Locked out on ice

Standard

Nothing like -5c outside and being locked out of a place in the middle of the night. Luckily my car is equipped with blankets and extra coats and all, but still, it was, let’s say… an irritation.

I like driving at night, quite the opposite of daytime driving, which I hate more than anything. At night, there are seldom any other cars. Just darkness and an occasional wild animal springing into the road. I stopped for petrol (and yogurt) at 3:30 and a man came in and seriously ordered a hot dog. Firewall and I once went to this very same petrol station (in one of its bathroom stalls it even has a rectangular metal plate on the back of the toilet, which looks like it’s been set up for people to do cocaine or something. With the way the youth of today hang out at this place on weekend nights – don’t ask me why – maybe there’s more to that theory than I’d have imagined), and he ordered one of these dubious dogs and spent the next 36 hours miserably ill. Even the woman working there asked him, with great concern creeping over her face, “Are you sure? These are kind of old.” No such caution in tonight’s transaction. Just a man who seemed like maybe he eats these gas station hot dogs all the time.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life… and I was locked out.

Hot dogs and mannequins

Standard
Freaking me out

Freaking me out

My life has seemingly been half-lived on Twitter of late. No long-form blogging streaming from this globetrotter’s fingers.

Lately, I find that wherever I go, hot dogs keep coming up as a source of illness, envy, a stand-in representative of American hegemony (even if eaten in hamburger buns) and even in the form of a chain of eateries called “Hot Dog World”. Even in a traditional UK bakery chain, they’ve launched this new hot dog proposition – and naturally, one, impatient for a coffee and pastry, will get behind the one idiot who needs a fully loaded hot dog first thing in the morning.

Looking but not seeing - mannequin heads in surgical staff clothing

Looking but not seeing – mannequin heads in surgical staff clothing

Meanwhile, in the office, my fear of mannequins has resurfaced. I joined some colleagues for a mini photo shoot this morning only to discover the freakiest, scariest mannequin I have ever seen. I tried to get a close-up shot of its face, which was difficult since I did not want to touch it. You can see how creepy the face is but don’t get the full effect of its slightly open mouth and little freaky plastic teeth (see above).

Never trust a mannequin donning a face mask

Never trust a mannequin donning a face mask

a closet of disembodied mannequin arms

a closet of disembodied mannequin arms

Mannequin hands in ... a planter?

Mannequin hands in … a planter?

The freakiest mannequin I have ever seen

The freakiest mannequin I have ever seen