Fail 8: What's cooking...
What's white, dome shaped, the approximate size and weight of half the moon and parked outside my house in a shipping crate?
I started this newsletter to document the never-ending amount of shite my husband has bought over the years on eBay, and regular readers might be pleased to learn that a global pandemic and countrywide lockdown has had absolutely zero impact on Lee's ability to buy things we categorically Do. Not. Need. Right. Now. on the internet.
His latest purchase arrived last week. The good news is that after last week's newsletter about his shite eighties Porsche went out, he was spurred into action and immediately sold it. The bad news is that buoyed by this success and a fistful of cash, he seemed to think that now, as we face the prospect of absolutely no social contact with friends, family or indeed anyone beyond our own four walls, would be a great time to buy an outdoor clay pizza oven large enough to cater for the entire village.
Yup. A pizza oven. In the middle of a lockdown.
I don't even like pizza.
Making space for this industrial-size catering equipment is going to mean removing the - only slightly smaller - pizza oven he bought last year, which we have used precisely twice. The new one is considerably bigger, so locating it will also mean angle grinding through half of the retaining wall by the patio, which incidentally, we also paid to have nicely re-rendered and finished last year.
I'm sure part of this is just one man's way of coping with confinement. I mean, we all react different to these new stresses we find ourselves under, but even in my wildest dreams my first instinct would not have been to order what is essentially a large domed cave to install in the garden, although if "homeschooling" is to continue for much longer, there is a chance that one or other or all of my family members might eventually be banished to it for an indefinite period. And/or incinerated.
When I asked Lee why he'd seen fit to buy this pizza oven, a large part of his answer revolved around the fact it was 'free delivery'. Unfortunately, what that free delivery looks like in practice is not free delivery to where you actually want the enormous pizza oven to live, but instead, 'free delivery to the side of the road in the middle of the space where you normally park your car and absolutely not a centimetre further, good luck motherfucker'.
So. This posed quite a heavy problem. A half ton problem, to be exact.
Ironically, if the oven was twice the size, current social distancing guidelines would allow our helpful and strong friends in the village to take a corner each and use brute strength to lift it to its new home, however being only (only) one metre square, this is forbidden. So it sat outside the gate, in a wooden crate big enough to house a tiger, for several days while we pondered our options. I say 'our', but I was having absolutely no part in this.
The only solution, short of hiring an actual crane costing thousands and somewhat negating any saving from the free delivery, was, as Lee gleefully declared after much thought, "to get medieval on this bitch!".
Mysteriously, four round logs (looking suspiciously like a sawn up telegraph pole) appeared outside our house overnight. And so it came to pass that Lee spent the entire three days of the Easter weekend using a system of pivots, winches and rolling logs last employed by the builders of Stonehenge to drag the bastard oven - two entire metres.
At least now it is inside our own gate, but still a run of steps and an entire lawn away from its final resting place. As yet, we're still at a loss as to how to get it any further.
Meanwhile, my car had gone on a short holiday to be parked down the road, admittedly for slightly longer than any of us would have hoped, but definitely not long enough to warrant calling the police, which is exactly what one of our village comrades did, claiming the suspicious vehicle had been 'abandoned' outside their house. To be fair, it is a bit of a shit tip inside, but still. Rude.
Two heavily tooled up officers strolling down the garden path was not what I or the children were expecting one sunny afternoon last week, but after quickly calming my alarm, they declared with a slight smirk that they do have to investigate all calls but as the car was taxed and insured and legally parked on the road, I was at liberty to leave it there for as long as I cared, and wished us all a pleasant day.
If the pizza oven is still parked on the driveway next month, I might be calling them back myself....
Some good shit to get into this week…
So. How are we all doing? We’ve been at home now for longer than any of us would have thought wise, or indeed possible, but we’re kind of settling into it here, so much so that I’m practically ecstatic about the prospect of a trip to Lidl later today. Big dreams, people. Last time I went shopping (two weeks ago!) I wore a sequinned tracksuit because you’d better believe if I only leave the village once a week I was making it count. Even dressed like a circus extra, I was still not the strangest looking person in the queue, that went to the father and son team in full face gas masks. Strange times.
Anyway, here’s some good shit that’s been keeping me smiling this week. If you have any suggestions of your own I’d love to hear them; you can reply to this email just like a normal one.
Two words: Tiger King. That’s right. I mean, I actually cannot believe there’s anyone left alive who hasn’t already binged on this, but just in case, you HAVE to watch this. It’s a documentary (IS IT THOUGH?? It all still beggars belief) about gun toting, gay, redneck, drug addled zoo owner Joe Exotic, who has a collection of sequinned jackets that puts even me to shame. Don’t read anything about it, just watch it on Netflix. It’s a ride.
I’m just going to say it, I would leave this all behind for Phoebe Waller-Bridge who can do no wrong. If you’re reading this and haven’t seen Fleabag, what are you even doing, we can’t be friends. The brilliant solo stage show version where it all started is now streaming on Amazon Prime, with all proceeds going to charities supporting the NHS and response to Covid. Get it here.
Finally, I very much enjoyed THIS advert some guy put on the internet. A man after my own heart.
I’ll leave you with a story about the most I have laughed for a very long time. It was at 11.50pm the night before Easter Sunday. The children were sleeping in the tent in the garden, and I’d made Lee tiptoe out to the car (still down the road!) to retrieve the Easter eggs I’d bought about a week ago and kept safely hidden there.
Dumping them unceremoniously on the kitchen counter with a shrug, he asked ‘are they supposed to look like that?’, ‘that’ being a catastrophic ruin of their former selves, a thin slick of concave chocolate peppered with a rubble of misshapen solid pieces. Imagine Edvard Munch’s The Scream, but in Easter egg format. Obviously, by this time it is WAAAAY too late to solve this problem. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and I cry laughed for about two hours solid, hysterical beyond all reason. Even better was the fact that after posting THIS video about our problem on facebook at midnight, our friend from the next village immediately messaged to say he was driving over and would rendezvous in the silent midnight street in 5 minutes to hurl a plastic bag of six (six!) spare easter eggs that they’d bought but couldn’t give to their cousins at me from his car in a drive-by style.
Jason, you saved Easter, and for this I am eternally grateful.
Stay safe y’all.
Who am I anyway?
I'm Lindsay. Bit of a dickhead, freelance writer for money, author of And Other Idiots and other internet shite for kicks. This newsletter will be a short story of some idiotic exploits from quite close to home, to hopefully make you smile every two weeks. Exactly how much shit can one man buy on Ebay? I intend to find out.
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