What's My Age Again?

Yeah I ripped off blink182. Please don't sue me, I'm unemployed.

Wow it’s been a while now hasn’t it? It’s not that I’d forgotten about this space, it’s more that school (like work and sometimes life in general), has been sucking the iota of creativity I ever had. I swear, if you ever think you have too much talent, attend university; specifically the University of the West Indies; specifically St. Augustine campus (I can’t speak for any other university or campus for that matter). They’ll purge you of that ‘talent’ issue in as little as one semester. Guaranteed. Why yes, I am a tad bitter. Is it that obvious?

I’ll admit my frustration stems mainly from the lack of variety on campus. The median age of my classmates is nineteen years. By no stretch of the imagination can my age be construed as nineteen – twenty three maybe. I am not proud to say that I am probably the oldest young person in my classes.

Now I never expected UWI St. Augustine (apparently the referred campus must always be specified) to be teeming with a bunch of late twenty something year old, full time students. I recognise my generation is at that stage where they are fully immersed in their careers or family lives, but damn, I feel like I’m the only one out of thousands who’s now going through ‘the university experience’. I know quite a number of them have opted for evening university and still more attend other tertiary educational institutions like SBCS and INTAD but I’m still disappointed at the lack of representation from we early 1980’s babies. It would be nice to reminisce on life before facebook ™ and blackberry chat.

So now I’ve stopped telling people my age. Yeah I used to believe all ‘age is just a number, we should be proud of who we are’ and ‘with age comes wisdom’ bullshit. Then I ended up at the university and saw first hand, the scorn and ridicule heaped upon the older students (not to their faces of course) who had the audacity to work and start families straight out of secondary school. Trying to explain to these young’uns that tertiary education wasn’t always free will garner you the same blank, uncomprehending stare as trying to explain to them that relationships were once engendered and fostered without the existence of social networking internet sites and text messaging plans.

Anyways, for some reason as yet unknown to me, my fellow students are obsessed with age. I suppose I can somewhat understand their stance. Heck when I was nineteen few things infuriated me more than people trivialising my ideas and feelings with a condescending “yuh yong. Da is why yuh sayin dat/ackin like dat”. Therefore, I would venture a guess that asking my age is a way of ensuring that I am worthy of being allowed in their inner circles without fear of me judging their youthful impetuous behaviour. God, I sound old. So now instead of revealing my age I ask them how old they would like me to be. It’s a very successful method – they attribute to me a number that they are comfortable with and I get to act however I damned well please, sans the ‘You not too old for that?’ Win –win I say!

As is the wont with these things, I fully expect to be busted sometime in the future. My only hope is that it happens after graduation so I won’t have to actively face that humiliation (why are these situations always embarrassing?). Why yes I am a coward. I never professed to be otherwise. Until then however, I’ll still be here, passing myself off as one of the herd. I knew there was a reason I like sheep so much.

First Day of April.

So I’m at the Health Services Unit of the University of the West Indies, awaiting my turn to get me my somewhat annual HIV test. There are six other people in the room with me, including what appears to be a couple and five of them (including the couple) look worried. I’m wondering if I’m the only person here for an HIV test.

A name is called and the female half of the couple scurries to an area which is hidden by a partition plastered with tips on preventing the influenza. She doesn’t stay long – comes back smiling and they both leave. Before long there are just four of us; one of which has just come through the door. We all follow the unspoken rule of no contact in medical offices. I am tempted to make conversation with the chick sitting one seat away from me, but I organise the pamphlets and brochures on the coffee table that is in the middle of the room instead. My fellow patients all look at me. I can feel – literally feel – them wondering if I’m Obsessive Compulsive. I’m just fucking bored. If it weren’t for Monk, OCD would have never made it into our local day-to-day lexicon. I wish I had brought along my most recent library acquisition – a collection of Jonathan Swift’s works.

I am surprised at the amount of people who are visiting here. The majority of them come for vaccines though. I wonder if HSU carries the HPV vaccine. Acknowledgement of sexualities is still quite taboo, even on the university’s campus. I think of how when the nurse/receptionist asked me my reason for the HSU visit, I couldn’t bring myself to say it’s for an HIV test. Not in front those six people who I don’t know and will most probably have limited interactions with. I just told her I had an appointment. I laugh at this, but I don’t find it funny.

