Day Fourteen: It's Hell in the Tropics

Having spent a night feeling like Martin Sheen at the start of Apocalypse Now (minus the ceiling fan but including the madness) and warding off heat exhaustion and mosquitoes till 3am, the day was never going to be thoroughly productive. Being home meant doing patches of work (to compensate for the patches of rain the lying weatherman promised us), and witnessing the classic symptoms of Men Who Don't Feel Needed.

In this case it was my father who, to compare him to a crop of legumes, is lying fallow. This means he stretches his body across his faux-leather Lay-Zee-Boy and watches TV all day,  remonstrating with his remote control and bellowing insults at a range of characters crossing the screen as he channel hops.

Fig 1.1 A magic wand that makes bizarre claims instantly factual.

Certain insults are reserved for particular characters, to wit: 

- True Crime channel (murderers, etc)... "They're all a bunch of drunks! Pure trash!"
- Sport (tennis, cricket)... "They can't speak English!" "He's a useless twat of a player!" "Cheats!" "Get out the way, Smuts, you doos!" "I remember in Lahore I played a similar shot...""Three drops of rain and they're running off the pitch with 2 overs to go. Get on with it!""Appalling stands, look at those terrible bucket seats, nowhere to put your feet. SA Tennis is a sham!"
- BBC Entertainment (Quiz Programmes)... "Moron!" "These people know nothing!" "Sit down, you cunt!"
- Poker (Poker)... "He's a big talker. He's lucky I'm not at that table."

So, a combination of vitriol and bravado, lies and extravagant claims, bombast and bluster. Such behaviour has the effect of making me work harder, like a sort of pension warning, of what can become when one's personal value results in more or less zero.

He's just let off a series of short farts, followed by "Fuck off! Shut up!" shouted at the screen. The resulting smell is like a potpourri of egg salad, Zyklon-B and sadness. Time to move to the other room to soak up some non-negative energy, albeit in the dusty darkness of a cat-infested lounge.

And still I wait to see my baby. Thirty-five percent gone. A dastardly 65 per cent to go. Now there's something to shout obscenities at.