My day: "Hello?"
"Hello. I am a journalist. I need to talk to Monsieur Onaud."
"I don't understand the English."
"Wasn't I just talking to you? I called there five minutes ago and I spoke with someone who spoke English."
(Unintelligibile Francobabble)
"Journalist. Jorno-leest. I am calling back with the fax number you asked for."
"Fax?! Fax?!"
"Oh sweet jeebus."
New voice: "Hello?"
"Hello. My name is John Ness. I am a journalist. I need your office to give me written permission to travel through Chad."
"John?"
"First name John. Last name Ness. N-E-S-S."
"S?"
"N. E. S. S."
"Ness."
"I need you to fax me a letter saying I have permission to travel through Chad."
"You want to fax me?
"You fax me. You write the letter, and you fax it to me." I give him the number, and tell him what the document needs to say. "Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay. Now I need one other. Or. Or you could just hang up. Summon a golddammed batch." Everyone in the internet cafe looks at the yelling white guy.
Repeat this scene with minor variations three or four times, with a $10 bill for each attempted communication with Chad, and you have la dia mia.
...
The break from blogging was good. It became a necessity after my cell phone was stolen last week, right off my front porch.
Every day I come home and empty my pockets on the porch table so I can get to my keys. My shirt is usually pretty stank from the sun and the walking so I take that off immediately too. (I make a pretty repulsive transformation when I get home: pantcuffs muddy from jumping across the waterlogged shortcut, pockets hanging inside-out, untanned hairy honkey belly sullenly eyeing the premises.) This day, I forgot to bring the phone back inside, and at some point that night or early the next morning someone nicked it.
I don't need a cell phone to blog. But when my phone got stolen, I tried to write about having my phone stolen, and then three hours later I had this sentimental, unending, Howard Zinn-grade crapola that was just too awful to post. The next morning there was an actual funk wafting off the computer screen.
If I just would have written about how I'd like to punch the thief in the nose, things might have turned out okay. But I tried to go big, and it turned out really, really bad. I had to recoil from the whole excercise for a week.
So a Kit-Kat break was in order. But then this entry sucked rocks as well, didn't it? May need another break. Hope ya'll are well.
