Camping When Nature Hates You.

Camping is a queer concept to me.  I mean really, who in their right mind would willingly submit themselves to the elements if they are not homeless, raised by wolves or competing for a million dollars?  If humans were intended to live in the bush or mountains we would not have evolved to be able to build houses, nice hotels or invented electricity and room service.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do love to do quad biking, horse riding and I do appreciate nature’s absolute splendor.  But this doesn’t mean I want to spend a night in nature, sleep in a sleeping bag in a tent with God knows what crawling over me.  I have been camping twice in my life and this was enough times for me to realize two things:  One, I don’t like “roughing it” and two, I do NOT do camping.

About ten years ago hubby and I decided to go hiking with my sister, brother-in-law and some friends.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  We would spend two days hiking up a mountain, walking about 10 kilometers a day (that is like 6.2).  The selling point for me was that we would not need tents as we would be sleeping in what they called “chalets” and they said there was electricity at both “camping sites”.  The only down side, I thought, was that we would need to carry everything we needed in backpacks with us.  Optimism never served well, and in this case optimism would once again dismally fail me.

Arriving on the Friday, the first “camping site” was basically a room with a questionable roof, holes in the walls that you could literally see through and stretchers to sleep on.  No electricity.  No indoor toilet.  That was the very first time I in my life that I saw an outhouse or as they called it - a “long drop”.  I was mortified!  It was nothing more than a hole in the ground with a toilet seat on top of it, smelled like shit and there were steam billowing out of it the following morning.  All I could do, when I eventually had to take a shit, was to go in there, hold my breath and pray that the whole thing didn’t cave in on me.  In retrospect, I think that’s where my fear of public toilets comes from.

The following day we started with the hike.  Ten kilometers is fucking far, especially if you are carrying 5kg on your back.  Needless to say I cursed a lot that first day.  My sister, the drama queen that she is, also had a complete dramatic melt down three quarters through when she had a cramp in her leg.  She was a whimpering mess and wanted to be medically evacuated off the mountain.  Needless to say that didn’t happen.  The rest of the hike she was whimpering out loud and I was crying and cursing on the inside.  Eventually, what felt like an eternity, we made it to the second camp and things only got worse from there.

Again the “camp site” was no Hilton Hotel and by all means worse than the first one, again with the outhouse, cracked walls and stretchers.  With blusters the size of plums on my feet and smelling like a funky monkey, I realized hiking was probably the worst idea I ever had.  All I wanted was to take a long hot relaxing shower.  Then came another shock.

The “camp site” had a shower but it was outside in the bush and if I wanted a hot shower I had to heat the water in a thing they called a donkey on the fire. Like primitive prehistoric men.  I remember screaming “No hot water, no indoor toilet, no indoor shower, no electricity.  Why the fuck did I do this to myself?”   I wanted to get clean so I heated the water, carried the donkey to the outside shower and hubby and I got in and opened the release valve.  First came the searing hot water then in came a snake.  I literally peed myself and that was the shortest and most traumatizing shower I ever had.  They said it was a harmless snake, but at almost a meter long it didn’t look harmless at all.  Besides nobody in our hiking party was a reptile expert.  We could have all died.

On day two we hiked back to the first “camp site”, completely paranoid about snakes,  but this time I was motivated by one thing and one thing only - I wanted to get the hell out of there!  It took us about six hours to reach the “camp site” and we left immediately.  I have never gone hiking again since but I did end up going camping a couple of years later.

My parents’-in-law are avid campers.  They own a caravan and all the camping equipment one would need to survive in the event that the apocalypse should destroy all man-made structures.  They go camping often and they invite us along just as often.  I have always found creative ways to avoid camping and declining their invitations.  That was until the one day about 5 years ago when I couldn’t get out of it.

My in-laws got me to agree to go camping and until this day I can’t remember how they did it.  They promised me that we will have our own fully equipped bathroom and that we would not have to share it with other people.  They also said there would be electricity.  The only down side was that hubby and I would have to sleep in a tent.  How bad could it be, I thought?  What is the worst that can happen, I thought?

On arriving at the camping spot I was delighted to find that my in-laws didn’t lie.  We did indeed have our own bathroom, kitchen and there was electricity.  I needed electricity for my portable air-conditioned, inflating our double bed, electric mosquito repellent, ice machine and emergency light. Once again I have to stress that I don't do the roughing it thing. We helped the in-laws unpack and then set about pitching our tent.  Pitching a tent in your pants is one thing but pitching an actual tent is a whole different story.

Tents are complicated assholes and the instruction manuals that come with them, I firmly believe, are written by people who are high on drugs or drunk.  They make no sense.  After a struggle, some sweat and an averted mental breakdown the tent was semi decently erected.  Our bed was inflated, the air-conditioner was running and mosquitoes were fleeing.  The whole camping spot was set up and I must admit I was rather proud of myself.  Everything was done and as I was standing there admiring our handy work, I thought to myself “So now what.  We are here; we are set up, so what exactly does one do when you are camping?”  As it turns out – not much! You drink.

The only things we had to do were to go down a waterslide and drink.  I broke my rib on the waterslide that day and later that evening I got drunk on vodka jelly shots.  I would have broken my nose too had it not been for the emergency light outside our tent.  You see, vodka jelly shot, darkness and tent ropes don’t mix.  Much later that evening, I sobered up a little and we went to bed and that’s when it happened.  Back then my father-in-law use to snore, the sound of which could scare away wildlife in a five kilometer radius.  His snoring sounded a lot like a mixture between a diesel engine coming apart and a pig choking on its own esophagus.  It kept me awake for a long time.

After eventually falling asleep I was roused from my not so peaceful slumber by something tickling my face.  I brushed it away and dosed off again.  Then it happened again.  “Stop it” I mumbled to which hubby mumbled back “Stop what?”

Just then the tickling went down my chin, down my neck and into my t-shirt.  I woke up, reached for my flash light lifted up the collar of my t-shirt and let out a petrified scream as only a twelve year old school girl can do.  I too am like Oscar Pistorius and scream like a woman when I am petrified.  There was a big hairy spider on my chest!  As I stared down at it in utter terror, its beady eight eyes stared back at me while its front feet were touching my nipple.  I felt sexually violated and petrified that it would bite off my nipple after it had finished molesting it.  Pandemonium broke out.  I survived.  The spider did not.  I lost three years of my life that morning and inhaled a whole can of Raid in the scuffle.  I still get nightmares.  We never went camping again after this.

