Dear Sheffield Dairy,
Life is about learning new things.
I first learned about Waxed Assholes about 2 months ago. I was reading Brett Easton Ellis’ Imperial Bedrooms. The protagonist, Clay, was a man-whore who would fuck anyone he wanted regardless of age or gender. On one occasion, he found himself remarking at a man’s waxed asshole.
I looked up from the page and thought ‘waxed as in ‘lemon’?’, imagining a glossy sphincter, perhaps for lubrication purposes.
“Don’t get fruity, sunshine!”
Turns out to normal people ‘waxed’ simply means ‘back, sack and crack’ smooth. Yes that’s right, I’m a fool.
Anyway, I have decided to use this knowledge to test others. I’m going to call it The W. A. Test.
Dear Londinium Diary,
This week I am staying with BFF and semi-Turkish totes-heartthrob Jaime who is leaving London for a curator job in Munich, having tapped the UK artworld’s ass (waxed and unwaxed).
At a Soho lock-in, we squeeze into a bathroom sized beergarden. There was barely room to get in/out and certainly no elbow-room for the shaggy Trustafarian next to me to hoist his wrist-thick cigar up to his dumb moneyed grin, but he did it anyway. I turned away from the stench of entitlement and noticed a nerdy guy with glasses and receding hair- someone more on my socio-economic level perhaps.
Me “What do you do?”
Him “I’m a writer.”
Me “So am I”
Him “Bollocks. I can’t believe there’s another one here. That’s it, I’m becoming a scientist.”
Me (Ignoring his attempt to wind me up) “So, what do you write?”
Him “Gay porn”
Me “Are you gay?”
Him “Oh God, no”
Me “If me and Jaime were in a story, what would you have us doing?”
Him “Choose somewhere to set it.”
Jaime “What about a kebab house?”
Him “Borderline”
Me “What do you mean?”
Him “Too easy”
Me “The London Eye?”
Him “Borderline”
Me (Growing tired of this game) “So, tell me about waxed assholes”
Him “Pardon me?”
Me “Waxed assholes. I want to know about them”
Him “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Me (crowing) “You’re a fucking charlatan! How can you write gay porn and not know about waxed assholes?”
He backed away and disappeared into the bar.
“Haha! WAXED ASSHOLES!!!” I sang triumphantly to the drunk sardines hemmed in around me.
W. A. Test: FAIL (good and proper).
While visiting the behemoth that is Oxford St Topman, I noticed people failing a different kind of test.
Let’s call it The Rampant Materialist Test (The R. A. TEST).
In some ways I’m not the most observant of people; or rather, I’m very observant but about the wrong things.
This is why, when I was let into the changing rooms, I chose a booth with clothes already hung up inside, presuming they were discarded from trying on by the previous tenant. After 5 minutes, as I was squeezing into some eggshell chinos (damn you Size 34, I will fit), there came a frantic knocking on my door.
“Yes?” I said as I opened the door.
“That’s my changing room!” an immaculate miniscule man ranted.
“Oh really?” I looked round and noticed, as if for the first time, the trousers slung over the rail, the patent leather satchel hanging there, and the patent black shoes neatly placed beneath them.
“M-my wallet! M-my shoes! M-my trousers!” he yammered, listing them helpfully for me.
While he gibbered quietly to himself, a Topman employee appeared and asked me to pass said garments out to her, before repotting him in another dank niche, like an ornamental plant gone wayward.
“Reunited! Thankyou, thankyou!”
Minutes later, I was ensconced in the shoe sale area. Another immaculate chap appeared, returning from some far-flung mirror, wearing one new shoe and one of his own (you have to ask for the other of the pair).
“Oh. My. God!” he brayed. And then his emotions got the better of him,
“OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!”
Half the room looked round at his tanned and exfoliated face, now all aquiver.
“M-my shoe!” he cried.
This was rapidly becoming the refrain of the day.
His smooth carefree face was imploding beneath the twin forces of aloof entitlement and embittered class hatred (of the shoe-stealing lumpenproles).
“Someone’s taken my other shoe! Ohmygod! My shoe!”
He was sweating now, and threatening to rupture his skinny denimed outer shell.
In the nick of time, a miniature sales rep appeared with the same denim quotient and told him he had stashed said shoe behind the counter when its owner seemed to have vanished. The ungrateful shoe mourner clutched his lost loafer to his chest and stalked off unevenly into the distance.
The R. A. Test: FAIL!
Dearest Deepest Dairy,
Why do I get things so wrong?
Just yesterday, Esther & I were dunking cold hot dogs into a reduced three-bean salad. Rather than go for the usual innuendo, I decided to reverse it.
Me “I want to eat your sausage”
Her “Don’t be silly”Unfortunately my brain has been set in motion.
Q- What kind of sausages do girls have?
A- Small ones…?
Me (thinking aloud) “Stunted! Your stunted…”
Esther continues to pick at the salad.
Me (triumphantly) “Your stunted…clitoral sausage!”
“For fuck’s sake!” Esther rages, pointing at her full cheeks, “Do you have to?”
She puts her fork down and looks bilious.
“Sorry” I mumble, glee turning to chastisement.
Twas ever thus.
“I’m not stunted, I’m differently sized.”
vienna famous 