Entreprenah or Yeah?

I had a facebook friend once who got 30+ likes on approximately three statuses in a row and then started posting (seriously) about how he was going to try stand up comedy. There was nothing I wanted more than for him to actually do it. I would have absolutely gone to that show. Because he was for sure going to flop and the only thing I like better than seeing someone who’s really good at comedy is seeing someone who is REALLY bad. Look, I think I am hilarious, my sense of humour is exactly my taste in funny, but I’m pretty sure that if I got up on stage and started telling stories about my cat* no one would be laughing. Call it schadenfreude, call it shade, maybe I’m just really mean, but you can’t say that one hundred percent of the time you want everyone around you to succeed at their stupid dreams. And maybe it’s because people don’t know that their dreams are stupid that they pursue them. So here’s my stupid dream: to be a billionaire entrepreneur. And I need your help. Come on, you’ve been reading this blog for free forever now, you owe me one. So help a sister out and let me know if these inventions I’ve invented are stupid or completely viable (my hunch is it’s the latter). But let’s just keep these between us because I’ve read that you can’t patent things you’ve spoken publicly about.

SnapCrap
Explained in four words: The selfie lover’s nightmare
Key Demographic: this one is for those people whose friends are obsessed with the perfect selfie
The pitch: If you have a friend who is just way too obsessed with the perfect photo of themselves and spend more time looking at their own image than Narcissus, this may help them remedy this personality flaw, or at minimum, really piss them off. This is more a service than an invention, and it may or may not have illegal elements to it but I’m sure we can find a way around those if you choose to help me finance this little goldmine idea. What we will do is take a really bad photo of them (provided by you) and have it printed on all new doonas, pillowcases, plates, mugs, bowls etc. then while the selfie-lover is out we will break into their house and switch all their stuff so they can’t escape the terrible photo of themselves.

Gat Girdles
Explained in four words: A girdle for cats
Key demographic: Cats
The pitch: Do you have a fat cat that people are always being mean about? My cat Jenny has struggled with some weight issues, which I know has got her down at times. The cat girdle would be made of spanx material and faux fur in a variety of colours allowing your cat to slim down in minutes (after only minimal yowling and scratching). No more saggy baggy moggy tummy!

Superstretch Smalls
Explained in four words: Really stretchy little undies
Key demographic: People with private parts who like to go away on holiday
The pitch: Does packing your undies take up HEAPS of space in your going away bag? I like to pack at least one pair of undies for each day I’m away and this can be quite space consuming. So I propose we find the stretchiest material available and make really tiny undies out of it, approximately the size of a matchbox. They’d stretch out to fit you when you went to put them on because of this theoretical super-stretchy material. Then you can pack all you undies in your pocket and you're ready to roll.

Stampcam
Explained in four words: See mailed gift reactions
Key demographic: People who regularly post gifts in the mail
The pitch: Are you really good at sending gifts in the mail? But then do you feel let down by not being able to see the recipient’s reaction (because of course the best part of giving a gift is the kudos you receive for being such a good friend)? Stampcam is a really, really small camera which lives in the stamp you affix to your gift and allows you to watch the joy which results from you being such an awesome friend via your phone. I haven’t figured out the logistics yet, but hello, genius.

Tablesavers
Explained in four words: People reserve your table
Key demographic: Parties of less people than the minimum party requirement to book a table at a busy Sydney restaurant. Ie. People who aren't that popular but still like food.
The pitch: Why is it that so many restaurants in Sydney require 5+ attendees before they can book a table for you? Otherwise you're required to just wait there for an indeterminate period of time like a schmuck. And who are these mysterious groups of five? Two married couples and a divorcee? A single dad and his four adult sons? For a small fee I would have someone go and wait in the table queue at your restaurant of choice and then call you when your table is ready. And you and your one friend can rush there ASAP and enjoy the fruits (and meats) of someone else’s labour.

Boughto-correct
Explained in four words: Make cash from autocorrect
Key demographic: People who want to advertise their wares
The pitch: Now it might take some convincing Apple to agree to this but I think this is a missed opportunity for advertisers. You know how your phone autocorrects words to other words? Like once my phone changed “let's go shoppingggggg” to “ape Finn nutty”. Maybe for a reduction in your monthly phone repayments you could opt to have advertising autocorrect. For example, you'd type “Let's go to the movies” but your phone would correct “movies” to Bedknobs and Broomsticks or whatever.

Chafe Bomb
Explained in four words: Instant chafed thigh relief
Key demographic: Anyone who is a few kilos overweight or whose thighs rub together when it gets warm and sticky
The pitch: The only people I’ve ever mentioned this to were incredibly fit and toned girls so they laughed in my face because they had never experienced how weird you look walking after you’ve chafed the inside of your thighs on a hot day. Chafe bomb will be a little like a bath bomb and a little like a water balloon filled with talcum powder. You take this small, purse-sized bomb, place it between your thighs, squeeze them together and pop it, releasing and distributing the soothing talcum powder within, relieving the pain of the chafe and allowing you to glide about for the rest of the day like you're on ice skates. Or like you would if you weren't so fat that your thighs chafed together.