Until such time as North Korea starts nuking the shit out of the world or when the Zombie Apocalypse happens and we are all forced to flee the city and find refuge in the mountains, I do not see any good reason why I should ever voluntarily go camping or hiking again.  No amount of bug repellent, vodka or inflatable and portable luxuries will see me leave the comfort of my home, or that of a hotel, to go and spent a night under the stars with the wild life, spiders, snakes and other hideous and possibly dangerous insect and animals.  Sure Broke Back Mountain made it look sexy, but in reality I would have had no problem quitting Ennis Del Mar as no high altitude fuck can be worth being dragged up a mountain to sleep in a tent and being crawled over and molested by spiders and snakes.  I find no shame in admitting that camping is not for me.  I am a civilized human being. I am not meant to play survivor and submit myself to the elements ever again.

Till next time.

Sometimes you just need to relax and say fuck it.

Being slightly OCD it is only natural that I value punctuality.  After all, this is what separates us from animals.  Well, punctuality and the ability to fly through the air at 30 000 feet at a speed of 600 mph that is.  And the fact that we can blow shit up.  So imagine my surprise when I actually managed to miss my flight yesterday even though I was at the airport four hours ahead of time.  Now you may ask yourself “How the hell did he manage to do that?”  And the answer would be rather complicated so let me explain.

Yesterday I had to fly from Cape Town back to Johannesburg.  I was in Cape Town for work and by yesterday morning I had finished what I needed to do there and decided to go to the airport early.  I had some work to do on my laptop and decided that I might as well do it at one of the airport lounges and the fact that they had free Wi-Fi would also help.

So I arrived at the airport four hours before my flight and checked in.  The lady at the check in counter looked at me funny and we had a slight altercation about my luggage.  This is totally normal as there is always some kind of issue:  If I don’t set off the metal detector then I forget that I have a knife in my hand luggage; if that doesn’t happen then my luggage is classified obese or looks suspicious for drugs.  I am used to being harassed at airports.  I have now come to expect it.

As I was busy working minding my own business about an hour before my flight, I heard an announcement.  Apparently my flight was delayed and was now to board at Gate C12.  I was a bit annoyed as I was looking forward to arriving in Johannesburg at 4pm and now I was going to be thirty minutes late.  About half an hour before my flight was due to depart I packed up my stuff and proceeded to Gate C12.

There was nobody there so I assumed the flight was delayed even further.  As my flight’s departure time neared and eventually passed I got suspicious.  I thought “What the fuck is going on?  Has it been delayed again?  But if they were boarding surely they would have been calling my name?”  Nobody called my name.  Not even once.  As I proceeded to go to the viewing deck I was also surprised that my plane was no longer on its spot on the tarmac.  It was gone.  Could it be that they left without me?

I promptly went to information and was told that my flight had indeed left.  Without me!  Now I had to go and get my ticket transferred to the next available flight.  I could feel a panic attack looming but decided to just stay calm, compose myself and that it was not the end of the world.  I have never missed a flight in my life and was mortified that my once clean record had now been stained, especially since I had been at the airport for four hours now.

As I proceeded to the flight controller counter I immediately thought about my luggage.  Where was it?  Was it on the plane?  Has it been molested?  Will I ever see it again?  If it is broken into will that person judge me?

As I got to the front of the counter I told the lady about my predicament.  She got on the phone, bashed away on her keyboard and then looked at me with concern.  “It seems that there is a problem.  According to my computer you boarded the flight, so why are you standing here?” she said while giving herself unsightly frown lines.  “Well, I don’t know.  I am not on that flight” I replied sarcastically.

Apparently there was another passenger booked on the same flight who had the same name and surname as mine and they checked off the wrong person.  As if this was not bad enough there was a problem with our luggage as well.

I was told that they kept my luggage onboard the plane and had bumped his luggage off.  So my luggage would arrive in Johannesburg two hours before me and his two hours after him.  “Well isn’t this just great.  You know this is how planes blow up, don’t you?!  Aren’t you supposed to match passengers to their luggage?!  Just wait until the terrorists discover this loophole.  It will be 9/11 all over again” I screamed.  Softly.  As I didn’t want to get arrested and I really wanted to make my next flight.

Eventually I made it onto the next flight, dripping with sweat and smelling like a funky monkey.  Seeing as I was a last minute addition to the flight I was banished to the very back of the plane where all the degenerates who have punctuality issues are seated.  And to make matters worse I had the middle seat.

As I sat down the person to my left was some kind of far right Afrikaner bearded man in kaki clothes and to my right was a nice Indian lady.  I apologized to the lady about my odor and told her I just had a very rough day.  I did not apologize to the kaki bearded man.  All three of us were reading.  I was reading Chelsea Handler’s Uganda Be Kidding Me, the lady was reading 50 Shades of Gray and the kaki bearded man was reading some book on Siener van Rensburg (a right wing profit).  This made me rather paranoid.

The flight was rather uneventful as we did not crash or go missing.  Our pilot was a rugged, tall and a ridiculously good looking man.  The only problem was that he was finger fucking his iPhone before and after the flight.  Possibly also during the flight as it is apparently not necessary to tell people to fasten their seatbelts when there is severe turbulence, which we had!  But I forgave him because he was gorgeous.

After arriving in Johannesburg I immediately went to the baggage claims counter.  Also there was a young woman who lost her glasses.  They are still missing.  There was also a woman who just flew in from Washington DC on a Delta Air flight who lost her blood pressure medication on the plane.  Her description of what she kept them in was rather vague and she may have suffered a stroke since.  We should all really pray for her as she seemed really distressed.

Eventually, I was reunited with my luggage and it is a miracle that nothing was missing from it.  Well, actually the only things they could steal from it were dirty laundry, my toiletries and prescription medication that would not even make them high.

I arrived home last night just after 7pm; meaning that I was technically in transit for six hours instead of three.  This was the first flight I have ever missed and it was not even my own fault.  How was I supposed to know that there were two Gate C12’s and that some other person on the same flight shared my name?

I am however impressed with myself for not having had a panic attack, breaking down falling on the ground crying like an emotionally disturbed child and for keeping my shit together.  Sometimes you just need to relax and say fuck it.  This is what I did and it really helped.  I however still hate airports.

Till next time.

2012: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly.

