I want to talk to someone about soybeans.

Have you ever had a bad day at work? Ever steamed in frustration after talking to an idiot? I'm sure you, gentle reader, are far above such behaviour but I've been spring-cleaning my inbox and I found my friend's little piece of spleen-venting:

I am currently working at the Christchurch City Council in the call centre, its OK, ppl are pretty grumpy, and if they re not grumpy then they are asking the weirdest questions which make you want to say WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING THE COUNCIL!!!?!??!?!

We started writing these down, these are just some of them!

• "What's the phone number so can I get a job picking mushrooms?"
• "Hi, we are having a function in September and want to know where we can get some Indian music CDs?"
• "I'd like to import an exotic cat, can I?"
• "What was the background music played at the Art Gallery two Sundays ago?"
• "Hi, I want to talk to someone about soybeans..."
• "My daughter's boyfriend is being released from prison, can you tell me who to contact about this!"
• "I would like a list of all the free doctors there are in Christchurch."
• Someone has rung to say he has built a garage. He rang requesting we now remove the street tree that is blocking the vehicle access way to the garage.
• "I have a couple of beds, who do I call?"
• "Do the service centres do drivers' licences?"
• "Do you know the number of the Christchurch Pony Club?"

What are we, Telecom?

The message was dated October 2006, so I guess the list grew quite a bit after that. I wonder if the full list is available online anywhere?

Mixed messages

The famous gap between "he says" and "she says" has opened again. Actually he's not saying much (and I'm not asking) but from what she's said and what I've seen, he thinks it's the beginning of a wonderful courtship. She's just got a fresh start in a new country and doesn't want to get into any relationship right now. As some readers will know, that's a position I can completely understand.

It seems like they need to talk out their differences, but there's going to be a delay. Until then, I guess she'll keep putting her hands in her pockets to avoid holding his. Poor folks. Mediterranean people are famously emotional so I really hope that things work out nicely.—

Friday night party

The student residence has a lot of rules. Some are just plain retarded, like "absolute silence after 10pm". Some are slightly more reasonable, like "clean your dishes immediately after use". We're equal-opportunity, though, so we ignore them all.

Isabel, one of the "old family" here, was leaving Germany behind and returning to Spain. Her flight was Saturday morning, so we needed to celebrate on Friday. All the old family came back and ate a Cuban rice dinner with the new family (thus breaking the "no guests" rule) and then we all hung around playing a famous drinking game for a couple of hours (thus breaking the "no parties" rule, probably).

By the way, did you know that there is a drink called "martini" that is not a martini cocktail? It's apparently spirit by itself, and it tastes great with a slice of lemon. But don't mix it with vodka, red wine, white wine and multivitamin fruit cordial unless you're sure that you won't draw the "horrible cocktail" card when it's your turn.

Later, in the pub, we had our own little scandal; an "old family" Italian getting smoochy with a "new family" Spaniette.

The Italian slept over (on the couch, I might add), thus breaking the "only paying residents may sleep here" rule.

Dates for the calendar

Landmark events, irate shopkeepers and dodgy phonecards made for an interesting weekend.

6 Jan

My favourite flatmate of all time, Neil, celebrated a birthday. I tried to wish him a happy birthday but he was busy playing Thai Xbox Sushi or something.

7 Jan

My favourite phone-buddy of all time, DJ, celebrated as well. I even got to talk to her for the first time in ages!

8 Jan

My favourite Detective Inspector Monkey Pirate Queen of all time, Emily, returns to London in under 12 hours.

Hooray for all of you!