My name is called. I follow the nurse/receptionist to a room at the back of the most informational partition. There, I tell her the purpose of my appointment. She is apologetic for the time I have spent waiting, but the nurse who deals with that is not in. I briefly wonder if this is an April Fool’s Day joke, then I remember today is the last working day before the long Easter weekend. My plans have been thwarted by the notorious Trini work ethic. The nurse/receptionist leaves a note for the nurse to call me on Tuesday to set another appointment. In the lobby area, a chick has selected a brochure from the order I have bestowed upon the coffee table. I am gratified.

Outside is blazing hot. There is a palpable haze about. Hellloo global warming. My next class is at 5pm. It is now 1:32pm. I have time. I also have homework which is due at 5pm. I head to the library.

The Curse of the Third Wheel.

No, this isn’t my lame attempt at ripping off Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, The Bobsey Twins or any number of ‘young adult’ literature – although given my lack of any discernible talent, increasing age and present unemployed status, that’s not such a bad idea for netting me some quick cash. This is, rather, a meditation upon my unwilling Third Wheel status and my arrival here.

For some reason still unknown to me, I am the go-to person when a non-threatening, relatively polite, single, warm body is needed for the purpose of a ‘just-in-case’ excuse on the dates of others. In other words I’m a fucking Third Wheel. I suppose it took me this long to recognize it for what it really is since I’m not in the habit of inviting others to be third wheels at my socialisations. They usually just invite themselves anyway and this always leads me to wonder why on earth people do that. It’s awkward and slightly unpleasant, yet inevitably they are the ones who have a great time.

Like karma, hindsight is such a bitch: the first time I found myself performing chaperone duties, I was in secondary school and hyped because my best friend (who turned out to be seriously scary, batshit crazy) had revealed to me that she was a lesbian and wanted me to meet her girlfriend who she met through a newspaper advertisement. Before long I was refereeing their numerous fights and declining offers to be set up with their friends. Needless to say, the friendship didn’t last, nor did it end well. At all.

Then there was the next best friend; another chick from secondary school. She’d suggest we go hang out at a bar ‘to have a girls’ lime nah’ where her ex-boyfriend would then mysteriously show up and they’d retire to the bathrooms for the next half hour or so.

Well I learnt my lesson from that and was able to avoid the pitfall of the ‘escort-less friend’ for the next couple of years, mainly because I was perfecting the art of being anti-social and also I was quite engrossed in my very active sex life. Oh how I miss the early naughties. Then I got a job. My first job with a liveable salary. And I made friends there. And I ended up with another best friend who turned out to be batshit clingy. Starting to notice a trend, aren’t we?

So this chick ended up with a narcissistic, mommy’s boy jackass for a boyfriend who she absolutely believes is her superior in every way. But whatever, she’s ok with the fact that to him she’s good enough to fuck but not good enough to meet mommy, and I’m ok with the fact that she’s ok with it. But I digress. So at a point in time, I got a lift home with them. Then I got invited to a movie lime. It was excruciating to say the least. They are about as alike as spinach and basketballs – with even less chemistry. So of course I told my friend that hell would freeze over before I ever go out with them again, and this bitch starts whining about how she needs my company because she doesn’t know what to talk to the jackass about; as if that’s my problem. But boy did she make it my problem. She had the nerve to get angry when I declined to accompany them on a trip to Tobago, and then indirectly blamed me because apparently the boyfriend decided to cancel the trip since I wasn’t going.

I left that job to attend school full-time, a move which has also afforded me the opportunity to avoid her more effectively (except for the times the jackass drops her off at my house in order to go bone other chicks), and I have once again inexplicably found myself in the role of the Third Wheel. This time it’s not a best friend scenario – Lord knows I’ve given up on that flawed concept – this one’s a nineteen year old with an underserved sense of entitlement and a brand new older boyfriend. One thing though, at least this one made no illusions as to why she desired my presence; she just didn’t feel comfortable being alone with the guy just yet. Still felt like a Wheel, but I respected her honesty, and on the bright side she hasn’t asked me to chaperone since. I suspect it’s because she has a fair idea of the tongue lashing she would receive but I’m not questioning her decision.

