Friday 12 March 2010

Mrs G Goes To Work



And there's make-up on the upholstery


My favourite car is a very beaten-up Nissan. Bits are falling off, but the engine and gearbox are sweet as they come, and parking is a breeze1. But recently I am doubly smitten.

First my lovely motor has begun to pong. It's quite unpleasantly pungent. I've searched under the seats, in the boot2, in all the little handy Japanese compartments, for rotting fruit, dead animals or stale twiglets, but nothing. Maybe it's e Coli in the AC, or a Coli in the EC, or something. I'm not good with cars.

Secondly, Mrs G has begun taking it to work. As mentioned last post, she has found herself gainful employment, abandoning me to clean the porcelain. To add insult to injury, she's nicked my car.

Mrs G loves her job. She works on a smallholding providing opportunities for people to learn horticultural and outdoor skills. They have 100 chickens3, some donkeys, rabbits, three lambs (soon), and about a trillion worms.

And since Mrs G likes to share the love, and they have a constant need of help, she asked me. A door on their chicken shed is loose; could I fix it?

Well of course I could. Like most men I am extraordinarily gifted at fixing stuff. Except cars. I chuck the drill in the (other) car and head up. Mrs G shows me the offending door. Although it is a challenge drilling while being surveyed at close quarters by Chicken Licken and Henny Penny, it's fixed in a jiffy! Damn, I'm good. Mrs G, all impressed innocence, invites me for tea as my reward. Why, I'd love to. Teatime is in about an hour.

It's about now I should have got suspicious.

An hour to kill. What shall we do? I've got a suggestion, says Mrs G, fluttering her eyelashes, today is the day we clean out the chickens. Come and help me. OK. What does that involve?

Over the next hour I really earn that tea. 'Cleaning out the chickens' is a euphemism, like 'walking the dog'4. It really means shovelling colossal mounds of chicken crap into wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow. I had no idea chickens had such a productive digestive system. It's a foul job (pun intended). The fumes could knock a grown man off his feet5.

But wait a minute! I know that smell. And after tea I watch Mrs G pack up. She changes into her day shoes and chucks her gunge-encrusted boots into the back of my lovely car. So there's a silver lining. I simply treat Mrs G to another pair of boots she can use at home; and lo, my Nissan pongeth no more.

And that's my last scatalogical post for a while, you'll be relieved to hear. Spring has sprung; time to move on to more fragrant themes. But not before I show you this, with the best product write-up, ever. Ha! I never need to clean another toilet again. Or chicken.



1 - French style. Just drive up to stuff until you hit it
2 - That's 'trunk' to you, colonial chums
3 - 98 if we're picky. Two popped their clogs over Christmas
4 - Which actually means 'taking the dog to poop on the neighbour's lawn'
5 - That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Tripping over a chicken would be undignified

27 comments:

  1. That shitbox is really expensive.

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  2. Glad you've solved the great Pongy Mystery.

    Not so sure about that loo. I do hope the biodegradable bags are brown in colour (otherwise the person in the photos is scrapping up a rather large splatter...euuuwww!)

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  3. Did you check the windscreen fluid chamber? I was filling that up one day and discovered a rotting family of rats, some apple cores, the remains of a kebab and worst of all, a solitary stale twiglet. I printed out a couple of Jamie Oliver's rants and stuffed them down, if any more rats took up residence there I wanted them to have a healthy balanced diet.

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  4. Chicken crap is usually made up from a lot of lime, so that won't be doing your car much good!
    The door that I have on my chicken coop just slides up and down, but they are usually running around the yard anyway...and accidents CAN happen, if only the damn things would stay still for a minute while I run my 4x4 over them!
    I reckon all my hens should pay a visit to Foxy Loxy. (No I am very humane!)

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  5. Yep, you were totally bamboozled.

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  6. does this mean you'll never help mrs. g again? just when i thought you were so nice...!

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  7. That shit box - such luxury. If I hadn't had to dig my own toilet at Greenham I'd still be there, braiding bracelets.

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  8. What troubles this reader is that the website at the link is subtitled "amazing gifts"

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  9. The roles are reversed now, it seems...? :)

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  10. Hmm, I thought someone must have guffed in it - these things can linger.

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  11. Another hilarious post, Mr. Car-Pongeth-No-More!

    You are kind to clean-up after animals. I'm feeling ill just thinking about it.

    Shitbox. Lovely.

    ;-)

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  12. Congrats on the pong-free car!

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  13. I've just showed the shitbox to my essex boy husband, and he got all offended. I have no idea what's going on in the world. I think it's great. I'd get the one for posh grownups with the lack of swear words. But that's because I have two little girls who'd get their mouths washed out with soap if they read it out loud. Not because I am in any way refined.

    Maybe you could get one for the chickens to shit in?

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  14. hahah. I was hoping for the fluttering eyelashes to mean a nooner.
    Damn.
    Probably not since I have no idea when Tea Time is...

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  15. mmm...gotta love shoveling chicken poop...nasty buggers...guess the frying get rid of that though, right?

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  16. You should call in to Car Talk on NPR. They are pretty smart when it comes to that stuff. Cool blog!

    Jesse
    http://jesseacohen.blogspot.com/

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  17. Don't let her near your car ever again. She can't be trusted with anything nice.

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  18. That really was a funny post, chicken licken and henny penny?
    Mrs G sure made you earn that tea huh?

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  19. Last scatalogical post for a while? No shit....

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  20. How terrible of Mrs.G. Glad the pongy issue has been resolved, its awful when you have a smell you can't trace.

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  21. Tell Mrs. G. I would like a lovely hand knitted jumper from all the lambswool for Christmas.

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  22. Tell Mrs. G. congrats on figuring out the first rule of marriage. Put your stinky footwear in the husband's car and he'll buy you either new shoes or a new car. :)

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  23. RT ~ Not qwhen you've been on your knees all day scrubbing it isn't

    Nat ~ Good point. I think they are.

    mo ~ I'll go and check

    Alice ~ Now I've got a lovely vision of you chasing chickens in a Land Rover

    BHunter ~ Wasn't I? I'm a sucker for a cuppa

    Sarah ~ Of course I'll help! Not with chickens though

    Arabella ~ Greenham eh? That takes me back

    IT ~ I thought they were amazing! But not in a nice way

    MiMi ~ Yup. I can't win

    GB ~ It comes with deguffer, I believe. The Japanese think of everything

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  24. RefGeek ~ Thank you! I thought you were a hardened cat owner

    AmyLK ~ Yes, it;s got another ten years or so in it

    pixie ~ Brilliant! Brilliant! Mind you we'd need 98 of them

    JenJen ~ Well I have no idea what a nooner is. Ahem

    Brian ~ Frying? I like it

    Copyboy ~ Welcome! I'll give it a go

    Mme D ~ Tell me about it. And she sat on my guitar

    J ~ You are my hundredth follower! Cool! I owe you a beer

    Matthew ~ :) Touche (can't find the accent, sorry)

    PW ~ Yup, and not just in cars neither

    wasa3 ~ Coming right up. Do you mind donkey wool if thy run out?

    Vege ~ She got me, didn't she? Bugger

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  25. Hey Uber, you made 100!! That makes you a centurion, right? CONGRATS!

    But about the lack of stale twiglets. Man, your life sucks. Sorry.

    Cheers anyway,
    Robyn

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  26. Funny post although now I can't seem to stop picturing chicken poo.


    Kate x

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  27. Oh my.....is it possible? I believe Mrs. G and I may have been seperated at birth. Would that give me dual citizenship?

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