Tandem Post: That nagging feeling…

And we’re back – just three bloggerists this time, but two amazing story-tellers joining me for another season of Tandem Blog posting. Join myself, Megan and Dave as we take the same title and give it our own personal and unique flavour…

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

THAT NAGGING FEELING

‘Gently does it. Keep your speed average. Not too fast. Not too slow. We don’t want anyone suspecting anything out of the ordinary.’ Nick was talking to himself in his inside head voice again.

But everything was out of the ordinary. Nick Jenkins had been planning this moment for two years and as he tried to remain calm as he drove down the main road and made a right on to the highway, his mind was in absolute panic mode.

‘You did it. Everything happened absolutely according to plan. You have gone over this a thousand times and today, this day, everything has gone according to plan. Stop worrying. You are only going to cause yourself to make a mistake.’

Nick glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He had synced it with the satellite time and checked it three times today already. 23 minutes. Twenty three minutes until the bomb goes off. More precisely his bomb. The one that he had made. From plans he found on the internet. ON THE INTERNET! That fact still drove him a little mental. That he was able to find a way to craft a bomb in one tab while playing a ‘Words with Friends’ move against his mom on another. He still felt a little embarrassed at making the word ‘COCK’ in a Scrabble game against his mom. But she would know he meant the bird and it had allowed him to put his ‘K’ on a triple letter!

‘Are you sure you kept to the plan? You’re very nervous now and nervous people make mistakes.’ Nick systematically went through the plan in his head as he indicated right and then made to turn off the highway, now just a few streets away from his home, where he would be far enough away to be as shocked and surprised as the general public when the announcement flashed across their tv screens.

It was the perfect bomb. No mistakes there. He had checked and rechecked and made sure that he had kept to the plan. The miniature version he had put together and tested in the local quarry had gone off perfectly and so there was absolutely no reason to assume this more powerful model would be any different.

‘I will show THEM. They will be sorry that they treated me so absolutely disgustingly. As if losing my job was not bad enough, for them to embarrass me so disdainfully in front of the whole office…’ Nick realised this was really extreme, but he reconciled it with the fact that nobody was going to get hurt. He was going to hurt the company. And it was going to cost them a lot of money. More money than if they’d just kept him on and allowed him to try a little harder. He had made absolutely meticulously sure that everyone would be out of the building. Cleaners and everything. The building would be as empty as his impending bank account.

Right turn. Two streets to go until the safety of home. Nick replayed his movements as if watching them on a camera. ‘Gloves on. Security cameras disabled the night before. Each piece of the bomb bought at a different location over a 6 month period so there was no way even two of them could be placed together. Bomb checked and countdown started before leaving his house, giving him plenty of time to make it there, place the bomb and return home just before it goes off.

‘Why is it something doesn’t seem right? Surely i’m just psyching myself out here? I know this. I’ve gone over it and over it until it is so deeply engrained in my mind that there is no way i could…’

Nick turned into his driveway, mind suddenly racing. ‘Wake up. Get dressed. Check bomb. Set bomb.’

With a foreboding feeling now surging through his entire body, Nick is starting to visibly sweat as he grabs the car keys and walks nervously to his car boot.

‘Put bomb in car. Cover bomb. Drive at average speed on practiced back roads route to office so that car would not be seen. Arrive at office.’

As he shakingly tried to turn the key in the boot, the realisation hit him like a waft of hot air completely knocking the breath out of his body. In his hurry to ensure that he was in and out of the office with no one noticing, with no-one in a neighbouring office perhaps remembering that his rust blue mazda had been the last car seen parking on the edge of the car park, he may have forgotten one tiny detail.

 Nick Jenkins finally managed to get the unwieldy key to turn and flipped open his car boot to catch sight of a digital display, attached to a bomb, still sitting in the back of his car, displaying the numbers, ‘7…6…5…’

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

Be sure to check out the other amazing posts with this same title with:

Megan: http://www.meganshead.co.za

Dave: http://bloggsymalone.wordpress.com

The Zombie Cow, the Cactus Milk tattooist and the plants that go “Ni” [well, almost]

Close to 13 years of doing Improv with Megan Furniss and differing amounts of years with the rest of this crazy bunch i usually get to hang with on a Monday evening.