So if you have a spare $10,000 you can buy any of these ideas from me. I can also do you a discount for multiple ideas. I started a Kickstarter page but you have to submit it for review and it's not that I was embarrassed but, no, wait, yep. I was embarrassed by all these ideas.

* When my cat Jenny wants dinner she gets really meow-y, so I ask her questions whose answers rhyme with the word meow, like “When do you want dinner Jenny?” “Neow” “What do you say when you hurt yourself?” “Ow” “How did the chicken cross the road?” “How?” See, I think that's comedy gold.

How To Gain Weight Rapidly

Let’s just get it out in the open: I hate all your pregnancy announcement posts. I hate the clichéd photos of a small pair of shoes next to a big pair of the same shoes, I hate your lame cartoon announcements telling the wonderfully generic story of “we met, we married, we have a baby on the way” and don’t even get me started on the bun in the oven posts – blergh. And while there are a lot of inane things people want to tell you about their pregnancies and being pregnant, something they never tell you is how hard it can be to actually fall pregnant in the first place. We started trying to have a baby years ago, and had no luck for a long time. So I’m not sure if these announcements irked me because I was jealous of those people who were able to fall pregnant when I was not, or if it is just that I am allergic to lame shit put together for the sole purpose of garnering facebook likes. Anyway, seeing as no one talks about how hard it can be to actually get knocked up, and therefore gives you little advice on what magical spells you can do to get pregnant, I had to make up my own magical baby spells. Please enjoy my “How to get up the duff” advice. Disclaimer: None of this actually works.

Smoothies: I tried having a green smoothie every day for breakfast. These were actual serious hard-core green smoothies. The type that people who believe kale can cure cancer would have for breakfast. They had flax seeds and spinach and cucumbers and turmeric in them. They weren’t remotely delicious and made me poo green poo, and I thought “if this won’t get me pregnant, nothing will!” Spoiler: the smoothies didn’t get me pregnant.

Vitamins: I bought myself vitamins. I bought Nick vitamins. I yelled at Nick until he took his vitamins, and then would forget to take my stupid, super expensive vitamins because they made my tummy hurt. Then one day my adverse reaction to my vitamins meant that I threw up my green smoothie in my car while I was driving over the Anzac bridge at 70km/hr. I had no time to pull over and had to vomit in a paper bag while I drove. I had to put the bag on my lap and vomit into it while trying to still look ahead. Then I had to sit with the warm, seeping bag of green smoothie vomit on my lap until I got to work.

Acupuncture: I bought a $40 groupon for two acupuncture sessions and had a random woman stick needles in me in a room she shared with a cobbler. I had spent all my money on fresh fruit and veg for my smoothies and had to scrimp somewhere. I’m not made of money you know.

Actual magic spells/talking to dead relatives: I would talk to my dead grandmother through my cat Jenny, who I believe is a conduit for said dead grandmother and ask her to ask Nanny to help me out somehow. I also googled “spells to fall pregnant” and then would immediately delete my internet history so no one would see it. Then when I was at work and someone was standing behind me when I was looking up how to spell a particular word, google suggested “spells to fall pregnant” but in that purple font like I’d looked it up before. I don’t know if she saw it, but I’m pretty sure she did. So THANKS GOOGLE, you stupid fuckhead.

As previously noted, none of these ridiculous solutions to my infertility actually worked. However, I did manage to fall pregnant by some miracle well after giving up my magical pregnancy remedies and now have a 8 month old ball of elbows living in my belly. So in the spirit of a before and after, here is my list of things that no one told me about actually being pregnant that I had to discover on my own. Thanks guys. Maybe next time you make pregnancy announcements you could include some of this stuff in them because then at least they’d be like a public service announcement.

Morning sickness: while this is definitely a thing, so are the other sicknesses no one tells you about including eating broccolini sickness, vomiting from hunger sickness, vomiting from thinking about porridge sickness and gummy bear sickness. I would have to say my least glamourous pregnancy sickness moment had to be when I ate some broccolini and roast lamb. Not only did I throw it up, I threw it up so hard that toilet water splashed all over my face and into my mouth. Then I had toilet water sickness.

Weird crushes: I know I often have weird crushes on people, compared to normal girls, but early pregnancy had me crushing on anyone from Peter Overton to Captain Planet and Stephen King.

Being suddenly special in the head: the other day when making suggestions of good places to go for breakfast I sent three messages which read something along the lines of: 
“Where should we go for breakfast? I’d suggest Zest.”
“Another good place would also be Zest.”
“But really, I’d recommend Zest”

No cravings: Here is a list of things I have been eating on the regular since well before I was pregnant: tomato paste out of the tub with a spoon, sour cream out of the tub sprinkled with salt eaten with a spoon, frozen peas, an entire jar of pickled chillies in one sitting, a one kilogram tub of sour worms. I have craved absolutely nothing new during my pregnancy, except some time with Captain Planet.