General consensus among my friends is that 2012 was a rather shitty year.  This year was shitty for different people for different reason.  I for one am rather relieved that I survived 2012, albeit it a little worse for wear, but I survived!  As life goes, 2012 posed a few challenges for me but it wasn’t all bad.  Sure I suffered a Panic Attack and now rely on certain prescription chemical, but isn’t this all part of living in a world that sometimes goes bat shit crazy and is a rat race with no finishing line? As I take this opportunity to reflect on some of my highlights and low-lights of 2012 I cannot help but wonder, will 2013 be better?

As some of you know 2012 didn’t start off that entirely great for me.  Sure I welcomed in the New Year on the island of Madagascar and spent a glorious 11 carefree days there, but my holiday ended in a disaster culminating in The Day I Almost Died.  I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would ever end up being a “medical emergency” thirty thousand feet in the air, but I did!  I was suffering from double pneumonia.  My holiday ended with me landing back in South Africa, going straight to the Emergency Room and being admitted to hospital for 5 fucking days.  The perfect start to 2012, don’t you think?

Apart from narrowly escaping death this year I also dabbled in some diet pills.  You see I am a sucker for anything that can help you lose weight that doesn’t require any exercise or dieting.  After all, I am about five stomach flues away from my goal weight!  So when some Chinese Weight Loss Pills promised that I would lose weight without any effort I jumped at the chance.  These pills have since been taken off the market because they are “dangerous” and I am still ten kilograms overweight.  Fuck!  We also had to fire another housekeeper this year.  It is really difficult to find good Help these days.  In the last two years we had about five housekeepers with The Sleuth, The Bitch and The Sloth being the worst of them.  Luckily, we finally found one who might be a keeper, let’s cross our fingers that she does not end up being some deranged serial killer down the road.  I would hate for one of my body parts to end up being a souvenir in her basement.

Speaking of serial killers, this year I also, to my utter horror, discovered that I was friended on Facebook by a Psycho Killer.  I was friends with Luca Rocco Magnotta.  The same guy who killed his boyfriend, videotaped the murder and then proceeded to cut the corpse into pieces and then mailed certain body parts to Canadian politicians.  Yes, I can really pick them!  He eventually got arrested and I learned how to use Facebook’s block function.  This really made me reconsider who I will accept as friends on Facebook, if I ever again get my friend list below 5000.  There really are some sick fucks out there and I made it abundantly clear on many occasions that, NO, I don’t want to be friends with people whose profile picks are their genitals or people who use Facebook as their personal sex hookup site.  I don’t want to friend your cock!

This year I also had a minor procedure done, you know the kind that delays the effects of time and ageing.  Sometimes Botox and the oils of delay aren’t enough and you need a little extra help.  This is when I learned that sometimes Beauty Equals Pain.  This year I also had an iBreakup.  I finally mustered up the courage to dump BlackBerry and switched to iPhone for good.  This breakup was long overdue and I know BlackBerry must be upset, but hey, life is a bitch and sometimes you have to put your big girl panties on and deal with it!

As for travel, this was a great year for that.  No disasters, no being harassed by customs officials and no diversions to godforsaken airports due to “weather problems'.  This year hubby and I went to New York City and this was most definitely one of the highlights of my year.  I loved the Big Apple and we took one hell of a big bite out of the city we instantly fell in love with.  Sure my public toilet phobia did harass me once again, but hey, even I can sometimes will the power to temporarily overcome certain of my eccentricities!  Another highlight this year was the opportunity to be only a few feet away from one of my idols – Lady Gaga!  A group of us attended The Born this Way Ball; this was the first time Lady Gaga toured South Africa and Johannesburg couldn’t get enough of her.  This was one of the most exciting days I had in 2012!  I love that bitch!

Two blog posts that I am particularly proud of this year is one of my pet projects:  Through the years I have been collecting old pictures of Gay and Lesbian couples spanning over 100 years.  100 Years of Gay Couples and 100 Years of Lesbian Couples are particularly dear to my heart as they show that we have really been around forever, even before it became “popular”.  We sure have come a long way with LGBTI rights over the last 100 years, but we have a long way to go still.  There still are some bigoted homophobes out there.  This year I lost my shit with one such homophobe named Pastor Oscar Peter Bougardt and I ended up successfully reporting him to the South African Human Rights Commission for hate speech.  Presently, they are still investigating the matter.  Then there were also the Light of the Nations Church and their stupid billboard which we managed to get removed.  Small victories, you might say, but it is with these small victories that the battle will be won.

No year and no life would be complete without pets.  Yes, President Jacob Zuma said having and caring for pets is “un-African” but I say fuck that!  I love My Cat from Hell and hubby and I do have what some could classify as being a zoo.  This year our furry family became even furrier with the addition of two bunnies who likes to pee on you and a tortoise.  Currently, we are one gay donkey away from having to move to a farm.  Unfortunately, this year also brought a tragedy with an accident that killed Alexi.  It was a sad and traumatic day but we made it through it. Rest in Peace Alexi!

Yes, 2012 was a rather shitty year but on the bright side, at least we survived another Apocalypse! 2012 taught me that even though life sometimes throws challenges our way we can all overcome these and the manner in which we overcome these challenges builds character, shows integrity and makes one stronger.  Sure this year was rather tough but my saving grace this year was my sense of humor and my ability to sometimes not take life too seriously and to take a moment to laugh at myself.  After all without laughter life would be oh so dreary and I prefer to stay on the delightful side of life, if I can.  So cheers to 2012.  You have been one motherfucking bitch who kicked me in the balls three times this year, but hey I love myself some bitchiness sometimes.  Let’s hope 2013 is better.  Happy New Year Bitches!

Till next time.

A Week in New York & Jet Lag

Our week in New York was everything I expected and more.  Now being back at work and feeling extremely jet lagged, it seems strange to think that just a couple of days ago I was still in the Big Apple.  Being jet lagged isn’t any fun and it makes you stupid.  It feels like you are hours behind everybody and everything and you experience uncontrollable bouts of drowsiness and energetic rushes at the most inconvenient times:  Falling asleep at your desk at 11am and being wide awake and ready to climb Mount Everest at 2am.  My body’s clocked is fucked, but they say it will reset itself and things will go back normal in a day or two.  In the mean time everybody just have to deal with me somewhat incoherent and sleepy the whole time.  But I digress; let me tell you about our week in New York City.

