Bluetooth, red hair, roadkill

Having recently gone for a new hue, I am amazed at how changing the colour of your hair affects day-to-day life. Mind you, when I went through my blonde phase I don’t think anyone really thought it was very ‘me’ – I am not blonde by nature, thankfully. The point is that my dabbling with red streaks has had a variety of reactions from people. M y grandmother disapproved, as she is prone to do. In fact every time I change my hair she says, “Well Simon, I think I liked it better how it was before”. She has maintained this habit for as long as I can remember. Nowadays her eyesight is not too good but she was nonetheless adamant that it looked better in its previous incarnation. Apparently her macular degeneration is bad enough that she can’t read the crosswords in the local paper, but it’s not so severe as to prevent her from noticing my highlights (which apparently did not conform to her taste – something she has been developing for the last ninety and a half years).My work friends were impressed with the new shade but decided it was actually pink and for a short time were calling me ‘Pinky’. Thankfully they grew tired of this habit within a matter of hours. (“Yes if you just take it to the counter Pinky will check the price for you”. The novelty is short lived, trust me.)For fucks sake, it’s not pink. IT’S RED!!!!While on the topic of work I should mention that I had a customer complain about me last week. At my polite request to take her items to the counter to pay for them it became rather apparent that she wanted to purchase an argument as well as some crossword books. My tried and true method for dealing with these people is to make a quick and mildly offensive comment, which they will not have the wit to respond to, so that they just leave. In this instance my comment was, “My boss didn’t just spend 200 grand doing up the shop for us to not use the new counter”. This had the desired effect, at least until she came back and spoke to the said boss about that poorly trained ginger-haired smart-arse at the front counter. He told her to take her business elsewhere. Really, I have no problem with being called a smart arse – quite the opposite in fact. But my hair is not ginger.IT’S RED!!!!To less trifling matters, I ran over a possum on Beecroft Road last night. I don’t as a rule like possums. Neither does my uncle who I live with. Much of his waking hours seem to be spent sweeping possum shit off the front verandah as part of his endless quest to maintain The Immaculate Home. I thought of my uncle as I drove over this intrepid little furry bastard. I don’t believe it faired too well through the experience, judging by the crunch, and the fact that it was moving when I saw it through the windscreen but not when I looked in the rear vision mirror. I didn’t actually aim for it, but then I didn’t try to avoid it either – the RTA Road Users Handbook says not to swerve for animals. A friend of mine, also technically minded, had a problem with possums in his garage roof. Noticing that they were all walking along one particular beam, he set up a pair of metal plates and connected them to the active and neutral on his mains power. He used a ten amp fuse in the circuit but it never blew because the possums’ legs could only handle about eight amps before they were detached from the animal and blasted across the room. What this method lacks in terms of subtlety it more than makes up for in effectiveness. I should suggest it to my uncle.Coincidently, I was relating this strategy to Bruce at Stonewall on Friday night (because it’s such a good place to have a conversation) and during the same discussion came up with the idea of a Bluetooth vibrator. The concept is that you can control your vibrator from a hand-held Bluetooth remote control. Very discreet and thus perfect for use in lectures or the workplace. I am sure this idea is viable since the makers of these things seem very keen to differentiate their products, judging by the variety of shapes and sizes in which they are already available. Of course, there would have to be security measures built in, since the proliferation of Bluetooth enabled mobile phones means that you might have Mary from the next desk setting you to Megagasm mode every time she goes to send a text message. But all this does not solve the problem of the possum bits that are sprayed up the side of my car. They have gone kind of gummy and from my vast experience of running over wildlife I can report that this stuff causes rust in minutes. Maybe its better to hit the brakes just before hitting an animal so that the wheels lock and it just gets smeared across the road. (Unless of course you have anti-lock brakes, in which case you would get a sort of rippled effect.) The guts could at least match the paint colour so as not to stand out so much. This would be good because my car is not painted anything like the brown/green/burgundy/mauve specks currently bonded to the door.IT’S RED!!!!