Being kicked in weird places: I am not a idiot and know that babies kick you on the inside when they are big enough. But no one told me that sometimes, somehow, when you are trying to wee, they will kick you in the vajayjay from the inside causing you to scream in surprise and then wee really weirdly. You don't know what it is to be pregnant until someone has kicked you in the vagina internally while you are on the toilet. Also hiccupping into your privates is a thing. No one told me that.

In conclusion, pregnancy is a super weird thing that doesn't always happen easily and then surprises you every day with unexpected shit. But it’s pretty awesome, vag hiccups and all.

Deunited And It Feels So Good

I got unfriended recently. I was facebook unfriended, instagram unfriended, unfriended by friends of the original unfriender. I’m sure I would have been untumbled, detweeted, pinned-off and exmyspaced if I had any of those things. I was seriously, hardcore unfriended. I bet she even removed me from her phone. Or at the very least changed my name in her contacts to DO NOT ANSWER THIS CALL like she was in the film Confessions of a Shopaholic and was trying to avoid her creditors.

“But what would warrant such callous removal from all social media channels?” I hear you gasping in horror.  I know, I was shocked too. I mean, the first rule of not liking someone is that you keep as many windows into their life open as you possibly can. How else can you judge everything they do from a distance and truly know that you’re better than them?

This particular friend was one of those flaky friends. Never able to come to anything, always crying poor, too busy, too tired, too far, not enough advance noticed, scared of sushi, cats etc. But strangely enough, she was constantly posting photos online of her ‘making it rain’ with her other friends; buying herself treats, hanging out nearby, spending up big and posting her haul on instagram moments after she’d told me payday wasn’t for another two days and she couldn’t afford dinner – basically countering all her excuses in a public forum where I could screengrab her lies.  Now, I fully acknowledge that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I understand that people may get to know me that little bit better and realize that they don’t actually like me that much after all. But when I tried to tell her it was ok if she was a little over my constant Mazness she’d only come back with renewed fervor that we must set a date to have dinner, to see each other, to have a girlz night. And then would, of course, bail on these plans.

[Insert confrontation, presentation of evidence of aforementioned poor friend behavior and a few uncomfortable questions here]

After said confrontation, I received what can only be described as a Dear John letter stating she would no longer be my friend and that “i [sic] can honestly say with 100% conviction that I tried [to be my friend]”. Obviously not a major loss as she wasn’t a particularly good friend, but the thing that has stuck with me is that she chose to end our friendship with an untruth. Upon much reflection, a look in the dictionary and after consulting my own personal annals of friendship I’ve decided that she had not, in fact, “tried”. I did find numerous definitions of this little three letter word and unfortunately, she satisfied none of them. I was however, delighted to discover a myriad of examples of other friends and I trying hard in our respective friendships.

Try /trʌɪ/

Verb. make an attempt or effort to do something, exert oneself.

Example: One sunny Saturday my buddy Nicole and I thought we would be adventurous and go kayaking. This particular day we decided to head up and around a little island, near where we had procured our kayaks in Brooklyn. Paddling with the tide around the little land mass was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We stopped to pee swim amongst a grove of mangroves, basked in the sun and sparkly water, swished past bridges and boats and rounded a corner – only to find that the island was not actually an island at all, but was connected to the mainland by a very thin strip of land covered in railway tracks. While we could see our start point, tantalizingly close, it was physically impossible for us to kayak to it. The thing is, I love the outdoors, I love the water and I love some exercise. But I get tired super quick and don’t want it to go on forever. The notion of kayaking back kilometres around the island, working against the tide, did not appeal. I don’t know who saw the “simple solution” first, Nicole or myself, but minutes later we were dragging our kayaks (full of water and weighing probably about 60kg each) past a large family of bemused Chinese tourists, across a road, onto the station platform, up a massive flight of stairs, over a bridge, down a massive flight of stairs, onto an abandoned and dilapidated wharf, casting them into the water six feet below and then sliding down a bank covered in rusted metal and broken bottles to leap across slimy and rubbish strewn water back into our vessels. While we achieved our original goal of circumnavigating the island, the incredibly lazy slob within me is still haunted by the question of whether or not it would have been less effort just to kayak back.

