The party was OK… not spectacular, but not disastrous. We’ll get to that shortly. Firstly, there are two questions which have been bothering me, and both relate to bodily fluids. Perhaps you could help me out.
1. Blood is salty, no? I read somewhere that it has the same salinity as seawater, which was supposed to prove something meaningful and evolutionary; but whether that be the case or no, if one cuts a gash in one’s forearm and sucks the blood (accidentally, I mean; while making a flan, perhaps; not just for kicks), it tastes like salt. So. Wouldn’t drinking a whole pint of it, or however much vampires drink at one go, make you extremely dehydrated? I mean, vampire physiology is presumably constructed so as to cope with it; one does not envisage them carrying along a bottle of Evian. Well, Edward probably would. It’s the sort of marvy accoutrement one would expect a sparkly vampire to tote. But anyhoo. Blood. Salty. Yes. Interesting thought, no?
2. If one were alone in the wilderness, miles from civilisation, clean water, alcohol, antibiotics etc and a repellent crocodile bit off half your arm, would it a) improve your situation or b) otherwise to throom on your own stump? Urine is sterile and acidic, which makes me feel it would have antibacterial or cleansing properties of some sort. But mebbe not. And it would hurt. Helpdesk Man cautiously gave his opinion that it might be better to do so than not, but hesitated to make a definitive pronouncement. I like that in a man. It stops us from being sued. But what do you think, standard disclaimers aside? And if you thought it was the right thing to do, would you do it?
Anyway. Party. Yes. It was OK. Apart from the guest of honour’s family and my own family, there were only two guests present; fortunately, my family is capacious and the guest of honour had her parents visiting, so combined with our lack of chairs we managed to fill up the living room tolerably well. Much to my amazement, people bought Tupperware (!!); my small sister Ruth came over in the morning and baked practically all the food while I worked on the quilt, which I got finished (Is Better Than Perfect) more or less in time; and the snortlepig’s behaviour impressed the Tupperware lady so much (?!) she gave her a tiny pink container in a Handy Size. It seems the key to successful Tupperwaring is enthusiastically pointing out how any size of container, be it barely big enough to hold a crocus or large enough to host swim meets in, is Handy. I wonder if they conducted studies to find out the average household volume of leftover lasagna, or the typical quantity of Scroggin consumed by a family of four? At any rate we all agreed meekly that the various sizes were Handy indeed, and she got a bit cocky and asked me for an onion in order to demonstrate a device called, I kid you not, the Happy Chopper. It’s not a DC villain; it dices.
After this event my dear friends came over and we ate leftovers while watching American Graffti (kinda slow, Harrison Ford’s part smaller than expected) and The Lost Boys (all kinds of awesome; why do vampires have universally ridiculous hair? Is it a function of old age? “Ahh, I can’t keep up with the styles any more, I’m two hundred years old - here, love, pour a bottle of bleach on it and we’ll fling a bit of moose tallow in for texture.”).
Best yet, I discovered that my dates were all out of whack and my article isn’t actually due until Tuesday. Cue choruses of Mormon cherubs. Perhaps I will make it to Christmas after all.