I suppose I should feel flattered that I’ve had friends who considered me trustworthy enough to be privy to their personal issues, but at the same time I wonder at the mental processes of these females who willingly hurtle into relationships with people they may have reservations about. Putting one’s personal safety at risk out of fear of being single seems to me to be too much of a price to pay just for the perceived privilege of being in a relationship. As the saying goes however, to each her own. All I know is that the next time my presence is requested I’m billing those bitches - may as well make a profit from my discomfort.

Moving On – A Shrew’s Rant.

So a couple Fridays ago we visited the chick with the broken leg. She’s fine. Had her surgery and is recuperating now. Now she’s a very pleasant girl and I honestly have no reason to wish ill upon her – and I don’t – but whenever I see her or whenever her medical condition comes up in conversation, all I can think is of how I was previously in her seat, and ergo how close I came to having a broken femur, various lacerations about the body and that pinkish scar tissue on my face (I do have my vanities.)

Now I’ve heard it said - by a couple psychology majors so I’ll take their word for it - that people tend to pull together after experiencing a shared traumatic event. I can dig that. So I can understand that while we were on relatively good terms before the accident, the group really became cohesive after the events of December 22, 2009. The problem is however that I personally think it’s high time we move on from constantly making reference to the bleddy accident already. Seriously.

I am a huge fan of moving on. Dwelling on happenings that have already occurred makes no sense to me. I don’t own a time travel machine, therefore I can’t do anything about what has already happened (and according to these guys I can’t anyway) and therefore I’d rather move on and deal with what’s presently taking place. The ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’ laments irritate me to no end and are the cause of many, many arguments between Mama Shrew and me.

So there we were, chillin, yappin and playing with a small furry dog, when the driver of the vehicle pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and asked the broken legged chick if she was ready to see ‘the stuff’. Naturally I assumed ‘the stuff’ was either a movie or something pertaining to school. It turned out to be pictures of the wreck and video footage of the area where we ran off the road. I was the only one who made no effort to look at ‘the stuff’. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve already had closure from the first set of pics he showed us. I mean really, how many times are they gonna marvel at the state of the car, or the pole that prevented it from flipping completely over, or any of the myriad factors relating to the accident? And how many freaking pictures does he have of these things?!

I am reminded of the time a couple weeks previously when I was having an MSN conversation with the driver. We were chatting about our academic performances. After about an hour or so I decided that I had had enough and told my usual lie about going to bed early due to fatigue. That is when Mr. Man decided it was the opportune time to draw references between our accident and another that had claimed the lives of the car’s four occupants: they were in a new model Toyota while we in an old model Toyota; their group consisted of 3 guys and a girl, our group was 3 girls and a guy; they were heading to the beach, we were coming back from the beach; their group originally had 5 people, our group originally had 5 people; they were celebrating a birthday, we were celebrating the end of finals. I don’t want to say that he sounded gleeful while checking off the list of similarities because I have been told that I over analyse people’s behaviour (I don’t). I will say though that the bugger sounded smug. Smug as hell. Like it didn’t even occur to him that four sets of parents have to bury their children. Like it didn’t even occur to him that we were almost in that same position. I am always disappointed when I realise how fucking insensitive some people can be.

Suffice it to say I now make myself scarce whenever the topic comes up. Heck it’s not like I don’t have other shit happening in my life that warrant my attention and at the rate they’re going, fifteen years from now they’ll be probably still trading memory accounts of the day.

Buss head '09.

So I’ve reconsidered, and now my idea of hell involves injections to my scalp purely for torture purposes. Trust me, if Satan’s minions wanna get with the times, they’ll revoke their pointed tails and pitchforks for surgical smocks and syringes.

On December 22, 2009, I blithely half-assed my way through a philosophy examination (the last one for the semester), frolicked on Maracas Beach with three other classmates and spent the night in Port of Spain General Hospital suffering from a head wound sustained when we ran off the road on the way back from Las Cuevas. And that’s because I consider myself luckier than the other backseat passenger who ended up with a broken left femur, a broken eleventh rib and a sizable swatch of skin missing from the left side of her face. Yeah…

Of course I’m thankful to be alive. Heck from what the nice doctors discussed while my laceration was being stitched up, nothing short of divine intervention saved us from the obituary pages. Blame the Catholic Church if you will, but it’s hard for me not to believe in an omnipotent being when I hear that the vehicle I was in skidded off the road, went down an incline and ended up against a pole with its roof ripped off, the front folded in and the back pushed in, with no resulting fatalities. Yet for some reason I’m still worried. It’s that niggling almost inaudible voice at the back of my mind that mocks: “you got off easy this time bitch but don’t you worry, I’ve a doozy waiting for you up ahead.” Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, right?

