gaping mouth is my earlier extreme thirst for coffee that went unsatisfied because I could not ignite the stove without matches.  I had forgotten to purchase some when I was at the store, which is heart breaking since they were the only thing I really needed in order to make my Nescafe.

The eyes on the lighter are a picture of this coffee-less, ironic, hell that I experienced today, since they are open but do not see, just as I had coffee but was not able to drink it. Covering up some of the letters introduces an element of chaos in the picture. It might actually read Socky, a friendly hand puppet, or “Smoky” in an anti-smoking warning, which would complement the other ironic undertones of the lighter.

And then I began to wonder whether it even matters what is written? Don’t we evaluate the picture and the letters as a whole and formulate our own truths, which must be equally valid regardless of whether or not there is supposed to be an anti-smoking message or a call to be kinder to our sock friends? The philosophical ambiguity of the lighter highlights the mixed emotions I have about living in an area where a pro-Mubarak protest was held a little over a month ago. The people here by and large did not suffer to the same degree under the past regime as did those who were not as well off. Indeed, many in this are grew wealthy during that time period and were sad to see Mubarak and the good ol’ days go down the revolutionary toilet.

Does living here make me one of them? If I eat fool (beans) and ta’amiya (Egyptian falafel) every day and ride the metro, does that still connect me with the “people?” It’s these kinds of questions, mainly philosophical, that the new lighter has ignited (pun?) in my mind. I’m glad to have such a thought-provoking piece of functional art at my disposal in order to stir the thinking wells of my brain.

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Sep 01 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Lists, Open Letters, Three minute read

Six Stages of Packing

STOP EVERYTHING! WHERE IS YOUR TUNA?

It is finished. I have moved and am now in a magical place called Mohandiseen, where the honking in the distance almost sounds like crickets, the sky has 3 more stars, and cotton candy grows on trees.

I don’t care if I have to eat beans and toothpaste for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea time snack in order to live here. It will be worth it to have this haven where I can literally cocoon myself away from the craziness of Tahrir, in order to appreciate it more fully.

While packing, I gleaned some impressive information on the emotional phases of the moving process. Allow me to elaborate.

Time to Go

The day has come. It’s time to move out of your apartment, the apartment where you have lived. You saw this day coming because you signed the lease and chose this day yourself. Still, it strikes you like a thunderbolt. You squirm in your shoes, you pace up and down nervously as your palms sweat and your eyes swim, but you can’t avoid what’s coming. It’s time to pack. As you begin the laborious process, you start progressing through the six stages.

Stage 1: Despondency

As you survey the grotesque bulk of your possessions, your heart is stricken with an iced lightening rod. Hercules himself would have trembled at the sight of what must be squirreled away…unworn clothing, laughably ambitious shoes, three partially used deodorant sticks, two cans of tuna, etc. You experience earth shattering, heart breaking, soul sucking hopelessness. “Might as well give up now,” you think, as you check to see what’s on television.

Stage 2: Elbow Grease

After weeping briefly, you pull yourself together and realize that today is the first day of the rest of your life, and that if you don’t pack your landlord will confiscate you and your possessions. You start puttering around the room, rearranging and evaluating things, and all the while hope slowly wells within your chest. “Maybe this can be done,” you think, “and where did those cans of tuna go?”

Stage 3: Sweat

You’re really moving now. The hot Cairo sun is beating down upon all the Cairene earth. In the AC-less room, your temples and back grow damp as the pile of material possessions is slowly organized and moved into seal-able spaces. You are happy in your delusion that things are actually going to get done. “I’ll even be able to fit in my cans of tuna,” you contentedly state to yourself.

Stage 4: Despair

Your bags are filling fast and you there is no end in sight. Your forehead is sweaty and you feel like crap for some reason, even though you got three hours of sleep and have only eaten chocolate. Emotions run high as you recall past loves and wonder where they are now. Are they packing too? Do they know what this is like? As you look at the miserable pile of crap your life has become, a mere anchor to a place you are no longer attached to, you begin to wonder what the meaning of it all is.

