David Thorne - Lets Eat Grandmas Pills

Copyright David Thorne 2022. All rights reserved.

Lets Eat Grandmas Pills

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, re-produced on the internet or otherwise circulated without the authors prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Activities and vehicle modifications appearing or described in this book may be potentially dangerous.

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For Seb & Holly

Even though theyre dreadful.

Alternate Titles for This Book

Lets Poke Anemones

The Fence Fixing Wanderer

Ill Just Leave It Here, Under the Socks

Everybody Gets Punched

Book 3 of the Knifespawn Trilogy

Wig Money

Do You Have Any Quinoa?

A Bucket of Crabs

Shitholes I Hate and Am Never Going Back To

Slip Slop Slap

Bong Bing Bong Bong

Have I Mentioned My Bathmophobia?

Just Take Deep Breaths, Iris

Its an Hour Longer but Theres No Tolls

Straight Snakes

Introduction

Where did the year go?

People say that even though they know where it went.

Just because you had a blurry year doesnt mean the sequence of events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past through to the present changed in any way. Clocks didnt get faster, you just didnt get out much.

This year did seem particularly blurry though, didnt it? Blurry is good I suppose, it means nothing memorably bad happened. It also means nothing memorably great happened though. The year probably wasnt as blurry for someone who found or lost someone, or won the lottery or went bankrupt, or travelled somewhere nice. Or maybe its an unavoidable part of getting older; everything just gets blurrier until you die.

There were a couple of notable things that happened this year, things that would usually cause me to look back with a nod, but even those seem blurry now.

My offspring, Seb, moved out at some point this year. I cant remember exactly when even though it was a traumatic event for me at the time. I know not everything is about me, but it should be. Seb should have said to his tiny Asian girlfriend, Sorry, I cant move in with you because that would mean dad will have to walk the dogs, mow the lawn, and take the trash out himself.

He still drops in occasionally, mainly just to poo, but never on Thursdays because thats when the trash goes out.

Agency-wise, Melissa, our office manager, had a baby this year. Its head is shaped like a squash and I refer to it as the squash baby. Not when Melissas around obviously. I did refer to it as the squash baby in an email that Mike, our creative director, replied to and CCd everyone on, but when Melissa demanded to know what I meant by it, I told her its an Australian term for a baby you just want to hug so much you might squash it.

Melissa and her husband, Scoutmaster Andrew, named their new human Emily Elizabeth, after their mothers names, and, as their last name is Woodcock, this makes the babys initials E.E.W. or eew. Which is what I said the first time I saw a photo of it. Its not just me either, when Melissa sent us a photo, Mikes first statement was, Whats wrong with its head?

I might actually draw a picture of it so you know what Im talking about...

Okay, not an overly detailed drawing but the shape is spot on. Maybe it wont be quite as noticeable when eew grows hair.

We had a temp in the office while Melissa was on maternity leave, which Melissa wasnt thrilled about. Whenever Melissa asked about her, Id say, Shes pretty much the perfect employee. Everyone likes her a lot.

The temps name was Nadia and she wasnt the perfect employee. She was way too professional to be around people like us. For a while it made us step up, as if we needed to show her that we too were professional, but it was kind of exhausting and didnt last long. She left - after Mike attacked the photocopier with a hedge trimmer - citing unsafe environment as her reason for leaving. Apparently a tiny piece of plastic hit her. Like we didnt all get hit by tiny pieces of plastic.

I also received my first formal complaint at work since Simon left several years ago. Gary, our accounts manager, filed the F26-A containing the single sentence, David said my ears look like caterpillars.

Why would you file a complaint about that unless you knew there was truth to it? It illustrates the fact you cant discuss anything in the workplace without someone being offended these days. In my defense, Garys ears are astonishingly hairy - and I didnt actually say his ears look like caterpillars, I said it looked like he was wearing caterpillar earrings. I may have also stated that his ear hair adds three feet to his width and if he ever gets bored working at the agency, he could find alternative employment at a carwash as one of the brushes. I dont just go around critiquing ear hair for no reason though; we were in a staff meeting and Gary kept asking people to speak up. It's like wearing sunglasses inside and complaining about how dark it is.

Most of the stuff that happened at the agency this year was blurry stuff. I went on a few business trips; Rebecca, our production manager, changed her hairstyle; Mike hurt his foot; Jodie, our senior designer, joined a community theatre group; and two of our designers, Walter and Ashley, moved in together.

Also, Ben, our copywriter, has a new girlfriend. They met on a dating site for people with autism. Ben doesnt have autism, but, in his words, Its easy to fake, you just have to complain a lot and pretend to like ducks.

I should probably add that Kate, our HR manager, was a contestant on the local version of Dancing With the Stars this year. Shes not a star, by any stretch of the imagination, but that didnt matter because nobody was. I dont even know why they called it Dancing with the Stars, it should have been called, Dancing With People Youve Never Heard Of . The biggest star was a lady that owns a bakery.

I originally had no intention of attending, but Kate told Holly about it and Holly bought a sparkly dress. Youre not getting out of anything if your partner buys a sparkly dress.

Kate and her dancing partner, an old guy named Dick, did an awkward tango comprising entirely of Dick clicking his fingers above his head while Kate walked around him for three minutes. I voted for someone else, I couldnt vote for that. At the end of Kates dance, when the host asked a few contrived questions, Kate declared, This has been a dream come true.

Pretty shitty dream. I had a dream about a talking mouse last week that was heaps better.

I also had to attend Jodies community theatre group production of Little Women. It was in two parts and both parts went for two hours. I was so angry. The entire play was just four girls bitching about nothing. One writes a book and is sad because she has to edit it. Also, they eat a big breakfast and theres some stuff about apples.