Dear Diary

They were repainting the roof of my local Spar yesterday. A freshly opened 20L tin of terracotta paint fell from the roof and bounced off my tiny shiny pretty pearly silver two-week-old Yaris as I pulled into the parking bay, about three seconds after I had mused on how lucky I had been to get one right by the entrance. Damn you Asphaltia, daughter of Satan, Succubus, Whore of Babylon.

Various men with glinting murderous eyes gathered round the startlingly novel cowhide-jackrussel paint job, and hungrily offered to pummel the young roof painter, as though I looked incapable of it. I declined and laughed and took the hand of poor Jaques, the painter, who had come down from the roof and was crying real tears and shaking from top to bottom, because in that moment I could see clearly, in slow motion even, and I was just so happy for him that I’m not a murderous man. If you’re going to spill roof paint all over a brand new car, and you have a choice as to which car, pick mine ok? I tried to explain to Jaques how he should see this like winning the lotto - that what happened was quite literally once in a lifetime ‘cos it’s my first brand new car and I won’t ever have another. He must have misunderstood because he went even paler, sobbed even louder, edged towards the group of murderous men and tried to take cover in their midst.

The dent in the roof from the tin is like an exclamation mark. Serves me right I suppose, for getting all inexplicably fond of and vain about a stupid car. I don’t even like cars. Let this be a lesson to me.

An A-C of Things that Might Help

A is for Asphaltia

There is a goddess of parking spaces, apparently. She is called Asphaltia and her invocation goes, “Lady Asphaltia, full of grace, find for me a parking space.” I like it a lot and look forward to more successful parking in future.


B is for Butter-side-up

Caro Jazoni sent me a Vimrod cartoon that said, “If you are worried about having a bad week then post yourself some toast on Monday. Then Tuesday and Wednesday can be spent looking forward to what might come in the post, and then on Thursday the toast will come which will be a treat, and then on Friday it’s the end of the week.”


C is for Cat

Death, and What Comes Next.
English
Afrikaans
Many other useful translations, including Catalonian, here.