The Yellowjacket, the Horsefly, and the Surprise

I'm blogging on the run today, so none of my drawings will be making an appearance. Instead, I will supplant this post with real pictures of real things.

Err... On the run as in not at home. Not like running from the law. I'm not doing that. I'm just not at home. Right now. Today. ... I'm making everything worse.

Let's start over.

I'm not blogging from home today, so none of my drawings will be making an appearance, etc.

Okay, so, lately strange things keep flying into my car while I'm driving on the highway. This has happened to me twice THRICE in the past two weeks. <- That previous emotionally charged statement is due to the fact that when I started drafting this post, only two things had flown into my car, but as I was driving to where I am now, a THIRD thing flew into my car. It's a ridiculously apocalyptic time for me, my friends.

I'm gonna make a list.

1. The Yellowjacket

For those of you who don't live on the hellish landscape that is the American Midwest, this is the embodiment of horror commonly known as a yellowjacket:

"I'mma sting yo' face and plant eggs in yo' nose" [via]

Now, yellowjackets are not all that harmful, after you put aside the fact that they're predatory wasps and thus can sting you like 8,000 times or until they get bored. Whichever comes first. I, myself, have never been stung by anything, so I have no idea whether or not I'm allergic to bee and wasp stings.

So you can imagine my terror when, as I'm driving down the highway, I look down and notice that there is a tiny little yellowjacket ass abdomen poking out of a fold in my shirt. I was like O.O

There was nowhere to stop on the road, and I didn't know what to do, so I basically held my breath for the next ten minutes until I was able to pull over into a gas station. I needed gas anyway, so two birds and all that. So I unbuckled my seatbelt very, very slowly. It twitched. I twitched. But I had to keep calm, lest I suffer the wrath of 8,000 stings. I opened the door, gingerly, and stepped out all squatted and bow-legged so as to not disrupt the creature's resting state, and then extremely quickly flicked my shirt out and ran back, preparing myself for battle.

Except nothing bad happened. I looked, and there the thing was, writhing on the ground, just dying. I had no idea how or why this happened, and proceeded to assume that it just wanted to die next to a living thing instead of alone. At that point, I felt kinda sorry for it.

"Just... just cuddle with me... while I... die..." [via]

Then...

2. The Horsefly

Re: Hellish landscape that is the American Midwest, and enter:

And on the eighth day, God was like "You know what, fuck humans".  [via]

The picture doesn't do it justice, but those bitches are HUGE. The one that flew into my car, again, while I was driving on the highway, was at least two inches long. And also they bite. As per Wikipedia: "Most short tongued species of horse flies use their knife-like mandibles to rip and/or slice flesh apart". Awesome, right? Moreover, they carry a metric fuckton of diseases.

So yes, that guy flies into my car and I'm like "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT" because unlike the yellowjacket, it wasn't trapped in my shirt, but rather it just flew in on a stray breeze through the window and proceeded to taunt me from the dash, doing that weird-ass hand washing gesture that flies do. So, again, I had to find somewhere to pull over, but the problem was that, at any moment, dude could've decided to fly into my face and bite the shit out of me. Which I was very afraid of. I've been bitten by one of those before, when I was a wee tyke, and it ain't fun.

I did manage to pull over, but even though I got out of the car, Mr. Horsefly did not. This required strategy. I knocked on the windshield from the outside, and it just flew over to the other side of the car. So I knocked on that side. Same thing. So I opened ALL THE DOORS and continued with my knocking strategy until the thing flew out and away and presumably into someone else's car to ruin their day.

Seriously God, why WHY?! [via]

THEN TODAY...

3. The MOTHERFUCKING ROBIN

This is Batman's homoerotic sidekick, Robin:

"Put on pants? But... why?" [via]

Just to clear the confusion, that is not the kind of robin that flew into my car. But if he would've, I would've bought him some motherfucking pants because Goddammit Robin, men wear pants.

This, however, is what flew into my car:

Herald of Spring or Harbinger of Doom? You decide. [via]

Now, I was already shaken enough by the two stupid bugs that flew into my car while I was driving on the highway. But then today, this? I'm CONVINCED that I'm gonna die soon or something. Why does this keep happening to me?