Making stuff up.

And to be absolutely honest, i had been getting a little tired of the same old formula, week in, week out, and so when i was about to leave for a month to go overseas again, in one sense i was looking for a break.

Not that it had always been the same – for the last three years, the players of Improguise have put on the most amazing festival in January, which, despite living overseas at the time, i just happened to be at each time. So i was able to be in a full length documentary, a South African soapie, a full length completely made-musical as well as take part in two other forms of show we have all taken to: Namely Superscene and Stuck in the Middle [which are both a little bit of mayhem]

i had mentioned it to Megan who had been feeling similar and the whole group jumped at the idea and so the last class before i left South Africa we decided to perform a different type of show every week with the traditional ‘Whose Line?’ type show being just one of the many shows]

And then i left the country. With much jealousy. Of the good kind that cheers and celebrates and is excited to hear of the different types of shows happening in my absence including a documentary and a road trip.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Tonite was my first show back.

And we played a Superscene which i describe as Survivor Improv where five directors give the premise for the next scene we will see in their movie and everyone else acts that scene out. Then each director shares what will be coming up next and by way of Clapometer [loudness of audience clap] the audience decides which story they don’t want to continue and the other 4 then play out their next scenes. And so on, until we are left with one final scene which is the Superscene.

And tonite the winner was Carolyn and i was her star lead actor Neville, an Afrikaans young man with a passion for dance and a mother who was against it.

But actually we were ALL winners. From the tiny audience of 12 who braved it out [and all wished they’d brought more friends afterwards] to each of the crazies who acted and corpsed their hearts out on the stage.

Because we really did have zombie cows [who shot guns at people and gave heartfelt speeches] and a Cactus Milk Tattooist who created white tattoos [Zabhira from India who had grown jaded with Indian culture from watching American You Tube videos growing up and moved to America where she won over her father to the lifestyle and Americanised him in a ‘Pretty Woman’ type montage] and of course the plants [poisonous banana types] who while not quite saying “Ni” [semi-obscure-Monty-Python reference] mumbled something like Randy-ni-ni-ni-ni which was close enough. There may have been an edgy and insane Mad Maxesque road chase we never got to see enough of as it was eliminated way before its time. And a cheap and grumpy ghostly ouma who had trouble speaking as all her ‘N’s were switched to ‘M’s.

Thank-you Megan and Carolyn and Ardine and Tandi and Ryan and Ashley and also Hilton for working the lights. And the rest of the crew who could not be there tonight.

You’ve helped make Improv fun again. Because it has once again become unpredictable. This coming Monday we will be performing a Stuck In The Middle [one actor stuck on stage the whole night while the rest of the team create a host of different scenes with that person] with the proceeds going to uThando leNkosi place of safety for children as a part of the Mandela Day 67 minutes celebrations. So let’s pack the house. For a good cause. And for amazing laughs.

Looking very much forward to next week when we get to make it up all over again.

For more information on our times of shows and prices and how to book and organise for us to play at your school, poker club or seniors tea, click here and if you’re on the Twitterer, make sure you add @ImproGuiseSA to follow us around.

And see you next week…

Highlight Moment from my life #93: Spur Waiter

This one will no doubt surprise and shock a few South Africans, but one of the highlights of my life was being a Spur waiter for five years, back when we didn’t know how offensive the logo potentially was:

Chris Pratt’s character is NOT the young boy from Jurassic Park. Or is he?

A bunch of us went to watch Jurassic World last night and it was a lot of fun. i am a HUGE Chris Pratt fan [before it was cool to be] and he totally brought it. Indiana Pratt Jones? Bring it on!

But on the way home it was brought to my attention that there have been rumours on the internet that his character Owen is a grown-up version of the young boy from the original Jurassic Park movie.

So first thing i did when i got home was to jump on the Google-machine and do some research. Cos at first i thought, ‘No way, it isn’t possible.’ But when you put the two pictures next to each other, of the young boy from the original movie and Chris Pratt’s character Owen from World… well, see for yourself…

Wait, the cute little lovable dinosaur grew up to become Chris Pratt’s character Owen, who is cute AND lovable?

