Easter Ramblings: Pollen bags, making the Statue of Liberty vanish, psychedelic drugs and the toilet roll of life…

Steven Develter

Happy Easter to you all!

Well, it's that time of year when everything -well, I guess everything- stays pretty much the same. That is, apart from getting a few days off from work or school, and the annual appearance in the corner of the supermarket of so many hideously overpriced wafer-thin, teeth rotting, chemical-addled, delicious, dreamy wonderful Easter eggs with the free mugs and teeny tiny little Mars Bars that are so fucking small I saw a bee with one the other day tucked into its pollen, er, ‘holders’. (Where they keep their pollen. You know… I think it's near their legs, like little socks of pollen – now wouldn't that be an amazing thing though, eh? Socks made of pollen, woooo yeah, you'd be the talk of the town, walking down the street, fresh as a spring meadow, chicks following you… Man, that'd be the coolest. Maybe that's why they call it 'the bees knees'. Interesting....)

Ah, the tangents. What I'm trying to say is, of course, Happy (now belated) Easter, everyone. I hope you all got lots of nice presents, or even just the one, as I’m still waiting for mine. Maybe they do it differently over there, but my two Swedish housemates Leila and Susie neglected to put even one single M&M in my hand this 'happy-death-to-the-messiah-oh-no-look-he's-risen!-ahh-he's-floated-off-again' time of year (as I think it should be renamed). We did, however, keep it real and eat various combinations of herring, meatballs, rock solid bread and hell, I don't know, some other stuff from Ikea in typical Swedish style, which I'm very pleased to say saved some grace for me on that heavenly 'Good' Friday (Which, obviously, needs a renaming too. I mean, yes, it's good that we can stay off work, get drunk and end up being attacked by a gang of fifteen-year-old youths at the fun fair, but for a supposed Christian ‘celebration’ surely contemplating the death of your leader isn't all that great, no? I mean, he didn't really get the chance to match up to good old Copperfield and his work of legend- I didn't see Jesus making the fucking Statue of Liberty disappear recently did I??

Correct me if I'm wrong. In your head though, not by email.

(Ed.: True, but that loaves of bread and the fish thing sounded pretty damn impressive…)

Well, as you can perhaps tell, this Easter I've been re-exploring the wonders of psychedelic drugs.

Oh, the joys. I spent the whole Easter weekend ripped up, fuzzier than, er, felt, and thinking about, um, a toilet roll.

And car washes.

We have a beautiful view of a car wash just ten metres from where both my balcony and bedroom face, and damn, does that thing get busy. Now the balcony is where all my smoking gets done, and a fair bit drinking too, so forgive me (Jesus!) if I ramble on a bit here, but what I'd like to know is what the fuck are people thinking about getting their cars washed at 5 o'clock in the fucking morning and when I'm trying to have a decent night’s bastard sleep? GO TO BED. WASH IT LATER. Half the cars aren't even that dirty. In fact, I'd go as far to say that they're almost spotless- you could blow the dust off, shiiiiit, we’re in fucking Perth, Australia! We don't have mud here. Sand? Yep. Dust? Heaps. Mud? Get the fuck out of a car wash you thoughtless, selfish little shit-bags! Get out your car, cough at it, and your car will likely be clean, I’m telling you. Throw that five pissing dollars at a hobo, smile, and drive away. Quietly. Preferably with the engine off, if that’s possible, I’m trying to sleep... We all know that after driving a block or so the dust and sand will be back anyway so just forget about it people, please! Or, alternatively, go to the other car wash up the road.

Now, as for that toilet roll.

 Unbe-bloody-lievable. I must stress, that after reading what follows here your life may never feel the same again. You will come to think of me at your darkest moments… At them times when good prevails, and bad, well, drops out of your arsehole down the shitter.

I hope so, at any rate.