There I am, driving, rocking out, getting strange looks from the people around me, but fuck them, don't they sing in their cars? Now this time, I was not on the highway, rather, I was just in town. Then one of the above pictured birds flies into my car, slams into my windshield with a highly audible thunk, falls over on the dash, and then flutters meekly out the other window and continues on with its day, disoriented and all. Meanwhile, my heart is pounding and the people around me who were already not flattered by my one-man-band-car-show are laughing hysterically. I sent them birds of my own.

So now I'm sitting here wondering what will fly into my car next. I mean, the things have only been getting bigger. How's it go? A bird, a plane, no Superman? Well anyway, all I see are various nightmarish scenarios for my future, my friends. Pray for me. I need it.

The BS 3 - "Noor vs. The Washer"

You should know that when it comes to technology, I'm a tad bit inept. When I was a kid, I loved technology, and I was always current on the latest trinkets and gadgets and all that, but when I turned 20 it was like all of the die-hard interest got replaced by a smog of confusion, rendering me helpless (old-man style) in the face of electronic devices. Ever since, I've had many harrowing experiences with all sorts of machines, and my time in Brazil did not get spared these such experiences.

The worst one ever was my ongoing brawl with the washer in my apartment. Commence, as my friend Merry put it, the harrowing tale of Noor versus...

THE WASHER.

The Trollmatic.

Now, being that I'm a lazy boy (if you couldn't guess), laundry is something that I dread so much that it gives me night terrors. HOWEVER when I do laundry, I go all out. I wash everything. That's the Virgo in me, I suppose.

Unfortunately, I wash everything... together. Which I know isn't good for your clothes, but whatever. No one's complained to me yet and I've been washing my clothes that way for years. Sadly, that goddamn washer back in Brazil was not having any of my shit.

So, the first time I did laundry was about... oh... a month and a half after I got there. That was the point at which all my clothes had been worn, most of them multiple times, and I was out of money to buy more clean underwear. At that point I figured, "alright... I'll do my laundry, GOD."

I walked up to that mechanical beast and promptly shoved all of my clothes in there and then proceeded to pour an obscene amount of detergent over them, because that's how it works, right? Anyway, Mr. Washer was doing his thing, and I went about my day.

I like Atlas symbolism.

Let me tell you something about Brazil: There are maybe two clothes dryers in that whole country. It's not that they aren't available, it's just that Brazilians (from what I heard) prefer to hang dry their clothes. Which I'm cool with, I've had to do that before, no big. That's not the problem. The problem is what the washer decided to do. Or rather... not do.

There I am, biding my time, minding my own business when the washer beeped, telling me my clothes were so fresh and so clean, clean. I hopped up, went over to it, peeked inside and saw that it was still full of water. I thought nothing of it, closed the lid and waited for a few minutes. When I opened it up again, it was still full of water.

"No matter", I thought, and turned the knob a little to see if maybe it just forgot to drain.

It did not.

It never drained.

...

... ...

... ... ...

Ever.

Mad doesn't cut it, bro.

 So what did your uncle Noor have to do? Take all of his clothes out of the Trollmatic, one by one, and wring them out. ONE BY ONE.  ALL OF HIS CLOTHES. And that's not all. Obviously the washer was still full of water, and I couldn't just let it sit there, so I had to empty it out... WITH A BUCKET.

Idk, my bff Pail.

 Needless to say, uncle Noor was pisssssssed. 

Pictured: The Sea of Bullshit. Yeah, it's real.

The story ain't over folks. Remember, I was in Brazil for 6 months. Of course, the next day I told my supervisor and boss about the problem, since they're the ones who paid for the apartment's rent and took care of the maintenance problems. You know what my boss told me? "Tell your supervisor." You know what my supervisor told me? "Tell your boss."

You know what else my supervisor told me, when I told her I was afraid my clothes might get all moldy because of how soaking wet they were? "Oh, you should probably hang them up to dry near a window."

...

REALLY BITCH?!

Ahem.

Anyway, even after I reminded my boss and supervisor about this dilemma about, oh, 17,845 times, they never sent anyone to fix it. So every single fucking time I had to laundry, I had to repeat that stupid fucking process of wringing out my clothes individually, then hanging them up to dry for days because they would be so wet still. AND empty the washer with a bucket.

"Well why didn't you just go to a laundromat?" You may ask. Ha. I wish. Those don't exist in Buttfucknowhere, Brazil, sweet cheeks. 

And the best part? Well, I still communicate with these people every once in a while, and recently my former supervisor told me "You were right about the washer! It was totally broken. We just thought you didn't know how to use it. It's fixed now."

My reaction?

No caption needed.

End of story.