It should not come as much of a shock to learn that a certain airline didn’t upgrade hubby and I to business class.  We had to fly cattle class and it was awful!  Imagine spending 23 hours in a plane, cramped in like sardines with what sounded like a 100 babies screaming at the top of their lungs none stop.  This happened on both our departing flights as well as our return flights.  I have come to learn that I hate babies, especially on planes.  Luckily I was armed with sleeping pills and my iPod and if I didn’t have this combo you were sure to have read about a certain passenger who tried to open the plane doors at 35 000 feet threatening to throw babies out of the cabin.  It was that bad!  On our flight to JFK I also learned a valuable lesson the hard way – never fly with boots because your feet will swell up and you will have one hell of a hard time putting your boots back on again.  Needless to say when I arrived at JFK I could hardly walk.  I was in pain and my ankles looked like those of an 8 month pregnant woman who was retaining water.

Waddling my way through customs must have looked very funny as I was walking like a disabled person.  We stood in line for just under an hour and for the first time in my history I did not experience any problems.  Hubby and I were processed and welcomed to America.  No interrogations, no searching our luggage, no strip search (I was kind of disappointed about the strip search part though seeing as the one security guy was rather hot).  We made our way to the taxi and we were whisked off to our hotel in midtown Manhattan.  We stayed in the Yotel on the 24^th floor and had the most amazing view of downtown Manhattan.  The only disappointing thing about the hotel was the fact that it was a “non smoking hotel” (yes, I am smoking again) and they have a $245 fine if you were caught smoking in your room.  So I was creative.

I did smoke in our room, practically hanging out of our little window that could open and I went through two air fresheners in one week.  I did not get fined and I sure hope that no one of the Yotel’s staff actually read my blog.  On our first day in New York we decided to do the open hop-on-hop-off bus tour mainly because my feet were still throbbing and secondly because we wanted to get our bearings and find out where everything were and how far certain places were from our hotel.  We managed to see midtown and downtown Manhattan and we also saw a large part of Brooklyn on the first day.  It was fabulous!

The first thing that I noticed was that New York is loud.  Everything makes a noise and it doesn’t stop.  The noise level practically stays the same 24/7.  The second thing I noticed was that New Yorkers are some of the friendliest people I have ever come across.  Sure most New Yorkers mostly keep to themselves walking down the street with their iPods firmly lodged in their ears, a cup of Starbucks coffee in the one hand and checking their messages on their phones in the other.  All New Yorkers clearly have places to be and everyone is constantly in a rush, but if you look confused or lost New Yorkers will take the time to stop and ask you if they can help.  In South Africa that will never happen.  The only people who will stop and take an interest in you are the ones who will most probably rob you.  Which brings me to crime in NYC.

There wasn’t any time during our stay in New York that I felt unsafe.  Not taking the subway or walking the streets at night.  The NYPD are everywhere and if you don’t do anything stupid chances are nothing bad will happen to you in NYC.  The one thing that I did notice was that there are a lot of homeless people in Manhattan, people from all ages, from the druggies to the mentally ill.  The funniest homeless woman I saw was at Battery Park.  She was your stereotypical bag lady and clearly was suffering from mental illness.  She was screaming at puddles of water on the ground and at one point she collected these puddles in Starbucks cups screaming at them “I will deal with you later!”  I didn’t know what the water puddles ever did to her but clearly she had issues with them and I didn’t want to get involved.

There is a reason there are so few obese people in Manhattan.  You walk a lot in New York and you walk long distances.  This is why we quickly learned to use the subway.  It’s cheap and convenient once you have figured out how to use it.  On the first day of venturing underground we were struggling to buy our metro cards.  The machine kept on saying “NO” much to our frustration.  The fact that it is hot as hell down there also didn’t help much either.  Eventually a homeless man came to our assistance and it freaked me out.  I almost broke my Botox!  We got our metro cards and the guy left by saying “Have a nice day now” and he didn’t even ask for money.  It felt quite surreal!  I did see a really fat lady on the subway the one day though.  She was too fat to use the turnstiles and she had to use the emergency exit which sounds a rather loud alarm if you open it.  I recall hubby turning to me and saying “Shame, it must be horrible to be reminded everyday by an alarm that you have a weight problem” as we watched her struggling to climb the stairs.

Some of the highlights of our trip to NYC must be Central Park which looks amazing in autumn, watching Mamma Mia on Broadway which was awesome, seeing Picasso’s Black & White exhibition in the Guggenheim and generally just walking around in New York and experiencing the city as it rushes by you, rumbles underneath you and brushes past you on the sidewalks.  We took a couple of cab rides as well and contrary to what I heard taxis aren’t that expensive in New York.  However, I would not recommend using it as your primary form of transportation but every now and again it is convenient.  Owning a car in New York is also way too expensive as your parking fees per month could easily cost you the same, if not more, as your rent as parking spaces is a problem in the city.

We also saw a lot of people walking their dogs.  Some dogs having been quite large and it begged the question, how do you keep a Labrador in a New York City apartment, but clearly many people do.  The nastiest thing about being a dog owner in New York is that you have to pick up your dog’s poop with a plastic bag.  I gagged twice when I saw people do this and it made me really grateful that I am a cat person.  I cannot imagine having to kneel down and pick up dog shit and then having to walk a couple of meters with that in my hand to deposit it into a dustbin.  It’s gross, but I guess if you love your dog and you live in New York, that’s what you have to do.  New York is also one of the cleanest cities I have been to.  You won’t find the street littered with trash and there are very few, if any, cigarette butts on the street.  Every now-and-again you will catch and odd smell coming from vents in the street but mostly you will smell the food of the street vendors.  I ate two Halal hot dogs from said street vendors and they were scrumptious.

The weirdest thing we saw in New York was a prostitute (or at least we think she was one) a few blocks from Times Square.  It was just before 9am and she was wearing a very tight fitting red dress that accentuated all her fat rolls of which she had many.  Her plunging cleavage also revealed her aversion for brassieres and she was talking to a man who clearly though her eyes were down at her sagging tits.  This was not the normal morning attire of your round of the mil New Yorker and she looked like a two dollar whore.  We could not help but stare at her whorishness.  I wanted to take a picture of her because I knew nobody back at home would believe me if I told them this story, but I didn’t.  I didn’t know where her pimp was at.

Our time in New York City was fantastic and I desperately want to go back some day.  In the time we had we managed to get around to seeing everything we had planned.  But there are so much more in New York that I want to experience and see and one week clearly is not enough time to do that.  So hubby and I will have to save up money and plan another trip to New York.  It’s easy to fall in love with a city and I did with New York.  We took a big bite out of New York City and New York City took a big bite out of us and we loved every minute of it!

Till next time.

*This blog post was written while experiencing extreme jet lag.  Apologies for any incoherence, my biological clock is fucked.