Whilst having a wee sit down in a small room, having a think as we all do, my gaze came upon the toilet roll. Yes, it was nearly all gone, of course. No-one ever changes it in my house, lazy blonde dirty little etc… etc…, but that's not the point, thankfully.

No, what got me is just how perfect new toilet rolls are. How do they do that?! Please, someone tell me- I assume they have to have some kind of machine for it, but the paper is so delicate (especially my quilted, perfumed, moistened-with-aloe 'lavender fresh' luxury brand roll), so tender, that I don't believe any machine could wrap those beauties around a cardboard tube a million times, without breaking them apart. And let us not forget that they are perforated too, for added danger.

They're always so gloriously exemplary though, so neat and tidy, never even going a bit off centre. Now that's wrapping skills, don’t you agree? Please, ponder this a moment and give some respect to whoever created such a thing to pull that off- they deserve it, okay?

It was while looking over this perfect, new toilet roll that I realised what ‘it’ was all about. It wasn't just some (luxury) toilet roll, it was actually us. The toilet roll is, in fact, us- people, humankind itself. Ahhhh, enlightenment! Here comes my point, at long last. Not really worth it, to be honest, but, I'll continue:

 My point is this- we are all the toilet roll. Yes, it's got a hard centre, that cheap cardboard thing, and we've got a skeleton. But it goes deeper than that. The regular toilet roll is what they, ‘The Man', the 'Boys Upstairs', whatever you call those higher up on the chain than us mere mortals, want us all to be. Everyone the same size, shape, all nice and laid perfectly around each other, no-one breaking out, upsetting the wrap, just laying perfectly around each other, quiet, shhhh, in tune to the beat of the drums, marching together, hup! hup! and all that shit. This is what is required of us to fit in, to be an upstanding member of the community, to never argue, complain, hup! work, hup! home, hup! hup! family, bang!- the children-chain continues and so on. It’s what we should all be. These are the requirements of the model citizen.

This may sound a little presumptuous on my part. I mean, how do I know what is required/desired of us by the ones in power, right? Yeah, well, tough, I just do, mm'kay? But that then leads us to the exciting part, my favourite bit:

Earlier I’d mentioned my toilet paper was nearly all gone. You know how it is, when it gets nearly finished you go easy on it so you don't have to change for the new one, always leaving just enough segments so the inner skeleton is still hidden- we all do this right? Well, that's how it was. And that's when I realised that's what I was. Those last few sheets, the ones where suddenly everything goes off, there's no more order, no stability, the sizes of the leaves of paper are allovertheshop, whoa! a bit popping out here, jutting down there, the cut is all erratic, haphazard and odd-shaped, all sliced into sharp angles a la 'Book-Club with Freddy Krueger'.

And that's what I believe I am, or at least hope I am, anyway.

I'm not really working anymore, just bumming about, smoking weed, travelling, lying in a hammock, not contributing. I don't think I pay any taxes at all, I worked four hours last week (it was a tough week), I have no desire to subject more children to this godforsaken world, and I don't think I can even hear the beat of the drums we're supposed to be marching to. Chop, chop! The sheet has become a little messed up now. That's what I want to be, maybe that's what I am already. And when I look down again at this once forsaken almost-done roll of thin-velvet paper, I see I'm not alone. Nope, there's another, and another, and I realise that there are others like this, trying to get out of the roll, sticking out their limbs and waving them about, chop, chop!, ‘lemme’ out, I don't want any part of this game anymore!', and I recognise them- it's my friends down there with me, keeping me strong, sticking together, we're taking that roll back for ourselves, goddamnit.

It's beautiful, isn't it? A metaphor for everything, anything, just sitting there, the frowned upon, the thing we wipe our filthy arse-holes on, it's us.

It's everything.

 It's a revolution in every home.

Now wouldn't that be an advertising slogan.

Peace to you all this holiday period, and keep on breaking the mould. I'm going now, back to the newly crowned favourite (little) room in the house to think about door-handle placement.

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