Try /trʌɪ/

Verb. subject someone to trial

Example: When I was in year six we went on an overnight excursion to… the snow? Bathurst? I don’t know, some place. Anyway, like any excursion we were buddied up on the bus with our best friends. Lucy, always ahead of her time, had bought a Dolly magazine to keep us occupied on the hours long journey. Amid the usual features on How To Kiss With Tongue (practice in the mirror first!), How To Tell If A Boy Likes You (his feet point in your direction when he talks to you – this sage piece of advice kept my self esteem pretty high for a large chunk of teenage life - turns out it’s actually a lie) and late nineties fashion tips, were some free postcards. I am still unsure as to who you would send these postcards to as they featured hunky guys, muscles shining and bulges, uh, bulging in their tightie whities. Lucy and I gazed at them prepubescent and horrified, only to have our terrifying, red-headed, banshee of a teacher come across us at this exact moment and snatch the cards out of our hands. We were reprimanded and told that, upon returning to school, we would most likely be suspended for having pornography. Nothing ever came of it, but I spent two sleepless nights at the Goldpanner Inn wondering what I would say to my parents.

Try /trʌɪ/

Verb. an effort to accomplish something; an attempt.

Example: Once, as a surly teenager, I skipped class with my friend to go and hang out in Hornsby. Now, I’m not saying we smoked some weed, but I’m not saying we didn’t smoke weed either. After coming out the other end of a particularly long bout of laughter over Video Ezy’s latest promotional campaign (they were giving away Video Ezy temporary tattoos when you rented Indiana Jones, so basically your incentive to borrow a really old video was to have “Video Ezy” temporarily branded on your arm. Read: I’m a bigger idiot than anyone you’ve ever met) I realized that the next class on my timetable, which I had fully intended upon skipping, was the class that MY DAD TAUGHT. AND IT BEGAN IN TWO MINUTES. Horrified, we legged it back to school and the biology lab, traveling faster than any stoned teenager has ever moved in the history of time. You’ll be glad to know we made it.

So I guess what I’m trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that while I definitely acknowledged earlier that not everyone has to like me, it sucks for you if you don’t want to try to be my friend. Because being my friend is sick dogs, especially if you love boats, porn and temporary tattoos.

Maz Reviews Being Hypnotized

It took me an inordinate amount of time to stop believing in magic. Unlike most children who find out that Santa and the Easter Bunny are not real and come over to the side of rationality and logic, I loitered on the side of the mystical for an extended period of time. And by “extended period of time” I mean that I was doing magic spells well into my 20s. I would collect rose petals and write incantations on blue lined paper and place them in envelopes in graveyards. I would stand in the dark in my bedroom on the Friday night of a full moon and glance over my shoulder hoping to see the reflection of my future husband standing behind me. I watched The Craft at least three times. I even spelt magick with a ‘k’ at the end. I was a total, full-blown witch guys! I even did a spell on Nick to make him like me when he didn’t seem that interested and would just sit and watch the cricket when we started going out. We’ve been married two years though, so no one can say for sure that that one was a bust.

I know this seems like an odd confession and recounting it makes it sound even more ridiculous than it was, but perhaps it goes some way to explaining why I consented to be hypnotized at work one morning. (I mean, it was probably 30% my search for the fantastical and 70% the possibility of a completely legitimate reason to take the morning off work.) Working at a television network means I receive strange all-staff emails most days of the week. These emails often include requests like “Does anyone have a bale of hay that we could use in a story?” “Is anyone allergic to bees and wanting to talk about it on the 6’o’clock news?” So it wasn’t that strange when the email went around asking “Is anyone interested in being hypnotized live on air today?” Of course I responded immediately with a hearty “Yes PLEASE!”

Five minutes later and I was in a conference room with six other diligent employees waiting to meet the famed Peter Powers (surely this isn’t his original name, but a thorough google refused to reveal anything other than this weird fansite). I had to admit I was a little nervous. I’d always wanted to know what it was like to be hypnotized. If it was really a thing, why weren’t hypnotists the rulers of the entire world? Why instead, did they mostly perform this wondrous feat on cruise ships and at RSLs in Rooty Hill to drunken 70 year olds for $15 a pop? Mr. Powers finally arrived and I knew, by the end of the morning, I would have the answers to all these questions.

First things first, he made sure that we were hypnotizable. Apparently, not everyone is prone to being hypnotized. Lucky for me I am incredibly gullible and willing to be hypnotized which are the only qualities you need to succumb to the old “you are getting very sleeeepy”. After the first test (imagining our hands were held together by glue and then trying to separate them) I was top of the class with the stickiest of hands that refused to part. I also breezed through the next test (imagining one arm was tied to a bucket of sand and the other to a balloon) and made it into the group who would be making their television debut shortly.

Peter kept us in the room for the next 45 minutes taking us deeper and deeper into a hypnotic state with his dulcet tones and lots of finger snapping. He never stopped speaking the entire time he was with us. He told us to imagine we were melting into the carpet, then to point out any flaws in his appearance. I told him his teeth were crooked and that he had quite a nose on him and then laughed hysterically. There was lots of tapping on the head and being told to “sleep!” Eventually it was time to wander in an orderly line over to the studio. Now this is the part where I find hypnosis to be the most legit – I’m pretty sure that I would usually be nervous going on live television on a day when I hadn’t washed my hair. This particular morning however, I was completely cool with it. Although, it also helped that for the duration of the time that we were waiting to go on set we got to nap on a couch.

