Questions
- havers
- 11 comments
I have questions. In my mind.
1. What is it with women who deliberately marry into awful last names?
I mean, I took Helpdesk Man’s name when we wedded up, and to be honest I sometimes have vague regrets on that score; I prefer my old last name, and after eight years being called Mrs — still sounds like I’m being confused with my mother-in-law. But it’s not like his surname is actively obnoxious… or like my old one was particularly euphonious, come to that… and it’s certainly simpler pigwise for all of us to have the same last name, so meh. Whatever.
But if his surname had been something ghastly, you bet I’d have had second thoughts. Today, for instance, I saw a photo of a lovely old couple named Mr and Mrs Poot. Which means that once a trembling young fiancee had to look down the dark abyss of years and consent to being known forever and always as a Poot. Mrs Poot. The Poots. And she consented. I don’t think I can fathom a love like that. Unless her maiden name was, like, Snotwrangler or something, in which case she and her fiance probably fell in love over the mutual trauma of it all, but then why didn’t they run off together and change both their names to Montgomery?
2. Do people eat tumours?
I mean, yes, ew, but then I have a similarly visceral reaction to all sorts of foodstuffs cherished throughout the world. There are cultures in which people chow down happily on insects, blood puddings, calves’ brains, live octopi and eyeballs, after all. So why have I never heard of people cooking up tumours? Are they, like, carcinogenic? Presumably a cross-species, denatured-by-cooking cancerous mass wouldn’t be an actual health risk to humans, would it? And certainly they’d be difficult to farm – one has horrid visions of a bunch of squealing piggies being zapped with gamma radiation or forced to live under power poles with cellphones taped to their ears – but wouldn’t that just increase the market value? I mean, we go to tremendous lengths to acquire vanilla beans and truffles.
Perhaps tumours aren’t good to eat, though. I mean, they’re not muscle meat… are they? Or fat, surely? So what *are* they exactly? Growths of what texture of matter? Doesn’t it vary wildly? Seriously, if you have any information on this, let me know, because it’s really bugging me. What about predators – in the wild, if they come across a tumour in their prey, do they eat around it? Or can they smell the evil? Dogs can sniff out cancer, they say; and we think it’s noble, but maybe they’re really going “Mmmm, nommy”.
3. OK, so. America. The War on Drugs. Using is illegal. No?
So how come when a celebrity admits on a talk show to having spent the last few decades in a coke-addled haze, he doesn’t get carted off to the clink? I mean, he just confessed to a crime, didn’t he? Similarly, why aren’t people arrested on the way into rehab or AA meetings; or why aren’t the clearly drug-celebrating lyrics written by rock stars used as probable cause for searching their trailers for the vast quantities of crack they gleefully sing about consuming?
I mean, I know the police care more about dealing than using. And I’m not saying it would be a good thing if going to rehab got you chucked in the clink, because then no-one would ever go to rehab. I’m just saying, is the law the law or ain’t it? And if they never enforce it, shouldn’t they either start enforcing it or change it to comport with the reality of the situation? I mean, I’m sure Carrie Fisher had a legal team check through her confessional autobiographies (which are pretty good, incidentally), and did any of them say “Um, Carrie, you realise if you confess to using drugs here they can put you in prison?” Presumably not. Because of course they wouldn’t. But one assumes the same would not have applied had Martha Stewart written a wryly introspective account of her years as a tax fraudster. (Fraudstress? Fräudlein?)
4. Why are hamsters illegal in New Zealand? Because they are. And I want one. If someone were to send me a hamster, could I look after it for ten years and then talk about it afterwards on late-night TV so as to grant myself celebrimatic immunity? But then, who am I kidding; it wouldn’t last ten years. Rowan found a caterpillar on an ear of corn the other day and fell in love with it, and despite us googling the correct kinds of leaves and making it a sweet little habitat and only dropping it on the carpet twice, it pined away and died in a matter of days. And we were none the wiser until my younger sister said “Don’t you have automatic fly spray?” We’re not good with pets, is what I’m saying. A really robust hamster with impeccable gut flora and solid dental hygiene would maybe last a month, tops. Heck: maybe New Zealand made that law just for us.