Jealous Much?

In a week’s time hubby and I will be leaving on a jet plane bound for New York City *Jumping with joy*.  And this trip could not have come at a better time.  Of late, walking into my office feels like walking into an Alfred Hitchcock movie and I am not always quite sure what the plot is or if I will make it out alive.  I am tired, stressed the fuck out and I am in some serious need of a change of scenery and where better to go than the Big Apple.  Seeing as we will only be there for a week, we needed to do some serious planning about what we wanted to do and what we wanted to see within the confines of the limited time we have to do it in.  So after much deliberation this is what hubby and I have agreed on.

We have booked our flights on Etihad Airways and being the opportunistic little shit that I am, I took the liberty to write to them and politely asked if they would be so kind as to upgrade our economy class tickets to business class for free.  Needless to say I have not heard back from them.  So I will take that as them saying to me “ROFL! Nice try, but NO!”  The flights promise to be grueling.  We depart from Johannesburg to Abu Dhabi on an eight hour flight.  Then there is a three hour layover before we get onto a fourteen hour flight to New York.  The return flights are not much better.  It pretty much is the same thing but to make matters slightly more uncomfortable, we only land back in Johannesburg at the ungodly hour of 04:25am.  Flying business class would have made the flights a little more comfortable, but not being millionaires we are stuck in cattle class. Fuck!

As for NYC from all the hotels we could choose from we decided to stay at the Yotel (NO, this is not a typo, it really is the hotel name).  We choose this hotel for three reasons: 1) The hotel has the quirky meets modern combination that I like and has free WiFi (which is essential for me) 2) The hotel is centrally located (practically on Time Square) and walking distance away from some of the places we want to go to and 3) It has a fucking fabulous terrace and they serve cocktails with brunch!  Seeing as we will be on a tighter schedule than Lady Gaga while on tour, I do suspect that we will not spend a whole lot of time in the hotel apart from sleeping there and drinking all those fantastic cocktails at brunch or happy hour.  But at least we know what to expect from the hotel and they are somewhat affordable.  So what do we plan to do while in NYC?

Like I said before we plan our trips with military precision (we are synchronizing our watches to NYC time as I type this).  If anything, hubby and I are pedantic bitches when it comes to itineraries and we had a good few heated discussion when we were busy deciding which touristy things we were going to do (FYI: a democratic voting system does NOT work when there are only two people involved in the voting process).  So after a few books and maps got hurled across the room in a dramatic drama queen fashion, we eventually came to a mutually agreeable itinerary that’s broken down into days and hours.  Don’t worry, I will not bore you with the fine print, I will just give you a general idea as to what we got planned for our own general safety.  You never know who is going to read this and I don’t want to get kidnapped by a stalker in New York never to be seen or heard off ever again.

One of the places I absolutely have to visit is The World Trade Centre and the National September 11 Memorial Museum.  I am not quite sure if the museum is open for the public yet though.  I lost a friend in the South Tower on 9/11 and I do feel a strong urge to go and pay my respects to her.  We also decided to go to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty.  We will not actually go to her as that will waste too many hours.  Besides I have been inside a woman once and I didn’t like it, so I have no urge to go inside Miss Liberty even if people are now allowed to do so again.  Seeing as we will be close to the financial district we will also go to Wall Street, if only to stare at all those folks who are “Occupying Wall Street”.  That should make for an interesting photo opportunity and I really do hope they are still there protesting while we are there.

Another important item on our list of things to do is going and spending half the day at the Guggenheim Museum.  They will be exhibiting Rineke Dijkstra’s “A Retrospective”, Kandinsky 1911-1913 and the Thannhauser Collection.  Naturally there are also a number of other art pieces that I want to see and I am really looking forward to it.  You also cannot go to New York and not see a Broadway show.  After some deliberation we settled on watching Mamma Mia.  It was really hard to choose which show to watch but, in the end, we chose the gayest one!  Who wants to see “Spiderman the Musical” anyway?  It just sounds stupid and like some performer is bound to get hurt.  Oh wait, that actually really happened.  Off Broadway also seemed like a good option but we won’t have time.

Being married to a Fashion Designer (a creative god and bat shit crazy genius at times) he insisted that we also work Parson: The New School for Design and Mood Designer Fabrics into our itinerary.  We both love Project Runway and this is our equivalent of the Sex and the City tour.  Also on the list is the Empire State Building.  I am terrified of heights so it should be interesting being on the 86^th Floor’s Observation Deck – I might throw up, so be warned people!  At least I know we will find the building really easily – we just have to look up, apparently you can’t miss it.  We will also be spending some time in Central Park, it’s really big and we have to work in a romantic horse carriage ride.  I know Peta and some New Yorkers have an issue with how the horses are treated and that it’s not ethical.  But hey, I don’t know when we will be in New York again, and this is on our must do “to do list”, so sorry.

Buildings and attractions are not the only touristy things that we plan on doing, we also want to go to certain well know neighborhoods and different New York Boroughs.  These include the now trendy Hell’s Kitchen, the Meat Packing District, Soho, Little Italy and China Town.  There is also plenty to do and see in Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx but I fear that we may only get to see Manhattan due to our time constraints.  I guess this is a pretty good and convincing excuse as to why we will need to visit New York again.

Yep, in a week’s time we will be in New York City and as you can see we are going to be fucking busy.  My iPad is uploaded with everything we need to make every second of our trip count:  Subway guides, Foodspotting for when we get hungry, The Essential New York Tourist Guide and plenty more.  I can’t remember the last time I was this excited for a trip and when last I had so many people green with envy.  New York here we come.  Hope you are ready for us bitches!

Till next time.

My Bucket List

In less than 25 days hubby and I will be leaving on a jet plane for New York City.  I am so excited I can barely contain myself.  NYC is one of the places on my bucket list that I want to see and experience before I die.  Taking into consideration that we will only be in NYC for one week and with a gazillion things that we want to do, I suspect there will be a lot of caffeine consumed during that time and very little to no sleep to be had.  I have downloaded several apps on my iPad especially for this trip ranging from where to eat to an app that helps you navigate the subway and other public transportation systems.  I am not going to get lost in NYC and waste valuable time in a confused panic.  This bitch is prepared for everything and I plan on squeezing every last drop of fun out of this experience even if it theoretically kills me.