For what it’s worth, the staff of the accident and emergency department of the PoSGH are most efficient; particularly the nurses. The ward nurses on the other hand – those assholes should be all promptly fired and relegated to removing road-kill from the nation’s roadways as with their attitudes they should not be dealing with any living creature, whether animal or vegetable.

You know, in spite of the amount of stories you hear about people being misdiagnosed and given the wrong drugs and such, the ridiculousness only sinks in when you actually experience it. That’s why it came as little surprise to me when I was told that my file could not (and still can’t) be found. Heck I think I would have been more concerned if my stay at the hospital was completed without a hitch. You know things are bad in a country when you’re a bit relieved that the public utilities don’t work as they should.

Ah well, the twenty stitches I got are out; the nice nurses at the Arima Health Facility said I was healing well. The chick with the broken leg had surgery and is going through a painful recovery. Man, I’m just glad we all survived. Looking at the news these days, believe me, it could have been so much worse.

B-day Post.

“You must be so happy that today’s your birthday!” Man I hate it when people tell me that. What reason do I have to be particularly happy about the anniversary of my birth? I suppose that with our present crime shituation, the fact that I have lived to see another year of life is an accomplishment in its own right, but other than that I really fail to understand the general hullabaloo that is made about birthdays. We essentially get older as each nano-second goes by, so why the big deal about this one particular day?

I have never had a birthday party. My parents chose to place importance upon academic achievements (fat lot of good that did me) so events like birthdays, Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day passed by with only the barest minimum of acknowledgement; besides I wasn’t the kind of child who sought social interaction.

Some years ago I got depressed when none of my admittedly few friends called to wish me good tidings, or any tidings for that matter, on the day of my birth. This year I turned my cell phone off. I think I would have gotten depressed if anyone had called to wish me many happy returns.

I don’t know if I’m getting any wiser with age. I do know that I am becoming even more jaded as I get older. I honestly didn’t think that was possible. A psychologist once advised me to find something positive about Triniland and her people everyday in order to develop a healthier outlook. She quit her job two weeks later and migrated to her boyfriend’s homeland of the U.S. of A.

At this point in time, the first day of my 27th year is officially over. In spite of my morose mumblings, I actually did have a fun time, the details of which are insignificant and quite boring to those with active social lives. Here’s to hoping the rest of my lifespan follows in the same vein. That’s the closest I can bring myself to wishing me a happy birthday.

It’s Hard Out There for a Shrew.

Today I realised three things:
1. All the time I spend at the gym should really be dedicated to increasing my upper body strength,
2. Jesus put me on this earth to be His personal jester and,
3. banditry is damned hard in spite of what the general law abiding population may think.

Now before y’all get all excited and start dialling Crimestoppers to tip them off about that damn tief Shrew who you did always know was a blasted a bandit, (who de hell does call deyself a shrew? And wha de arse is a shrew anyway? Is a kinda fly or something?) allow me to expatiate upon the seeming illegality of my as yet undocumented actions. Today, not only did I have to jump my wall in order to gain access to my property, I also had to jimmy open a window to gain access to my house.

Of course it’s not the first time I’ve found myself in such a situation, but once you pass the age of twenty and sober up, it loses its glamour. For one thing, scaling a wall is no easy matter, but scaling a Trini wall is damn near impossible without the proper training. Sure, from the comfort of your couch the Black and Latino guys hired to play criminals make it look easy, but c’mon man, how can you trust a guy who plays pretend for a living? Besides it’s only when you notice the details of a trini wall do you realise how daunting the task truly is.

The average wall in Triniland has many purposes. Its main use is of course, to designate the boundaries of the property it encloses. It is also used as a landmark (Yeah drive! By de yellow wall dey!), a urinal, a deterrent to unsavoury neighbourhood characters such as pipers, cats and children (hence the toppings of broken bottles, iron spikes and razor wire), and a liming spot. Add to that: unplastered cement bricks, globs of mortar left by untidy masons and the mossy build up of neglect and you have yourself an obstacle course worthy of its own American Gladiators segment.