Wow, it may not be conclusive, but it is uncanny. Is it possible the director of Jurassic World, Colin Trevorrow threw in that little teaser as a puzzle for die hard fans of the original movie. Layers upon layers.

What do you think? Is Owen the little guy from the first movie all grown up?

How did you find the movie with the biggest ever opening in the world to date?

And how does a T-Rex cut wood? That’s right. With a dino-saw.

You saw it here first folks…

Highlight Moment from my life #5: Highbury

Dan, Heidi, mini Truter, Heather, Reegs, Ang

In the days before tbV and Settlers of Catan, we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves, and most of those happened at a place called Highbury.

5 Ways to Help You Realise that you May Just Be a Troll

People can be cruel. Let’s face it. You innocently stumble upon a complete strangers blog, offer a genuinely flavoured racist slur and call them a name when they respond a little too defensively, and before you know it they are calling you “a Troll”. Ow, that hurts, people.

But what if it’s true? What if all these years you have been innocently Trolling on the internet and you just didn’t know? Well as a public service to you, i want to share with you Five Signs to Help you Realise that you Just Might be a Troll.

[1] If you live under a bridge, you may be a Troll. And by “live under a bridge” i mean in your mom’s house, and you’re over thirty-five, and your favourite food is take-away. From last night.

[2] If you have a difference of opinion with someone and attack them as a person aggressively in response, you may be a Troll. Someone not thinking the same way as you on an issue does not instantly make them an idiot [they may still be, though] and if your instant reaction is to insult or attack them rather than arguing the point, that is often a sign that your argument/belief is not strong enough to be backed and so you try to distract by moving the attention somewhere else.

[3] If, when someone refuses to share your link promoting the saving of Orangutans, you rant on about how they are a horrible human being, and then befriend their wife on social media and try to convince her that you are an evil, animal-hating neanderthal [this actually happened], you may be a Troll.

Sometimes someone refusing to share the link you want them to promote, might not even mean they actually hate Orangutans. Or any other animals. Maybe they simply get a hundred requests a day to promote things and they have chosen that your thing is one thing too many. Leave their poor wife alone, lady.

[4] If you choose any labels other than the person’s name you are arguing with to address them as, you may be a Troll. Surprisingly enough, while ‘Dick’ is the acceptable shortened form of the name Richard, it is not, in fact, also the shortened form of the name ‘Brett’, ‘Simon’, ‘Matthew’ or ‘Robert’. If you disagree with someone online and call them names rather than their name, there is a chance that you are it!

[5] When the name, picture or email address you are using does not correspond directly to your name, face, email address, you might just be a Troll. Let’s face it, if you can’t say the thing you want to say as yourself, then the alarm bells are going off. If you are having to create whole new email addresses and reroute them through the former Soviet Republic so that no-one can track down your ip address, you really might want to consider the probability.

Sometimes, you just have to concede, that maybe, just maybe, the dodgy oke or okess, is actually you. i will leave it to David Mitchell of That Mitchell and Webb look to lead you a little further down the path of self-discovery:

Please SHARE this with your people, if you enjoyed it at all [or maybe recognised some of them]

[You may likely appreciate some of these other FUNNY lists as well, click here]

Tandem Post: Tupperware Party

Meet Marci. Marci has a problem.

10.15am

From the moment she recovers from the second round of playing Snooze on her Nokia 6510i, Marci has one sole focus in mind. “Not to be confused with the Nokia 6510!”, she always responds with a slight giggle when people ask her what model she has, and she mouths those soundless words again as she throws on last nights clothes and heads to the bathroom for a 76 stroke brush. Not 77, not 75, just exactly, precisely 76. Per tooth. It’s the way you are meant to do it.

