A black box alternative

A disgusting but hopefully potential-laden thought: in my nearly 53 years of life, it has become apparent that even though stomach acids can presumably dissolve coins and other metallic objects, it seems powerless against corn kernels and capsicum skins. With this in mind (or being viewed from the toilet bowl), why aren’t Boeing and co making the bodies of their planes out of pepper and corn skins? (No need to shove me, I’ll let myself out….).

As you can see, life in lockdown hasn’t helped me learn to paint, play a lute or embrace macrame. Instead, I’ve watched all of Netflix, earned a life preserver-shaped midriff and spent so much time staring at my iphone that my prescription glasses have needed to be strengthened.

Having Felix to walk around the town and surrounding farmland does help balance the bad with the good. He’s a creature of habit and takes a long draw of water from his dish about half an hour before our long lunchtime walk. It’s his way of readying himself to pee at least twenty four times (yes, I’ve counted) over carefully considered spots during our seven kilometre journey.

It’s entertaining to watch his graceful trot or see the sun add glitter to the fur on top of his head and I’m determined to keep listening to bird song and the increasingly rare roar of nearby aircraft coming in to land. I don’t want to drown out the sounds of the world outside with ear buds.

A worthy aim, if only to ensure that I don’t get hit by a passing cyclist whilst bending down to unwrap Felix’s lead from the post he’s just peed on, but it does set my mind a-wanderin.’ The sweetcorn skins as black box material is just one pearl that’s emerged from the slimy oyster shell currently encrusting my lockdown-addled brain.

If you’ve read this far, there are more thoughts and questions to share and, in turn, enrich your own life. Feel free to think more on them and devise some solutions.

If Prince was French, he wouldn’t be partying like it’s 1999 but like it was ‘mille neuf cent quatre vingt dix-neuf.’ Not quite as catchy.

I’m no chef, but even I know that if you call your created meal something that ends in ‘surprise,’ it’s rarely a pleasant one.

Can we please all stop using ‘ramping up’ instead of ‘increased’ and retire ‘unprecedented’ forever.

If you put 1868 instead of 1968 as your birth year online, the computer doesn’t care. The ‘68’ tells it that you’re old enough.

Whatever happened to those google glasses that some folk were testing out a few years ago?

Who was the first person many thousands of years ago who was so famished, so incredibly bored that after examining the first, unappetising versions of yoghurt, cheese, wine and vegemite thought, ‘Yeah, that looks worth tasting.’

Do your recycling in the dark or the neighbours will see, hear and judge you for how many bottles of wine you drink.

What are those bottom row tiny teeth for on dogs? Nibbling baby corn?

Tiramisu is a perfect food for breakfast.

Everything I do is a ‘non essential service.’

Found the perfect band name after reading about social distancing crowds for sporting events: Sex Doll Seat Fillers.

How far have sales of oversized Toblerones dropped since Covid-19 took over the world?

Where are those Toblerones now?

During our most recent walk, the rain suddenly poured down. It was then, during Felix’s ‘poo time,’ that the last one-third didn’t hit the ground and was instead swinging like a demonic wind chime via a strand of poorly-digested grass. With my hand safely covered in a plastic bag the scene quickly devolved into a circular — and muddy — game of ‘chasey’ until the offending article was safely removed.

Don’t tell me I’m not making the most of my lockdown life.