Like most folks I know, I also have a bucket list and luckily for me there remain a lot of things on that list that I want to do.  I guess it is like my secret insurance policy that I have that keeps me from dying young.  As long as the list exists, the longer I have to remain on this earth burdening you all with my mind meanderings.  I have done many things on my bucket list thus far, some out of choice and others not so much.  I have been to Egypt, Madagascar, Kenya and Luxembourg.  I have ridden Arabian horses next to the pyramids, dived with wild sea turtles, met Nelson Mandela, been on the news and even jumped out of an airplane in the dead of night screaming like a ten year old girl while I received training at the Army. Yes, contrary to popular believe I am butch like that.

Some things I have done that were on my bucket list, I can’t divulge on my blog seeing as family members and certain colleagues read it therefore it shall remain a secret.  However, I can admit that I have also had sex on the beach once locally and twice internationally.  I have been mauled by a tiger, I have played with lion cups, even handled an adult female leopard, fed giraffes and played with baby elephants.  Most things that I have achieved on my bucket list brings a smile to my face, but then there are some things on my bucket list that I did not volunteer for and that I do not recall putting on it.

Life is always full of surprises and in my case life sometimes have a warped sense of humor, like that one time that I accidentally got high on liquid E.  You see, hubby and I got invited to go and watch a drag show in Johannesburg.  We were still in our twenties and it was a week night, but being young and irresponsible we went.  Halfway through the show somebody bought us shooters and without thinking twice we downed it.  It wasn’t long before I noticed a very weird sensation pulsating through my body.  It felt like my nerve endings were tingling and I was getting Goosebumps.

After the show ended we decided to stay and dance and for some queer reason I felt like I loved the whole world and the whole world loved me.  I was euphoric and in a hugging mood.  We were having a gay old time until 2am the next morning.  We were higher than Charlie Sheen in a Vegas hotel room and we didn’t even know it.  Not even my quavering jaw or the grinding of my teeth alerted me that something was wrong.  I was blissfully unaware that I was in fact tripping on E.  It wasn’t until the drive home that hubby and I realized something was amiss.  Arriving home at 3am and having to get up for work at 6am, still tripping our faces off wasn’t any fun.  Needless to say we have never since accepted shooters from anyone at a bar, nightclub or restaurant ever again.

And then there was that time that I got crabs.  It was before I met my husband and I was going through what you can call a “promiscuous phase”.  I had just broken off a two year relationship and was making up for lost time.  I vividly remember the evening I discovered that I had crabs.  I was sitting on my bed and I was itching in the crotch area.  I didn’t think much of it until I scratch and then felt something that shouldn’t be there.  I took off my pants, picked this little thing up between my fingers and on closer inspection I saw it had feet and it was alive.  Horrified, I searched my private area and discovered more.  I was utterly shocked and distraught!  “WHAT THE FUCK?!” I remember screaming.  “There are things living on my balls!!!”  Not knowing what to do, I phoned my friend.  Crying I tried to explain to him the calamity I found in my pants “I think I might have crabs” to which he responded “You either have crabs or you don’t, there’s nothing like I might have, check your balls again!”  So I did.

I had crabs and I needed to go to the doctor.  Being 20, young and naïve I didn’t know that any old lice shampoo could sort me out so I had to embarrass myself even further.  Sitting in the doctor’s office the next day, terribly ashamed of myself, I told him what I had.  He wanted to examine the “affected area” but I rudely refused.  Then he gave me a speech about STD’s and safe sex and then promptly had me tested for every STD known to mankind.  It was a horrifying 5 day wait, but eventually I got called back to his office and told that I had no STD’s but that he hoped that I have learned my lesson.  Since then every time my crotch area itches it reminds me that I once had a hundred unwelcome house guests attached to my balls and that I never wanted them to visit me ever again.

Not all things I have on my bucket list are always necessarily fun.  Sometimes you have to experience certain unpleasant things and that is called the Bucket List Life has for you.  Still on my personal bucket list is that I want to tour France, visit a non homophobic Russia, swim with wild dolphins, have my travel ban to Uganda uplifted, win the lottery and many more.  But for now we are going to NYC, the city that never sleeps and I plan on painting the town pink.  One week of unadulterated tourist fun is in my immediate future and I am ecstatic.  I am sure when we are back that jetlag is going to be a bitch, but I don’t care – at least we have seen the Big Apple. NYC checked!

Till next time.

New York City

It’s official.  The end of September hubby and I will be leaving on a jet plane bound for New York City.  I am more excited about this trip than a six year old child on Christmas morning.  I can almost loose bladder control – I am that thrilled!  The only part of the trip I am not looking forward too is spending 8 hours in economy class, then a 3 hour layover in Abu Dhabi and then another 13 hours again in Economy class until we finally touchdown at JFK in New York.  I have wanted to visit New York for a very long time and now it is finally going to happen.  The only thing that currently stands between me and New York is the Visa application.

As some of my regular readers know I have travelled for work and for pleasure to some interesting countries in the past.  Hubby and I have been to Egypt and Madagascar twice respectively, I have been to Kenya three times and a while back I travelled to Luxembourg for a meeting.  Some of these countries required visas with some visa applications being more labor intensive than others.  The procedure normally is simple.  You complete the plethora of forms; attach the supplementary documents, photos and your passport, all of which normally would take you less than an hour to complete.  You drop your application off, pay the fee and wait between 3 to 5 days and you are done.  So when I needed to apply for the US visa I assumed to process would be similar, but I was wrong.

You can apply for your US visa online and as such one would assume that the process is fast and simple, but it really isn’t.  You complete the DS-160 Nonimmigrant Visa Application online and it takes just over an hour (86 minutes to be exact).  The reason it takes so freaking long is because there are so many questions one need to answer.  Some questions are quite relevant but others are pretty odd.  While completing the forms, at one stage, I got so confused that I had to phone a friend.  I was searching a good twenty one minutes for a number in my passport that did not exist.  It was frustrating and nearly drove me nuts.  To add further pressure and frustration, if you take more than 20 minutes before answering a question (while for example you are searching for a fictitious number in your passport) and you did not write down your application ID number you have to start the whole process afresh.  I can guarantee you that you will only make this mistake once.