And while her body is putting itself through the meticulous motions of a mid-morning routine, Marci’s mind is working overtime…

“Can’t be Susan, because I asked her last time. Susan doesn’t like it when she thinks I am nagging. Must at least be another three months before I try her again. Janice is a definite. Janice always comes, even if only to hang out with me. Janice is always the first on the list and in fact I have already invited her so why am I even thinking about Janice? Go away! Mr and Mrs Stevens? Or is it Stephens? I know I got it wrong the last time and then I corrected. But now I can’t remember if my correction is in fact correcting the correction and thus returning it to its former wrongful spellingment. Oh wait, it’s the phone, so it doesn’t even matter. I will let them write their own names on the stickers. If. They. Come. They didn’t come last time. Why didn’t they come last time? Oh yes, dog issues. Stupid dog. It’s always that damn… okay, focus Marci. You overslept, the phone won again and this is not going to happen unless you PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. Why are you shouting at me? It’s me you’re talking to. So more technically why am I shouting at me? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your… my…

By this point Marci is finished in the bathroom and she sweeps by the kitchen counter, grabbing a piece of fruit as she plonks herself down on the couch and notices immediately that the ‘piece of fruit’ she so gracefully snatched in her walk by, is, in fact, her purse. My purse? How the… What is wrong with you? Me. That’s not even close. She sighs as she tosses the purse on the floor and dials the first number…

1.15pm

Marci is busy scrolling furiously down her phone’s address book and continues to talk to herself, half out loud, half with her inside quiet head voice, and she is clearly a little bit stressed. It’s tonight. It IS tonight. Tonight is the time when this thing is meant to happen and so I am really grabbing at straws now. Am I grabbing at straws? Maybe they’ll come. Maybe they’ll show up. There were quite a lot of “Maybe” and “I’ll think about it”s. Bleurgh. Bleurgh. BLEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURGGGGGH! Urgh. Stoppit! Pull yourself together. There is still time. You’ve got 4 hours. They will come. If you build it they will come. BUILD IT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? There is not an IT to build? WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING? Why are you shouting about why are you shouting? Seriously Marci, just slow down and think. Think woman! Who else? 

George. But George is a cat and stare at him as she may, she does not offer any form of help whatsoever. “Georgina! It’s Georgina! He’s a she!” she says time and time again every single time someone mistakes her for a him. “But his name is George?” “It’s Georgina, okay? It’s a long stupid name and I have resorted to calling her George and she most definitely is all completely female and please can we just let it go?” Marci snaps to attention. Realises she has been staring at the cat for a full thirty-seven minutes in a complete daze. Only the cat blinked before she did and left more than eleven minutes ago. She is staring at a yellow chair. An ugly yellow plastic chair. Why do I even have that thing in my lounge?” she asks herself, but she is done replying. Panic is leopard-crawling over the horison.

5.15pm

Marci is sitting on the floor of the kitchen building an ugly plastic fort. Her phone is lying, screen down, just under the edge of the fridge, still displaying the message received fifty-five minutes ago from Janice, letting her know that, “Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control – Michael!!!!  I won’t be able to make it tonight.” If you were watching her, and no-one is, you would notice that her body is rocking, ever so slightly. Barely noticeable really, but it’s there. Her lips are moving at a furious pace, mostly naming names, and yet no sound escapes from between them. Intermittently, she peers up at the clock on the microwave, which has been purposefully set five minutes fast, and mumbles something to herself. A dazed look betrays little emotion.

Suddenly there is a knock at the door. Wait, someone is early? That is amazing. No-one is EVER early. This is going to be great. “This. Is. Going to be great.” Marci catches herself saying that a little loud. She jumps to her feet. “I don’t want to seem desperate,” she says, before realising again that that too was out loud. She combs her finger through her hair, does a quick glance into the mirror and walk runs to open the door, which she does with much flamboyance, only to be greeted by…

“Another delivery, Mrs Weare. You know where to sign. Thank-you and all the best for tonight.”

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

This has been the last episode of this current Tandem Blog Post series which mean this time 8 bloggers writing from the same topic. PLEASE take a moment to read the other posts in the series as there are some really talented people creating some absolutely stunning work. And as always, if you read something you enjoy please SHARE it with your people so that more eyes can discover them as well:

Cath: https://cathjenkin.wordpress.com

Scott: http://squidsquirts.blogspot.com

Kerry: http://www.kerrycontrary.com

James: http://www.jamespreston.org

Megan: http://www.meganshead.co.za

Dave: http://bloggsymalone.wordpress.com

Nick: https://medium.com/@nick_frost

[For previous series’ of Tandem Blog Posts, click here]