I’ve lost my uncle. Very careless, I know, but he’s hard to keep track of these days. He doesn’t have a landline, just a huge and ancient cellphone (which cannot be moved without the help of a wheelbarrow) and he checks the messages every so often. Sometimes every day, sometimes every month. He lives in a garage, which is almost completely obscured by gorse. It’s on a section, somewhere near here, but unfortunately I can’t remember how to get there. I’ve only been there once, when I was about six, and I only remember that there was no toilet and I had to pee into a bucket.
My uncle turns up randomly, often the night before an exam or a major assignment, and talks for hours about radio waves. He is completely clueless when it comes to realising that people don’t really care that much. I feed him toast, cups of tea, and any leftovers that are lying around. When it’s starting to get late I drop broad hints about study and early mornings. Finally, sometime after midnight when I’ve run out of excuses, I just go to bed – he’s usually gone by the morning.
In return for the toast and tea he keeps us well stocked in toasters and electric jugs (we have six electric jugs in the linen cupboard). He finds them in skips and on roadsides, along with miscellaneous pieces of washing machines and bicycles, printers and stereos prematurely discarded. He pulls a thumbtack out of the rollers, adds something small and shiny, and his gadgets whir happily. You can almost hear him purring along with them.
When I was going out with a queer boy (who was infinitely cooler than I was) he got very embarrassed because we ran into my uncle in the supermarket. My uncle has a bushy beard, slightly tatty clothes, and his socks pulled up over his trousers (so they don’t get caught in the gears – he has been known to cycle more than 300 km in a day). He is definitely not Cool. When we saw him that day, he was in the produce section. He was using the supermarket scales to weigh a large piece of equipment that he identified as a cellphone. (My boyfriend broke up with me soon afterwards).
I actually like my uncle a lot. I don’t always get what he’s on about, but he’s a decent enough guy. And useful. He fixed our washing machine (he found a matching part from one that had been discarded on the other side of town).
But now I’ve lost him. His father (my grandfather) has been in hospital for a couple of weeks, and we’ve been leaving messages for my uncle on his cellphone, but he hasn’t responded. My mother is worried that he’s gone off on one of his long bike rides and fallen into a ditch. Or that he is slumped over in his garage and no one will notice because no one goes there.
Luckily an old activist contact of mine thinks that she can find his section. She gave him a lift there once when she saw him lugging a huge quantity of cement up the hill. I’m going to meet her tomorrow afternoon, and we’re going to go Uncle Hunting. You’re welcome to join us. Bring boots, gloves and thick trousers, on account of the gorse. And any old cellphones (older than ten years) you happen to have lying around. We might be able to use them as bait.
Bright Tiger
Phlogiston Phlogiston burning bright,
Sculling wine in the deep of night.
Note for viewers – Phlogiston is a small fluffy tiger who likes theatre, music, and a good Chardonnay. Oh, and a bit of bondage from time to time.
How to tell if your fluffy tiger is into BD/SM
He likes to be hung around your neck. On a chain.
You hear strange noises coming from his room at night. You can’t for the life of you work out what is causing that whipping noise.
His inbox is filled with messages like “Drunk sluts to SM/BD.”
An excessive number of suspicious plain brown packages keep arriving in the mail.
You find strange contraptions made of rubber and metal lying around in the basement.
How to tell if your fluffy tiger has an alcohol problem
Your tiger keeps trying to climb into other people’s wine glasses.
You get kicked out of bars a lot.
Your recycling bin is overflowing with glass bottles and you didn’t empty all of them yourself.
Your tiger displays secretive behaviour to hide his drinking.
Your tiger is hostile and defensive when you try to confront him about alcohol.
You find black and orange hairs in your whisky.
thats a fantastic blog. esp for a sunday morning read. It's like listening to the stories on the radio when I was kid ha ha. gives me that same feeling.
Does everyone on the world have a mad uncle? we should do a survey. What do think, some awesome inspiration for writing will come out of it. haha
yeah an eroticapalooza would be great. I'm not wimp but can hold back if need be LOL!