Stage 5: Rejuvenation

After looking at a tree, you realize things aren’t so bad. You decide to throw away the yards of velvet you wanted to make into a magician’s cape for your niece, and that makes you feel better. Now there’s just the odd shaped things like packing tape left, most of which can be thrown into your backpack. “Wait a second, ” you think to yourself, “WHERE ARE MY CANS OF TUNA?” You lay your eye upon them and a chorus of heavenly angels sings as you nestle them into the perfect spot in your suitcase. The end is in sight and it looks like a celebration at Pizza Hut.

Stage 6: Jubilation

After cramming the last pair of socks through the crack of your suitcase and zipping it shut before it could escape, you glance around your room and realize you have done the impossible. You have packed your life into measurable square feet, and you have done so with only a mild breakdown. Come hell or high water, one thing is for certain. As soon as you get to your new apartment, you’re unpacking everything and cracking open a can of tuna in celebration. Champagne is for squares and people who don’t eat enough protein.

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Aug 30 2011
8 Comments
Best blog posts, Fake advertisements, Humorous, Modern Life, Three minute read

I’m Just Trying to Sweat On Some Strangers

Last night I was the proud and only occasionally unwilling participant of a house party that lasted until the sun came up. This was not an American house party, where you crank up the music in someone’s apartment and stand uncomfortably close to one another for two hours tops before you realize it is the worst thing in the world and then escape. This house party was a public party with “house” music at a club-like location somewhere near the pyramids.

I know that we were somewhere near the pyramids because I saw one as we were driving back in the early dawn. I also saw the sun itself, a fluorescent red disk rising over the Nile. And then I went home, saw I had no notifications on facebook, and went to bed. All in all it was a fun, enriching, and eye-bulging experience. Here’s an advertisement.

Saqqara Oasis: Where There Are No Worries Because Your Sweat Will Put Out the Molotov Cocktail Flames

Hey you! Yeah you with the “One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Dance floor” shirt!

Tired of squeezing into your tightest threads on Monday nights and then having nowhere to go? Do you yearn for a place where the music will make your heart feel like it’s about to explode, where the beat itself picks up you and throws you down in endless mini-earthquakes? Do you find perfect hearing a burden? If you have ever experienced these sentiments or eaten food, then Saqqara Oasis is your destination! You’ll always remember your bomb night at Saqqara tearing up the dance floor with your sick moves and hair product because your hearing will be permanently damaged and your brain seared with images of Egyptian youth like you’ve never wanted to see them before.

When was the last time you sweated so much you created a natural pattern of salt stains on your jeans and then sold them the next day at twice their original cost as haute couture?  Can’t remember? That means it’s been too long! Saqqara Oasis is your only solution. After you sweat your brains out, strip down to your boxers and cannon ball into the pool! Then climb out of the pool and GO CRAZY again! Be the dripping youth full of life that you have always wanted to be.

Are you incapable of experiencing “fun” on account of your extreme coolness? Do you get tremors thinking about your hair moving? Did you wear heels that came with a handicapped sticker? Saqqara is still the place for you! There are numerous locations at your disposal from which you can project an air of mind-blowing awesomeness while doing nothing except for staring at other people with a blank expression or bobbing your head. If desired, there is a short posing workshop before the party begins where you can learn all the latest hand, arm, and leg positions so you can put off the vibe you’ve always known you were capable of.

Have you ever felt like your hands, arms, and heart are actually a different being trying to flee from the rest of your body? Do they flail around wildly and cause your abdomen to move in an inhuman fashion to the eardrum bursting beat? Have you ever wiled out so hard that your body couldn’t handle itself? Have you ever become a music nymph in the heat of the moment? Come to Saqqara! Find your flailing friends and throw your flesh encasement around like it’s something you won’t need tomorrow!

Are you trying to inhale as much smoke as possible in an outdoor setting? Forget sheesha and come to Saqqara, where one could read by the light of the glowing cigarette butts if they weren’t too busy being AWESOME. Let us convince you that there is no better place to partake of second hand goodness. Don’t think you’re a good dancer? Our quasi-non-stop strobe policy will make whatever movements you are capable of producing seem out of this world, and just when you are getting used to making a fool out of yourself, we will flood the entire dance area with yellow light and reveal you sweat soaked youth for what you really are before returning the safety of pulsing darkness.

Saqqara Oasis: You will lose control, sweat, stay out for longer than you wanted to, go through an endless cycle of despairing of departure and then catching a second wind, and discover the heights of who you can be.

This means you too, cookie monster t-shirt.

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