Finally we were led on stage, sat in stools and then tasked with doing a bunch of crap; acting like we were petulant children, protecting the Prime Minister from an assassination attempt, you know, the usual. You can watch every moment of my phantasmagorical experience here (note the 4 minute mark where I nail David Campbell with a cushion.)

It was an enjoyable experience where I felt totally relaxed and had no qualms about doing whatever I was told. The question remains though, does hypnosis really work and was I really hypnotized? And here’s the upshot of it; I’m not so sure it’s a real thing as much as it’s an excuse to act like a dick. It’s the sober version of “sorry I peed on your front lawn, I was drunk.” People always ask me if I was aware of what was happening and the answer is yes, I was. I had a complete grasp of everything that was going on around me. I remember every second of it and did nothing against my will. The only difference between being in a trance and normal life was that I didn’t care if I looked like an idiot. I just felt a sort of happy obligation to do whatever Peter told me to do. But to this day I’m unsure whether or not this was because I didn’t want to make him look like a fool on the tele or if I just love an excuse to be a trick monkey. I guess we’ll never know. I never felt any after effects of the hypnosis, Peter de-hypnotized us after the segment ended and sent us on our way. I went back to the office and acted sluggish all day and everyone was fine with it because I’d just come out of a trance. As an experience I give it an 8/10.

And don’t forget, if any of you wants help with some incantations or magick spells; feel free to hit me up. Please be aware that I will charge you and results are definitely not guaranteed. Also, you’ll have to bring your own map of the world, black candle and strange personal item pilfered from the person you’re interested in bewitching.  

Maz Reviews Bruce Springsteen's Ass

There is nothing lazier than people who speak in clichés.  Katy Perry’s Roar for example is entirely made up of clichés (I’ve got the eye of the tiger, already brushing off the dust, Cos I am a champion gah!). Instead of inspiring me, Roar makes me want to punch Katy right in her ass. Same goes for motivational quotes on facebook. I don’t feel inspired by a picture of a wishing well captioned with some inane shit like “Dream it. Believe it. Achieve it”. Because really, when you’re reeling off the clichés you’re just saying a bunch of stuff that’s been said so many times it’s become, well, clichéd.

I do however, have to vouch for a motivational image I saw the other day of a little fellow reaching towards the stars. It was captioned, logically, “reach for the stars”. Yes it’s your everyday sub-par vom inducing meme, but I actually did reach for the stars recently and it felt pretty damn delightful.

As you may or may not know, I have a very slight obsession with Bruce Springsteen. My car is called Bruce, I listen to his music every day, a whopping 20% of my instagram posts are about him and most importantly, he is my number one celebrity crush, my religion and my muse. When he announced his latest tour I spent $1000 dollars on tickets for my family, who all get equally as excited about our lord and saviour, Bruce. I made my parents go and queue in the rain hours ahead of time in order to ensure we would be right at the front of the stage so that, just maybe, I could touch that beautiful hunk ‘o’ man. And touch him I did!

Figure 1: My Dad's enthusiastic response to the news I had acquired sold-out Bruce Springsteen tickets for both he and my Mum

Springsteen is the most enthusiastic performer you will ever see. He does three hour-long concerts with more energy than a hessian sack full of toddlers, and during these performances, he likes to crowd surf. Enter the ultimate “it would only happen to Maz” moment. During a particularly badass rendition of Spirit in the Night Bruce launched himself into the crowd. Falling backwards onto the welcoming sea of hands like Janice does after slamming Regina George at the end of Mean Girls, he continued to sing as the audience slowly delivered him to the stage at the front of the arena. As The Boss approached, I craned my neck to see whether or not he was going to pass over my head, and could vaguely make out a figure up and to the left of me. Using my finely honed basketball attack skills, I dropped my shoulder and charged left until I was right in the path of the almighty Bruce.

Time stopped. My heart rate hastened. My mouth dried. I saw his leather lace-up boots, and then his ankles and suddenly the moment was upon me. Bruce Springsteen’s tight little bottom was directly above me. I reached up and with my full, open hand, grabbed his right bum cheek and squeezed. Oh, the ecstasy. For that one beautiful second, I was molesting the man of my dreams. It was a little sweaty but let me tell you, it was firm and pert and round - everything a good ass should be. Before I knew it, he had been placed gently on the stage and, overwhelmed, I burst into tears. I cried on Nick and then turned to my dad and cried on him too. There is very little I will be able to achieve now that will trump the time I grabbed Bruce Springsteen's behind.

And that is the story of the time that I groped the 64-year-old man I am in love with and then cried snot onto both my 61-year-old dad and my husband in celebration. So follow your dreams kids, it’s like the saying goes: reach for the stars, even if you miss, your hand will touch his moon. I know that was feeble, but you get what I was trying to do there.

