Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Gangsta Wrap, Fortune Budgies

GANGSTA WRAP... yeah on the so-called "perfect present" ... I turned up late for my drug clinic appointment today as I wasn't at all in the mindset to go; but had to turn up; did turn up ~ and all the reasons I did not want to go confronted me there.

The people. The talk. The general seedy vibe.

This one woman. A grown thirty-something year-old woman was reagaling all who would listen (i.e. one acquaintance at a time at the top of her voice while the rest of the room earwigged on) about her latest arrest. And what particular kind of handcuffs were put on her. And how she was caged in. And her mobile phone kept ringing showing a picture of something she whispered about doing with her boyfriend and the police got a cheap thrill eleven times because that's how frequently he called back. And her listeners sympathized "I hate it when they do that" (ie twist your hands backwards in the cuffs or whatever it was they did) and as for the police "that was their loss" (how? When her private moment was repeatedly flashed back on screen was this their shame and not hers?)

But this is a drug clinic and hardly the place you'd come to hear sense of any kind. I have spent so very much time with fellow degenerates I sometimes forget just how far below ordinary people's standards and experience we've fallen, until, like today, I check myself and remind myself that I want to go up now and not down. One "client" kept returning with a hacksaw almost falling out of his weatherbeaten backpack... having forgotten various minor carpentry items along the way .... and presumably forgotten his antipsychotics as well.

Also I know this woman and she is quite middle-class. What some disparagingly call a "coconut" ~ ie brown on the outside but white on the inside. She was putting on this silly cockney accent that is just not her. How vulgar. (She never "talks black" though so maybe there's some truth in the "coconut" jibe after all. O maybe not I'm not at all comfortable on this topic, truth be told... so to continue ...

Then another friend of this woman's came in, so she told the tale again. And yet another. And she so told the tale outside. (Where a whole other background audience could hear of her wisecracking supposed answers to the custody seargeant and who said what and how great was her injustice and so on.) Seeing me smoking my rollie her third friend demanded a smoke off me and then had the temerity to look aghast when I told him no I didn't have a smoke for him. When a good half hour later he saw me lighting up on leaving he yelled out, "Got a smoke now, haven't you?!?" while his girfriend grabbed his arm and pulled him on. I said nothing. But I cannot comprehend the cheek of someone who reckons I practically owe him something :: when he wouldn't trouble to urinate on me if I were on fire ... But then again there's too many folks like that in this world ~ people who expect favours and indulgences they would never return ~ among the junkified as well as the straight.

Ho-hum... so that was my experience down the methadone clinic.

Also I discovered that someone I used to know quite well and hung about with and shared a bed with (but not in that way) has been spreading genital warts all over the local manor. Ukk!

THE OTHER THING I wanted to tell you was the fortune telling budgies I saw up the high road the other day. Gypsy lady with a perch upon which two extraordinarily tame (wing-clipped, of course) budgies went cheerily chirping and pecking at their seeds. When a paying customer came along she offered the tray of cards to the birds, the yellow one grabbed one at random with its beak and threw it on her lap. This she handed to the customer. His fortune was written thereupon.... (I'd have loved to have heard some such "fortunes" but the two customers I witnessed kept them to themselves. Maybe they were too embarrassing. Or near the knuckle. Or bland! This wasn't tarot cards or anything like it; the "fortunes" were individually written out on coloured folded paper-card in fortune-cookie style. For one pound and a performing budgie, I don't expect you can hope for the detailed tape recorded reading plus portfolio print-out some of the £80 an hour merchants promise. But hey! Those performing birds were fun!!

They were so entertaining, in fact, I wish I could've filmed and youtubed them. They'd get zillions of hits there.


***

HEY~~ BLAST FROM THE (1992(?)) PAST ~::~ ...
PS AM I ALONE in not considering "Erotica"
"erotic"?
Click here, see for yourself and add your critique.
We can make this Slag Off Madonna Day!

13 comments:

  1. It sounds like an altogether seedier version of a piece Victoria Wood does about waiting at hospital outpatients. Perhaps you should try writing it up as a funny monologue, with different voices. It would be an interesting writing exercise and might make your next visit more entertaining too!

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  2. hmmmm seedier is the operative word!

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  3. The clinic sounds horrid. Even more reason to clean up.

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  4. Thanks for stopping by my blog and wishing me a happy blogiversary. I wish you all the best.

    Punkin

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  5. Hmmmm!
    Good stuff! I want to go back and read it all! And it is enlightening; in ways I didn’t know I wanted to see thru the blinds.
    Rock on!

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  6. It's always very interesting to see your point of view and to follow your experiences. You have such an accute perception of life...

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  7. That woman is an attention seeker, isn't she...and that guy who demanded a smoke off you...one of the ones that think the world owes them.

    I think Liz's idea is a good one, it could put a whole new slant on your next clinic visit...relatively speaking.

    Take care.

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  8. Hello Gledwood

    The clinic sounds pretty bad. I assume that you are on methadone? I have zero knowledge are you replacing some of your heroin with this? Sounds like a good move. If you kick the stuff you can get away from the riff raff.

    ttfn
    sadgirl x

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  9. hiya oh heck clinic dnt sound 2 gd at all, hope u sort yaself out like, the blog we have done is for my Alevel media course work, quite interesting that you came accross it, our basic idea is that we had 2 analise a few music videos and do some research on music cultures to help give us our own ideas for our own music videos. thanks for the interest. Rach x

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  10. Sounds like a circus there gled...as nicole said - even more reason to get clean up and get out of that place.

    I remember before my brother was resistance to any help and we'd have to encounter his "group" - he'd hit the lowest of the low and it was like a freak show. The day we got him out of a crack house was the worst...I blogged about it.

    Madonna was riding on the concept of sex sells and I just thought she was slutty. She's never been one of my favorites...she's a little too high on herself for my liking.

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  11. *should read before WHEN my brother was resistance

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  12. Hi Gled ~~ Sounds like a crazy place
    It would be great bot to have to go there if you could just beat this thing. Saying some prayers for you my friend. Take great care, Best wishes, Merle,

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  13. The guy who wanted a smoke is a bundle of joy, isn't he? I dunno, Gleds - I've met some pretty weird people myself, in all sorts of places where you wouldn't expect it [such as school staff rooms]. But you tell a great tale and well done for going there, even if you were late! Oh, if only you could have filmed the fortune budgies!

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