After completing your personal details, travel plans, education and work experience you get to the security related questions.  It is here were it gets a little bizarre.  “Are you planning on engaging in prostitution or have you in the last 10 years engaged in prostitution?  Are you the child of human traffickers?  Have you ever received any specialized training in weapons, chemical weapons or nuclear weapons?  Have you ever been involved in any Nazi activities?  Have you ever been involved in overthrowing a government or plotting to do so?  Are you a terrorist?  Are you associated with a terrorist group?  Do you fund terrorists?” These are just some of the questions that had me scratching my head.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand and have a full appreciation for why some of these questions are being asked.  The US is currently still involved in a war and after 9/11 the world has never been the same.  But with that said if a terrorist, a spy, human trafficker or former Nazi complete the visa application form what are the chances that they will answer yes to any of these questions?  It is not like human traffickers wear t-shirts that reads “I can sell your daughter, ask me how?” or drug traffickers will pitch up at the consulate with a t-shirt that reads “I can carry 22 condom wrapped heroin bullets in my intestines, can you?”

Sure some people at whom these questions are directed will lie when completing these forms and it is for this reason, I suppose, the US consulate schedule the personal interviews.  After you completed what feels like a thousand questions you submit your application and print out your application page with a barcode on it.  Then you are directed to another website and a good hour later you have paid for your visa (which is non-refundable of course) and have scheduled your personal interview.  Our interviews have been scheduled for July 13 at 8am.  I hope that this is not a bad omen.  It is Friday the 13^th and it is early and I am not a morning person.  I hope I will be more articulate and dazzling than what I expect I will be after having had to get up at 5:30am in order to drag my tired gay ass all the way to the US consulate in Johannesburg in peak hour traffic.

Look, I don’t see any good reason why our visa applications could be denied.  As far as I know we are not on any terror watch lists, don’t know how to assemble a nuclear weapon or are involved in drug smuggling or human trafficking.  And the only countries that I know off which definitely would deny me entry are Uganda and Zimbabwe only because I am gay and they despise my blog.  So in the mean time while we wait for our personal interviews hubby and I are busy researching and planning what we want to do while in New York.  There are so many places we want to visit, Broadway shows we want to watch and famous landmarks we want to see that for the short time we are going to be there I suspect we will not be getting a lot of sleep.

With me being a tad OCD and hubby being a typical Virgo and meticulous planner I know that we will have one hell of a detailed and tight itinerary.  Every second from the moment we land to the moment we leave will be accounted for with a comprehensive multimedia schedule uploaded to my iPad paired with a New York City app.  I am so looking forward to it.  I can barely contain myself.  Punch me in the gut and call me Betty.  We are going to New York!

Till next time.

The Gay Panic Defense

Recently I read an article about the “Gay Panic” defense.  It is a defense tactic offenders of anti-gay violence use to try and circumvent getting their asses thrown in jail.  In the “Gay Panic” defense the defended claim to have been the object of homosexual romantic or sexual advances and found these advances so offensive and frightening that it brought on a psychotic state characterized by extreme and unusual violence.  In other words they committed a hate crime in self-defense because they feared being butt fucked by a penis or scissor’ed by a vagina.  It’s a pathetic pretext, if you ask me, and does nothing but distracts from and trivializes the real issue of “Gay Panic” affecting the homosexual community which is far more prevalent and traumatic than what you are led to believe.

“Gay Panic” in the homosexual community is not something we talk about.  To be honest, it is one of those taboos like porn before genital grooming became popular and the darkrooms at certain gay bars.  We all know it exists, we have all seen one, experiences one and none of us are willing to publically admit it.

But if you have ever seen a gay man trying to fit into a pair pants a size too small, realize the new designer couch he just bought is in fact too large for the lounge, been the tragic victim of a dye job gone wrong, or saw the coach of a lesbian softball team watching her them loose, you will know exactly what “Gay Panic” is and what it looks like.  It isn’t pretty.  It isn’t fun and it isn’t an excuse to commit a crime.  Or is it?

Just the other day I suffered from gay panic.  I was driving home from work and decided to stop at the shop to buy some essential items for that evening’s dinner.  As I drove into the parking area I noticed a guy parking in one of the disabled parking spots.  I thought nothing of it, until the man climbed out of his car that is.  The man wasn’t disabled.  He didn’t even have as much as a limp and it pissed me off.

So I did what any self-respecting homosexual would do.  I walked up to him and shouted “Praise Jesus!  Praise the LORD! It’s a miracle!” To which he responded by telling me to go and fuck myself.  Ok, so I didn’t suffer so much from gay panic as I did from gay anger but in circumstances like these they are closely related.  I wanted to key the asshole’s car but I didn’t.  But if I had and got caught I would have used the Gay Panic Defense.

Gay panic can strike at any time and at any place.  It’s especially bad when I take public transport and flying in economy class.  When I am on a plane I like to be left alone and that is why I always insist on either getting the window seat or the window seat.  By doing so I can turn away from the person sitting next to me and pretend they are not there.  If I remembered to charge my iPod it further helps me to exude that antisocial “if you touch me or talk to me you will die” vibe.  But unfortunately there are some people who are immune to this and in one out of every three flights I take, they end up sitting next to me.

A couple of weeks ago on my flight to Cape Town one such immune person ended up on my flight.  She was a recently widowed retired high school teacher, misses her kids who now live in the United States and to fight loneliness she travels and makes friends on planes and at airports.  She had an uncanny fondness for orthopedic shoes, a dog that is a diabetic, is allergic to onions and is a Sagittarius.

When she boarded the flight she was like a little loud tornado which headed straight for me.  I remember praying that she would not to occupy seat 19B.  As she got closer and louder I could feel the gay panic swell up inside of me.  To my horror she was to sit iseat 19B, I checked her boarding pass.  Her ass had not even touched the seat yet before she started asking me questions.

“Sweet heart, can you please ring my phone?  I think I lost it” she asked while rummaging through her handbag which could carry two dead backstreet boys and a medium sized dog through customs without any problem.  “It’s not ringing, it goes to voicemail” I mumbled.  “Oh sweat child, you can call me M’am.  I must have left it at the check-in counter” she said in her annoying old school teacher authoritative voice.  Realizing that there was a real possibility that she might never see her phone again (it was Johannesburg after all) she made a beeline for the cabin crew, consequently delaying our flight with 15 minutes.

As it turns out she did leave her phone at check-in and she spend the remainder of the flight talking to me only pausing briefly to breath.  I wanted to die!  Had I lost it and strangled her with her lilac scarf and got arrested, I would have used the Gay Panic Defense and also blamed the altitude and poorly controlled cabin pressure.  However, I did kill her (a couple of times) in my head and worked out a new ingenious method for in-flight murder involving a seatbelt, the food tray and two barth bags.

