You know what I like? Being surprised every now and again – you know, little things! Someone at work bringing me a coffee out of the blue, an unexpected email from a long lost friend, finding money in an old coat…the list goes on! These things serve as little day brighteners that boost your mood and make you feel like the world isn’t all so shitty after all…
But as we all know, not all surprises are positive. In fact some are downright vicious…whether it’s finding out you put on three tons (three pounds if we’re not being dramatic), slipping over on dog shit, walking about with toilet paper attached to your foot, sending a text talking about someone to the actual person, walking in on…okay, so that list also, unfortunately, goes on and on…
I think we can all agree that Friday is a bittersweet moment in our weeks; one side of us is all “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, IT’S FRIDAY, WE OUTTTTTTAHEEEEEEAAAAAAR!”, whilst the other side is dragging its feet, moaning at every movement and eventually crying in a corner wondering whether the working day will ever come to an end. As a result, small surprises are worth double points on this day…however the surprises that make you want to shrivel up and die, well, yeah…they’re worth a lot less too.
Let me cut to the chase. So this Friday I decided I would surprise myself (because no one else did, humph) and took myself off to Starbucks to get an overly sweet and caffeinated treat: a big double shot iced caramel macchiato, which equals JOLLY LEVEL SANTA CLAUS – and it was all courtesy of one of my student’s Mothers, who gave me a $30 gift card just a couple of weeks ago!
Blog Reader: John, was that one of those good surprises we just talked about?
John: Very astute! Yes it fucking was!
Blog Reader: Nice hair by the way!
John: You’re too kind – wow, you just made my day!
Blog Reader: I love you…I want to scoop out your eyeballs so I can see how your mind works.
John: Errr…so, that is an example of the not so good surprises we were talking about…
So after I picked up my coffee I started to skip back to work, feeling like I was on the yellow brick road to my dreams (aka a pizza filled weekend) and that nothing could possibly stop me…how wrong I was. Despite the hot and sunny day, something was about to happen that would well and truly piss on my parade and dampen my spirits.
As I cut through the park I saw an older gentleman who looked like he was doing some gardening in the shade, trimming the verge bush or something – this isn’t really out of the ordinary, so I didn’t pay it too much attention; with that said I prepared my “I’m a nice young guy and not a youthful criminal” smile and nod anyway (always be prepared!). So as I approached, I realized I had startled the poor fella as he turned to look at me with a shocked rabbit in front of headlights type of face – as he did I began my smile/nod routine, only to hear a faint trickle on my boots…his hose pipe perhaps, or maybe – ”ARGHH, WHA, WOW!?” I managed to stammer, while I tried not to look at his only partially concealed penis…my tiny brain couldn’t comprehend what had just happened, we both stood and just stared at my shoes, in awe of the weirdness of this early morning sequence…
…of course eventually he said sorry after he snapped out of his embarrassed daze, “oooh, errr, joe song hap neee daa! I Sho-ree.” (죄송합니다!) But the damage was done – and we just stayed standing there, both staring at the dark drops on my feet for what seemed like forever…but after roughly a millennia, I too snapped out of my cringe fuelled time warp and said thank you, before heading on my way.
THANK YOU…I said THANK YOU! Oh thank you so much for pissing on my shoes! I feel it adds a kind of bad boy can’t be tamed style to my footwear, actually can you do it every day? I just can’t live without this new rugged look! Urgh. Thank you…sometimes social awkwardness breeds such stupidity.
But it gets worse though. Despite what people like to think, young children are actually quite sharp and as a result they pick up on the smallest of things (and exploit it to no end like the evil little geniuses they are), so there was no way they were going to let me get away with this debacle…
”Waz that teacher?”
“Coffee.”
Kneels down on the floor and smells my boots.
“Pee-pee. Definitely pee-pee.”
So naturally then, I found myself having to explain myself to a classroom of six year olds, just so they don’t run home and tell their parents that their teacher has trouble going to the toilet without making a royal mess. URGH. Anyway, I ended up buying them ice cream – hopefully that will fill their news headlines at the dinner table and they will forget all about the whole thing…
Yeah, right.
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John Lee Taggart 
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