Scents and Sensibilities

I often think about how naïve and young I was when I left home. I would go for days without eating anything other than mushroom cup-a-soups (which I kept on my bedside table with a kettle beside my bed to make without having to get up). I can’t think of a single time I washed my sheets, only having had a dryer and no washing machine. And I’m pretty sure that once I left macaroni cheese in the sink for about three months.

There is one incident however, that I think truly illustrates how NOT ready I was to have moved out of home. My street smarts were obviously lacking, which became alarmingly apparent one mid-summer’s afternoon.

I lived with a friend of mine – a boy – who was the same age, although he had lived overseas and out of home for a long time, so was much worldlier than I was. One day, I was brushing my teeth when I noticed this smooth, shiny crystal lying on the bathroom sink. I spat out my toothpaste and picked up the short, stubby stone. It was heavy and cool but I couldn’t figure out what it was, so I lifted it to my face and smelt it. It had no odour; still I was perplexed as to what it was. Having run through all the senses I had at my disposal; it smelt of nothing, looked and felt like nothing in particular and sure as hell didn’t SOUND like anything, I figured the only logical course of action was to lick it. Seven years later, I still consider this one of the least sensible decisions I’ve ever made – It was tingly on my tongue and slightly acrid.

Cue my roommate coming in and asking me what I was doing licking his crystal deodorant. (This is actually a thing, in case you don’t believe me see proof here)

Apparently that’s a thing. I’ve kept my tongue to myself ever since. Practically licking your friend’s armpit will have that effect on you.

Water Park? More Like Slaughter Park.

Do you know what’s a really cool place? Vietnam. Vietnam is hilarious and delicious and wonderful. While there I saw a woman pooing in a river, I also saw a man fall off his fast moving motorbike as he tried to eat a cob of corn. Oh, and best of all - water puppets. Water puppets are pretty much the best, worst things you’ll ever see. They are screeching and nightmarish and comical and wet (check them out here, they are AMAZING). But one thing that I suggest you never, ever, EVER do in Vietnam is go to a waterpark. Namely, Vin Pearl water park in Nha Trang.

This water park was definitely not constructed in line with any sort of OH&S standards. After a very long, very high, ride over the ocean, in a gondola run on only a nine-volt battery (mmm… safe) I arrive in a creepily deserted fun park.

“How strange,” I thought, “this place is so awesome. Why is no one else here?” And like any good Stephen King novel (not Rose Madder, because that is a terrible Stephen King novel) I would find out soon enough.

The first water slide I came across was about fifty metres tall, supported by only one pole. Standing beneath it, you could see it sway violently as the rider was rocketed through its length. Probably due to having lived in such a safe country my whole life, I assumed that surely these waterslides were safe – the government would shut them down otherwise… wouldn’t they?! So I mounted the giant metal staircase and scaled the heights of the brightly coloured tube. Once at the top, I stopped to catch breath, and noticed that it was only upon my arrival at the summit that the operator turned the water on to lubricate the slide. The attendant quickly ushered me into the entrance and shoved me on my way.

It immediately became apparent how poorly built this structure was – I could feel the joins between each piece of tubing (I would soon discover that these joins were actually cutting me) once inside, the swaying of the poorly supported tube was no longer whimsical, but terrifying, and when I reached the bottom – of a fifty metre descent, having worked up some serious speed – I was dropped into a body of water, no larger than a three foot deep bath tub. How I wasn’t paralyzed, I really don’t know. I pulled myself out of the tub – slightly disoriented but alive – and wandered off only a little shaken and bloody.

For the rest of the day I stuck to the safer rides. You know, the chip stand, the gift shop, that one where you lie in a tube and float down a stream… And I should have continued to listen to the little voice of reason inside my head that told me how lucky I was to have escaped (relatively) unharmed from my first brush with those vicious waterslides. But of course I didn’t, and I was punished in probably the worst way I have ever been punished for anything before or since my trip to Vietnam.

Right by the exit to the waterpark were some pretty pedestrian looking slides. They were similar to slides at the Easter show – not too high, open to the air and with a pretty shallow gradient.

“One more before I go....” I thought. I didn’t realize it would be the last water slide I would ever go on. Because after the experience which ensued, I have a certified phobia of waterslides.

So again, I climbed to the top, sat down and launched myself down the slope. Now, upon initial inspection I didn’t realize that this slide was missing one thing crucial to all waterslides. While speed and velocity are directly proportionate to the amount of joy of a waterslide provides, the rate of deceleration is equally as important for, you know, not dying. Unfortunately for me this waterslide, while fun and zippy, did not provide enough room to slow down before you went straight into a solid wall. As I rapidly approached said wall, it became apparent that perhaps I was about to shatter my legs. Just as I opened my mouth to scream I discovered that a safe guard had been built into the waterslide to stop such an occurrence– in the form of two supercharged water jets spraying back towards the rider to slow them down rapidly.  

