What’s big, white, tall, and absolutely chock full of large meat products? The obvious answer is – my husband, but in this case, there’s an alternative answer that’s a bit more weird.
I suspect Lee is running a sort of underground, speakeasy-style meat-racket from our garage.
Let me explain (No. there is no time, let me SUM UP)
I can’t remember how far back it started (because - that’s lockdown for you), but Lee came home one day raving about some special steaks. So far, so man. He was going to cook dinner on Friday for us. We’d have steak! The best steak! At this point I neither cared nor asked how this whim had come about, thinking only about how at least this flight of fancy would probably be cheaper than most of his other impulse decisions.
The steaks duly arrived, were cooked and tasted delicious. Stick with me here, because I know this doesn’t sound like an anecdote yet, but the plot thickened.
A few weeks later, Lee burbled something about ‘getting more steak’, and, as is my wont, I completely tuned him out until, sure enough I came home one day to find him trying to ram six enormous pieces of cow into our tiny, under-counter freezer. I’ve spoken before about the weird, dead tetris which was our shitty freezer and how absolutely impossible it was to stuff any other exotic meat products into it without becoming enraged. (Regular readers might be interested to know that we still have not eaten the 8-12 frogs legs, or the horse, unless Lee slipped it into a lasagne at some point without telling us)
Calling what he had procured ‘steak’ is probably conjuring up a certain image in your head. Perhaps a nice, round slab of meat, about the size of your palm. Or bigger, perhaps, maybe like a palm and a half. But when I say ‘enormous pieces of cow’, I mean exactly that. Have you ANY IDEA how large the ribcage of a cow is? Each of the six steaks was attached to an elegantly curving rib the approximate length of my arm. If I lined them up, I could probably construct a makeshift field shelter from them, like when Leo DiCaprio sleeps inside a dead horse in The Revenant.
As Lee crouched on the floor in our cramped utility room trying to manoeuvre essentially a whole dead giant farm animal into a two foot square box already full of other dead animals, I wordlessly picked up one of the scattered ribs, wielding it silently above my head like a neanderthal axe. I tested the heft, the weight. If I swung it vigorously enough, maybe I could knock myself out, and not have to deal with the existential pain of wondering 1. why we now had this much meat, and 2. Where we were going to keep it all?
Fast forward. It’s the middle of winter. The nights are dark and full of shadows. I’ve been out for a run with my buddy, pounding the moonlight lanes. Approaching my house in the gloom, there’s a big blacked out 4x4 I don’t recognise parked haphazardly across the shared parking. A low murmur of voices. Activity. The first time, I thought nothing of it, hurrying to get indoors, stretch out, shower and warm my frozen hands, and assuming the neighbours must have visitors. But this happened again a few weeks later. An open-backed truck this time, engine still running. A faint sense of men moving around, footsteps, slammed doors. The sweeping arc of a torch beam.
The third time this happened, I raised it with Lee.
“I think there’s something weird going on. Someone was here earlier. We should probably keep an eye on the cars, and make sure the garage is properly locked”
At which point Lee looked at me like I was a simpleton. He affected nonchalance.
“Yes? It was just my mate Luke…”
(blank stare from me, as I wonder why Lee’s mate might have been hanging around our garage in the pitch black)
“He just popped round to pick up some steak…”
Oh right. I rationalise this, thinking perhaps Lee had decided after all that we didn’t need all six parts of the cow, and the sensible thing to do would be to give some away. He’d probably gone out our back door to help his mate carry them from our freezer to his car.
Fast forward again. Weeks later. I’ve overheard the ends of various phone calls. Seen mentions on our group whatsapps about ‘getting some steaks’. Because I’m an idiot, I didn’t really pay attention to any of it, or which parties were asking/offering, reasoning that if there was anything I needed to do or know about, Lee would tell me.
So it did come as a bit of a surprise the other day when I found Lee, in the garage, surrounded by empty boxes and loose packing materials in the process of decanting well over twenty paleolithic-style meat-weapons into the enormous, humming upright double freezer I had never before set eyes on.
I do not know why.
I do not know why him.
I cannot understand why now.
All I know is that our garage has become a centre of comings and goings entirely dedicated to men furtively partaking in what is essentially a very small wholesale meat retail side-hustle.
I suppose in theory I should be surprised, and/or outraged that my life is actually just like an episode of The Simpsons, but given that the steaks are actually bloody delicious with some chips and salad, I’ve decided to just hashtag allow it for the foreseeable future.
Rib, anyone?
Look, it’s the funny shit…
Right, time for the jolly stuff! Things feel a bit like they’re lightening up, no? Last week felt dark, down and miserable for many many reasons, but today the sun is shining, spring is in the air and soon, maybe soon, we will legally be allowed to enter one another ENTER ONE ANOTHER’S HOMES, Jesus, that came out wrong.
Anyway, here’s what’s been making me smile recently:
This talk of spring being on the way naturally leads on to thoughts of summer also being on the way, which inevitably leads to me thinking about fake tan. I am H.o.r.r.i.f.i.e.d. to discover that Bastard Boots have discontinued the only fake tan product capable of transforming my natural ‘scottish blue’ skin into something resembling a living human, so for anyone else similarly afflicted, here is some joyful fake tan content for which you definitely need to watch all the way through with sound ON…
Anyone working from home may be familiar with the acute pain of trying to make your technological shit work without any sort of qualified backup. This hatefully accurate sketch particularly resonated last week.
I’m obsessed with Dua Lipa’s new song, We’re Good. Watch the video for some quirky and innovative creative, and then like me find yourself singing it incessantly for the rest of the day. I love it.
Have I told you how much I love the film The Dig? It’s gentle, glorious big skies and digging up really old stuff from the ground (two things I’m a bit obsessed with at the moment, more on which another time). If you haven’t seen it then this parody will mean absolutely nothing to you, but if you have - well, take a look.
Look, you didn’t wake up this morning thinking you needed to see a chimpanzee having a shower, but you absolutely DO, it’s a wonderful and beautiful thing.
Finally, Twitter is a soul-sucking hellsite most of the time, but occasionally will delight and surprise with enjoyable tweets like this one. Glorious.
That’s all for now. Thanks for all the lovely replies last week, cheered me right up to know y’all actually enjoy reading my shite. Now, off to burn the furniture to keep warm as British Gas leave us without heat or hot water for a second day, the shower of bastards….
Toodles!
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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, for no other reason than to 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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