Some time ago I did a post on my various irrational fears (if I didn’t, I had the intention), one of which was getting the heel of my shoe stuck in a crack in the middle of the Priority Bus Route while an oncoming bus with a clueless driver bears down on me. The first Sunday of 2009, while crossing said Bus Route during my once per year pilgrimage to Mass, the strap which kept my four inch stiletto heeled shoes attached to my foot snapped. Hobbled, although the most apt word, still cannot describe my frenzied movements to the relative safety of the pavement. There are those who will say Satan was putting obstacles in my way, but I know the other dude was responsible for that. So when I was in front of chez Shrew and discovered that the keys I knew I had put in my bag weren’t there, there was no other place to look but up.

I mean, what else could explain the sudden proliferation of activity on the previously empty street? As soon as I placed my hands on my wall in preparation for ‘the hoist’, half the neighbourhood suddenly decided that they had to pass in front of my house at that particular moment. For the record, it’s bloody hard to look innocently interested in perusing the minutiae of cement bonded bricks while a gaggle of children play bicycle tag in the street behind you. Thankfully after about 15 minutes or eight years (I’m not really sure how much time passed), they decided to take their inane game somewhere else. I say thankfully because by then I was dangerously close to becoming permanently cross-eyed.

Finally the street regained its quietude; time to make my move. It was then reality bitch-slapped me – I am freaking heavy. I swear, on my first try, my spindly arms cursed me. The second time they threatened to sue, and on my third and a half attempt (I got stuck halfway over), they announced that they were divorcing me and wanted custody of my torso.

Getting into the house was even worse. Imagine balancing precariously on an unwieldy barrel to pry open a window while a 100lb dog tries to mate with your leg. I don’t remember having all this trouble back in the day. The people who do this stuff willingly for a living are truly not normal.

Someone once told me that I should learn from all my experiences, therefore I must say I have learnt that I am not Houdini and so the next time I find myself in this predicament, I’ll rely on the professionals; I’m going to find a bandit and pay him or her (I’m equal opportunity) to break into my house for me.

Xmas '08

So this is Christmas. And a recession is looming. Yet Zen is still filled each night with unemployed UWI students partying away their tertiary level studies stress, while visions of Masters Degrees and greener employment pastures abroad dance in their heads.

And so this is Christmas. And Patrick says we have to engage in belt tightening to last through the oncoming economic crash. As though by cutting back a couple dollars on our collective grocery bills, and not building any more schools is going to save our asses when much stronger and more stable economies than ours have been demolished. The amount of people who live below poverty level is at an all time high but that’s ok because we hosting the Summit of the Americas next year. So we’ll just build a wall around the Beetham and call it a gated community. Obama won’t know the difference.

A very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Drink a rum and a ponche a crèma then get behind the wheel ’cause you know you could handle your liquor. Hell, take it up to 120km. Nobody could handle a car like you and the next party starting just now. Those other people who flipped over the meridian or ended up wrapped around lamp posts just didn’t have your skills. Seatbelt? Seatbelts like condoms – they restrict you. You know you’re a good driver both on the road and in bed. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.

And so this is Christmas. And Patrick is recovering from free surgery complements of Cuba while children are dying because enough funds for their life saving operations could not be raised in time and old people are lying on the floors of the San Fernando General Hospital because there aren’t enough beds.

And so happy Christmas. We remember those less fortunate than ourselves, so we donate toys and food stuffs to needy homes and orphanages for the yuletide season but are blind to the increasing amounts of street children for the rest of the year.

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. According to the newspapers the amount of missing people for the year nearly trumps that of murdered persons, and of the people who seem to have disappeared without a trace, the majority is women and young girls. But Martin Joseph isn’t worried. He’s taking a page out of Jerry Narace’s book – if he ignores it long enough and doesn’t acknowledge it, maybe the problem will disappear. Human trafficking is just a figment of our overactive imaginations. Just like dengue.