And this is how I came to be raped by a waterslide. It turns out that the mechanism which worked very effectively to stop me injuring myself, doubled as a very effective enema. So I found myself running as fast as my legs would carry me, to the bathroom. I didn’t make it. You don’t know shame until you poo yourself, in swimmers, in the middle of a water park. I declared defeat and went home, with a little bit more empathy for the water puppets. Perhaps I had judged them too harshly. Now it seems, I knew why they screamed so much while they were being whooshed around in the water – and they were certainly not screams of joy.

Don't Drink and Drive. But Also, Don't Get High and Dye.

I love making new friends. It’s great to expand your network, hear some new points of view, but MOSTLY because then I can tell them all my old stories and they will laugh at them like they are new. So I made a new friend recently, let’s call her J for sake of ease. Cue all my worn out anecdotes and pre-used puns. And then I remembered an extra reason why I like new friends - their hilarious anecdotes. So J arrived in Sydney (after living on the Gold Coast for her whole life) and immediately met up with some friends-of-friends to experience Sydney’s world-renowned nightlife (lol jokes). 

Not long into the outing one of her new friends enquired “Do you want to get a cab? I’ll need $40 if you do.” 

“Of course!” J responded. 

“How else would we get to the city?" She pondered. "And how expensive are taxis here?!”

Little did J know, what she’d actually been asked was “Do you want to get some caps?”

Caps, mum, (and everyone else who is as naive as little J), are a drug. I think they are like ecstasy. But I don’t know because I haven’t done them... No one has ever offered them to me - just another sad reminder that I’m getting older.

Upon arrival at the club J hopped out of the cab (undoubtedly, ironically, alongside friends who thought she was a tight ass for not putting money in to pay for the transportation) and once inside at the bar was handed the drugs she had agreed to buy. She feigned excitement, poured them into her drink and promptly visited the bathroom to flush them away. I know - what a waste of good money (and good drugs)!

Anyway, this all got me thinking about the time I was given some drugs by a friend. But was apparently not as savvy as J because I ingested them and consequently had a very weird day at university.

Rewind six years and you would find a very different version of Maz. I was 19, plagued by the requisite boy and family dramas that come with being teenager in their second year at uni. I would trudge into class every morning, sullen and dressed in oversized clothes. I felt this way I looked smaller and more vulnerable, therefore people would pity me more. What an attention seeker. Apparently I was successful though, because a good friend recognised I was going through a bit of a rough patch and brought me a gift. One juicy, plump brownie in a plastic takeaway container. 

He placed it on my desk and winked at me. Retrospectively, it was pretty damn obvious what was in it (marijuana, mum). At the time I apparently didn’t realise and promptly consumed it in its entirety. Five minutes later my friend swiveled in his chair and gasped 

“You didn’t eat that whole thing, did you?” 

“Um... yeah?” I replied.

Half an hour later, I was off my nut. I sat in my chair, knowing I had to go to the bathroom but completely unsure whether or not I was supposed to ask permission. Keep in mind that I was sitting in a lecture. That was completely full. I sat there debating whether or not to raise my hand and ask permission to pee. After about fifteen minutes I figured out that I was allowed to take myself off to the bathroom without approval (thank god), and left. 

A very long confused wander around the halls of university later, I decided it would probably be best to go home. I managed to locate my car and drove at about 30kms/hr back to Hornsby, where I parked at the shopping centre. But my adventure didn’t end there sober reader. How I wish it had.

For some reason I felt that a total makeover was in order. I purchased a new dress, after a very garbled conversation with a bewildered shop assistant, and decided that the next logical step would be to go to the hairdresser and get them to colour my hair. I opted for a very blonde blonde and settled in in the chair. Two hours later I was sober and had the most hideously brassy hair money could buy. I went home out of pocket $200, but having learnt an invaluable lesson - all my life I’d thought it was don’t take candy from strangers, turns out you’re not supposed to take candy from friends. No candy from friends. Got it.

Red Meat Is Good For Brain Development?

I’ll never forget it, the exact heart-racing, sigh-inducing, moment that I fell in love. I had butterflies. My senses were heightened. My eyes became misty… 

I’m not talking about when I met Mr. Maz – his first words to me were “I like your pants” and, to be honest, I thought he was a total creep. So my first words to him were “Um, my dad’s waiting for me outside.” No, Nick is not the topic of this anecdote, I’m talking about the first time I ate Nem Chua. It was a summer’s eve and we were at a friend’s house for dinner. Her Vietnamese heritage always means a phenomenal feed and the night I was introduced to these little slices of heaven was no different.

Nem Chua is this amazing Vietnamese meat dish, which is basically minced pork (or any meat for that matter) mixed with shredded pork skin, topped with sliced garlic and chili. You don’t cook it, but rather it is preserved and sort of ferments after you knead through a preservative powder (which i’m sure is full of MSG and other horrible things, but it’s delicious so I don’t care). Anyway, I was enamored with this savoury snack and would hang out for any occasion when my friend would deem it appropriate to whip it up.