 

Sometimes episodes of gay panic can also be predicted.  You see this coming Saturday there is a high probability that I will experience a gay panic of sorts.  You see it is my godson’s baptism and it will be happing in a Catholic Church.  We all know how much I adore the Catholic Church and how much the Vatican loves me.  Holy Sea, Vatican City still pops by my blog every now-and-again and I am surprised that they have not issued an arrest warrant for me yet or at the very least banned me from all their premises.

With the countdown to Saturday, I suspect that I will either be truck by lightening, be kidnapped and tortured by the Corpo della Gendarmeria dello Stato della Citta del Vaticano or worse.  But hey, the day is not about me and even Pope Benedict XVI will concede that making a scene would be in bad taste and not very Christian like.  So in nomine Patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti I shall keep my mouth shut, head down and hide my gay panic as best I can.  All the while keeping an eye out for and staying clear off cars with tinted windows and men in dark blue uniforms.

Yes people, gay panic is a real problem.  We all suffer from it from time-to-time for various reasons.  It can strike without warning on a plane in cattle class, in a parking area at your local mall, in your living room, at your hairdresser’s, next to the sport field and even in Church.  Currently there is no cure for gay panic and it has not been tested in any court of law as a viable defense, but is does exist.  Ask your doctor about Gay Panic today, even though it cannot be cured I am sure it can be treated.

Till next time.

Public Toilets & the Diseases You Can Catch

It is no secret that I detest public toilets.  They are nothing but Germ Incubators used by people with questionable personal hygiene.  I say this because you do not know what a stranger’s hand washing habits are like, whether they are wearing clean underwear and fresh socks or where their hands and butt cheeks have been.  Until proven otherwise it is always wise to assume the absolute worst and wipe every surface that is to touch your skin with antibacterial wipes.  Sure this might sound excessive to you but I promise after you have read what I am about to share, you will view Germ Incubators with the same disgust as I do.

I squirm at the thought of creepy germs that lurk on toilet seats, faucet handles and door handles in public toilets.  For this reason I spent as little time in them as possible.  And during those nerve-wracking moments when I am forced by my bodily functions to venture into one, I usually find myself opening the stall door with my elbow, crouching precariously above the toilet seat while avoiding touching anything and flush with it my shoe.  Sure this might sound a tad neurotic, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Research have found that the average public toilet could harbor E Coli and the Shigella bacteria, Hepatitis A, the common cold virus and various sexually transmitted organism like Crabs, Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.  To make matters worse, the average person touch their face between two to three thousand times a day and it is possible that you will touch your face in the toilet before you even get a chance to wash your hands, thereby contaminating your face with bacteria, viruses or STD organisms!  That’s right.  You can innocently stroll into the public loo to number two and leave with crabs or the bird flu or BOTH!

Just the other day at my office my bowels needed to move.  Normally my very personal bodily functions are on a strict routine and timed in such a way that I never have to sit on any foreign toilet seat.  But this day my timing was off.  Whether it was due to the Chinese food I had the night before or whether the universe decided my life was too boring and needed some spicing up, I do not know.  Being the public toilet phobe that I am, I ignored it.  You see I function better under pressure and if it wasn’t “I am about to shit my pants” time, I saw no need to expose myself Cholera or the Ebola virus.

An hour passed.  Then it happened and my body gave me the signal that it was time.  So I made my way to our floor’s men’s room.  It should be noted that my department share our floor with the IT department and they have some very nasty fast food eating habits and their eating habits translates into a lot of bad smells and confused and angry stomachs.  In light of this, combined with my Germ and Bubonic Plague Phobia, I approached the restroom hesitantly and with utter dread.

After opening the door with my elbow I was horrified to find that I was not the only one in there.  The stall next to the one I was about to use was occupied.  Another thing you should know about me is that I can’t pee if someone is watching me and I can’t poop if I am not alone.  But my body didn’t care, I needed to expel some waste and I needed to do it now.  After wiping the toilet seat down with antibacterial wipes I sat down and tried as best I could to go quietly.

Half way through my bowel movement I heard the person next to me finishing up.  He opened his stall’s door, flushed the toilet and left without washing his hands.  He just had a shit, wiped his ass and didn’t wash his hands!  While breathing in his feces air particles that were released when he flushed his toilet, I sat there hyperventilating and freaking the fuck out!

“It’s 11:30am and there is a person on my floor touching stuff, touching stuff I touch with feces on his hands!  I am going to have his feces on my hands!  Motherfucker!” I thought with utter dismay.  Who does that?  Who goes to the toilet, takes a dump and then leaves without even washing their hands?  Are people who do things like this raised by fucking homeless people?  If a person does this at work, what the hell goes on in their homes?  The more I thought about it the more disturbed I got.  Till this day I still don’t know who it was but I do have my suspicions.  But this is not the worst of it.

Not washing your hands is one thing but shedding your pubic hair is a whole different story.  You see not only do we have a non-hand-washer and feces spreader to deal with at our office, we also have a guy who sheds his ball hair.  I have found pubes on the toilet seat, the urinal and the basin.  It evokes a similar reaction in me as that time I found dry cum stains on a certain hotel room’s wall.  It’s disgusting.  It should not be there.  It makes me feel violated.  It is just plain wrong.

What if this jungle bush pube shedder catches the crabs or the syphilis?  Are we going to get it to?  Does he even know he is shedding worse than my five cats combined?  Going to the restroom and finding his pubes is upsetting and always serve as just another reminder that I am sharing that space with other people.  People who I don’t always know.  People with questionable personal hygiene.  The same as with the feces hands guy, I do not know who pubes guys is, but with him I too have my suspicions.

Going into a public toilet is like playing Russian roulette at the CDC’s most secure virus vault.  Every time you go in there you run the risk of contaminating yourself with other people’s germ, catching a super virus or helping a new virus mutate.  The worst must be restrooms at airports especially in Muslim countries.  I remember my experience at Cairo’s International Airport vividly.  The floor was wet, stuff was floating around my feet and it smelled like shit.  That’s exactly why I now won’t eat anything strange or spicy before a long trip and why contracting food poisoning by eating crab cakes from a buffet before an international flight never ends well.

Yes, public toilets are perilous places with a gauntlet of viruses, bacteria and fatal diseases you must successfully navigate and avoid.  Sure, public toilets are needed and we sometimes have no choice but to use them but when we do we must try and be safe.  Remember just because you have excellent personal hygiene doesn’t mean the gazillion other people who have been there before you do too.  There are some pretty disgusting people out there and chances are they used the loo before you.

Till next time.