Tumgik
#whelp the quote generator and i have bonded now
Text
Thor: I turned out perfectly fine!
Bruce: Thor, this morning you thought a ghost made your toast.
Thor: I DIDN’T PUT THE BREAD IN, YOU DIDN’T PUT THE BREAD IN!!!
152 notes · View notes
Text
Now You’re a Mouse Caught In a Mouse-trap and Another Mouse Has Discovered You and Is Now Buggaring You
“Okay, now you’re a mouse caught in a mouse-trap and another mouse has discovered you and is now buggaring you.”
A big part of me doesn’t want to give any explanation or context for this quote from Greg, primary school librarian, IT guy and father of two. If you want to leave this quote contextless and go about the rest of your day torturing yourself over what in God’s name Alex got up to in Bogotá this weekend, then stop reading here and tune in next week.
Okay. So, Tejo is a Colombian game, similar to ring-toss, in which you hurl rocky discs, or ‘tejos’, at a small wall of wet clay about the size of a small door, or rather a sheet of A2. In the middle of the wall is a metal ring, and on the metal ring are four faded pink, triangular sachets of gunpowder known as ‘mechas’. You get one point for landing the tejo in the clay, three points for hitting the mecha, and five points for landing it in the exact centre of the ring. However, three points, not mathematically, but morally and spiritually, are far more valuable than five points, for a direct hit on the mecha triggers a tiny explosion from both the gunpowder and the spectators, who instinctively whelp whelps of ‘¡olé!’ and ‘¡mechaaaaaaaaaa!’ in a style reminiscent of Miis when you bowl the ball backwards of Wii Sports. Desiring a change of scene from the usual Friday night tienda, we gathered a troop to come play this absurd game. We left straight after work to grab ourselves a lane, and luckily snagged the last one available in a confined room consisting of three lanes separated only by a bench and a thin bit of fencing on each side of the clay wall, a slightly concerning amount of safety precautions for a game that is literally blowing stuff up with rocks.
We got started and mecha-shots were few and far between. In fact, it took me at least four tries to even hit the clay. However, what I neglected to mention was that one does not pay for a lane at the Tejo rink, one pays for a crate of beer. So long as you keep drinking and purchasing beer, you maintain your right to the lane. So now we can add alcohol into the equation along with blowing stuff up and throwing rocks. Yet, somehow, in a totally backwards way, the more we drank, the better we got. Halfway through our second crate, I was regularly forgetting where my tejo had landed pretty much immediately after throwing it, yet I still managed to hit three or four mechas in my intoxication. Then came Greg’s ingenious idea to throw tejos in the style of a characters: his original idea was to do it in the style of a T. Rex or a constipated rabbit. Y’know, relatively innocent, harmlessly fun concepts, which very quickly escalated into ‘George W. Bush finding out about 9/11’, ‘Theresa May having a sexual fantasy about screwing the homeless’ and, of course, “a mouse caught in a mouse-trap and another mouse has discovered you and is now buggaring you.” When I witnessed George imitating said mouse being buggared by said other mouse, I knew that this game was a piece of Colombian culture that I must bring back to the UK in July.
At some point there was some sort of silent mutual decision that enough gunpowder had been shed on this night and everyone hustled into an uber van back to the gap house, where Stephen and Dom considered the practically of climbing the roof and I talked to Greg about Twin Peaks and his days as a drum and bass skanker. All in all it was a very pleasant, friendly and funny evening.
The following day was introduced by a wash of blissful sun, somewhat of an anomaly in the recent pattern of grey skies and thunderous rain. I suggested to take advantage of the day’s brightness and warmth by visiting Bogotá’s botanical gardens. But, as is the law of sod, the black clouds followed and swelled along with our taxi, drizzling wet specs of dust on the window before unleashing the full contents of their mighty load almost as soon as we set foot in the park. We strolled about between the beds of exotic plants and admired their gradients and patterns, but at the same time we were getting absolutely pelted with rain, a combination of activities that cannot be endured for overly long. And so, though the garden was stunningly beautiful and diverse, the thunder ultimately chased us back to whence we came, and I began preparing for our night out at ‘Baum’, an electronic music club that I’d heard several, pardon the pun, rave reviews about.
Baum was good. It was okay. Not great, but fine, and I’m glad I went. It was split into two rooms: a glowing red room with a tree growing behind the decks up through the clear glass ceiling, and a dark room lit only by the electrifying LED screen behind the DJ with a ceiling designed like churning waves in a choppy sea. I spent most of my night there in the latter, where the basslines were far more stomach-shaking and face-fuzzing. However, in both rooms the music was fairly repetitive, though good, and the people were all a bit ‘too cool for school’. In contrast to the explosively energetic of previous nights out in Bogotá at Theatron, Baum seemed to attract a more ‘trendy hipster’ crowd who were all too chic and smart to be seen having a good time, so instead of blaring smiles and moronic dancing there were bookish frowns and lazy shuffling. In the end, I decided to watch the lightshow from behind my glowing eyelids and to let the bass take me on calm wave which directly opposed the image the room created through the wild sea on the ceiling.
When I got home, I stayed up for a little while longer talking with Stephen over a microwaved bowl of pasta leftovers. We talked in some detail about our time in Colombia so far and how we can cram as much of the country into our memories before our time here is up. The morning after, I skyped my friend Ellie from back home and we caught each other up over the events of the past two months. It was great to see and hear her and we talked for almost an hour and I can’t wait to see her and the rest of the Nailsea gang again. It was interesting that I enjoyed each of my conversations with Greg, Stephen and Ellie more than I enjoyed the strobes and wubs of Baum. I guess it reminded me that it’s the people you meet and the bonds you make that tie you to a place, rather than the more superficial experiences. I think I will always remember the rapturous laughter on the Tejo alley and the people that generated it. And when I do leave in June, I think they’ll be what I miss the most, a fact which will no doubt go down interestingly at my next summer extended family gathering: “so what was your favourite moment from your time in Colombia, Alex?” “Well Gran, I’d have to say the re-enactment of a mouse getting caught in a mouse-trap and then another mouse discovering them and buggaring them.”
4 notes · View notes