Unfortunately for me, I am not very good at the whole “moderation” thing. A little quirk I have is that if I like the taste of something I only want to eat THAT. I don’t love sandwiches because I just want the filling, not the bread, so I have been known to purchase roast beef from the deli and eat it out of the bag.  I may have, on occasion, eaten sour cream out of the container with a spoon (and a sprinkling of salt). Once I ingested an entire jar of tomato paste WITH A STRAW. So it stands to reason that I would eventually try and make Nem Chua myself. So I could eat not one or two slices, but basically a whole packet of pork mince in one sitting. 

A few failed trips to Vietnamese grocery stores later and with a subsequent, generous endowment from my friend of a packet of pork skin and a sachet of chemically MSG goodness, I was ready to go. I lit some candles. I put on some mood music. And I kneaded the shit out of that pork. As I was emptying the packet of Nem Chua powder into the pork however, the little anti-desiccant sachet fell in along with the contents. I hurriedly grabbed it and threw it into the bin “disaster averted” I thought, “I wonder if any suckers actually think that sachet is part of the seasoning?” I chuckled to myself. Because I am so wise and, obviously, a multi-cultural kitchen whiz. And before you could say “mono sodium glutamate” I had completed the dish. I placed it in the fridge, hoping the next twenty four hours would fly by.

Twenty four hours later, I was standing at my refrigerator scratching my head. The pork didn’t look like it should. I was a dull grey, not a vibrant pink. It was leaking some sort of bloody, jellied fluid. I put it back and waited another two weeks, after all, it was packed full of preservatives - what harm could it do?! Fourteen days later the Nem Chua still looked a little strange, but strangeness had never before been a barrier to me eating something, so I tucked in and ate half of it in one fell swoop. 

I’m sure you can see where this story is going but you know I have to tell you the ending anyway. It was after I had eaten nearly 300 grams of pork that I asked my friend what it was I had done incorrectly so that my pork was not pink and bouncy, but dull and lifeless. And of course, it turned out that the sachet which I had pegged as an anti-desiccant was, in fact, the preservative powder - the active ingredient which allowed mere mortals to eat raw meat without getting ill. The rest was just seasoning. So I had gone against my better judgement and eaten half a packet of raw, out of date pork. Of course. Because shit like that only happens to Maz.

Listen More. Mumble Less.

I often mishear people. Mostly, this is not my fault. It is the fault of people who mumble. But through some annoying quirk of society, somehow the onus is on ME to understand these people who don’t know how to enunciate. When I don’t hear what someone says I will generally respond with “I beg your pardon?” When they repeat themselves and again, and again I haven’t been able to understand them I will ask “sorry, could you tell me once more?” and if, on the third attempt, I don’t hear them I give up and chuckle and nod. Sometimes I repeat key words I did understand and chuckle and nod. For twenty four years of my life this was a pretty harmless solution to this fairly common problem. Until a little while ago when this solution stopped working and just made me look like a bitch.

I was delivering coffee to a lady up the road from where I worked. I arrived, coffee in hand, and made some small talk – you know, the weekend bla bla bla, the weather bla bla bla, business bla bla bla bla. And then it all went to shit.

“My back hurts mumble mumble” she told me.

“That’s no good!” I replied. “What did you do to it?”

“I was mumble mumble lifting mumble mumble weighs one hundred kilos” she said.

“I beg your pardon?” came my response.

“I mumble mumble doing so much work mumble mumble lifting mumble one hundred mumble kilos!” she lamented (I assumed).

Forever the people pleaser that I am, I tried to sympathise with her. Despite the fact I wasn’t entirely sure what I was sympathising with – but I figured she’d hurt her back lifting something heavy.

“One hundred kilos?!” I exclaimed “That is heavy. No wonder your poor back is sore. Wow! Isn’t one hundred kilos, like, a ton?”

She gave me an odd look and I smiled broadly and sincerely, wished her a nice afternoon and left.

You know how you only think of fantastic comebacks after you’ve finished an argument with someone? Or when someone asks you the name of that character from Family Ties and you can’t think of it until a few hours later when you’re not with them anymore? And sometimes after you leave a conversation you realise retrospectively what someone was saying to you, when earlier you had misheard them. Well, this was one of those times. So of course, it was only after I had walked back to work that I realised what this lady had told me.  In my mind the “mumbles” left her sentences and it became very apparent that she’d just told me that it was difficult to lift things because she had put on weight and weighed one hundred kilos. She had hurt her back because it is harder lifting things when you WEIGH one hundred kilos.

So in real life our conversation had gone something like:

Her: “I weigh one hundred kilos”

Me: “Wow! That’s so heavy! Isn’t that like a ton? Geez your back must be sore!”

Moral of the story? Start. Using. Correct. Pronunciation. And. Diction. In. Your. Sentences. Or I will be accidentally cruel to you.