And so this is Christmas. And indulgent parents won’t discipline their children for mistreating animals, but they’ll hold their heads and bawl and wonder how he got so cold hearted when sonny boy commits his first murder at sixteen. And a dog dies of starvation and neglect in front of Scotiabank St. Augustine, while people stream in and out of the ATM, wads of cash in their pockets, planning their Christmas Day feasts.

And so Happy Christmas. I’m sure you’ll have fun, just remember the Caribbean is ranked behind sub-saharan Africa with regards to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But we all know the AIDS afflicted Caribbean is limited only to Haiti and Jamaica and is only the whores and fags in Triniland who have it, and we eh no whore or panty man and we doh do it wit sluts or batty bois, so we know we safe.

A very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. By all counts 2009 will be worse, but not to worry, carnival is almost here; the ultimate stress reliever. So eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we wine.

Firing Synapses or Things that Bug Me at 3a.m. When I'm Tired, Hungry, Jaded and the Sheep just refuse to be counted.

~What is it about the fragility of the Trinidadian male’s ego that causes them to have such utter contempt for us women?


~Artificial sweeteners are the biggest rip offs since UDeCOTT; Splenda looks like something that should be divided into thin, even lines with a razor blade on a hard (preferably clean) surface and inhaled.


~A woman who has sexual relationships with men like her father has daddy issues. So does that mean that a man who leaves his wife for a woman who looks like his teenage daughter is a closet paedophile?


~Visualisation doesn’t work. Neither does positive thinking.


~Do pro-lifers spay and neuter their pets? And how come so many of them support hunting for sport?


~Will Ash ever become the world’s greatest pokemon trainer?


~Why are poor people so bloody fertile? I swear a ghetto rat could rub up against dried sperm and still kindle. Besides, I thought drugs killed sperm; so how come maxi conductors have so many unclaimed children all over the place?


~I can’t help but feel that I got screwed with this ‘life as an adult’ deal.

We too nice not to be nice, my arse.

When did Trinis become so damned obnoxious? One of my supervisors said we were always so but I seem to remember a time when I could expect a salutation to be reciprocated instead of the blank, bovine stares I now receive.

Someone recently told me that with our booming economy, Trinis have become more sophisticated because of the opportunity to travel and thus we have become more demanding. That’s all well and good, but why did we lose our sense of politesse? Why is it that more and more I’m coming into contact with people the majority of whom think that they are entitled to better treatment because of who they are or the thicknesses of their financial portfolios, and act as such?

Customer Service is the new buzz phrase for our business community and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon with various horror stories of the horrendous “customer service” meted out by whoever at whatever establishment they had the unfortunate experience of patronizing. Now I can sympathise since I also have had quite a few less than stellar episodes involving the local service industry, but I will say that customers and management should shoulder some responsibility for the sad state of affairs. Innumerable times have I seen employees put up with disrespectful, offensive, insufferable patrons without going berserk. And their children – their goddam, spoilt, unruly children. Last Christmas I ended up in a toy store looking for something with which I could bestow upon the former larger half’s nephews and thus ingratiate myself into the good graces of their grandmother. A rug rat leading his mother entered the store. Replying to the clerk’s offer of assistance with a condescending “No dear, he knows what he wants”, mama proceeds to look on lovingly while her grubby-handed fuck-trophy played Hurricane Gustav with shelf after shelf of stuffed animals, puzzles and action figures. Upon locating his item of choice, junior skipped happily to the cashier with mom in tow who breezily told the shell-shocked clerk “Take care of that won’t you dear?”, waving her manicured hand in the general direction of ground zero. Minimum wage ain’t worth that shit.

And that’s another thing. Remember when a former Minister of Finance declared that he couldn’t live on $2000.00 a week? And remember when all dem business people and dem Chamber of Commerce and Industry persons get dam vex cause de govament raise minimum wage from $7.00 to $10.00 a hour? The argument was that if the basic rate of pay was increased, as a sort of ripple effect, everything else (food, transportation etc.) would follow suit; as if prices weren’t already rising even without the help of increased salaries. Realistically speaking though, how do they expect minimum wage workers to survive on a paltry $7.00 per hour? How in good conscience can expect people to buy food, pay rent and provide for children with the minimum wage? I once knew a girl who worked in a clothing store where her weekly salary was less than the cost of a pair of jeans sold at the same store. That’s tough.

I think the problem is that too many Trinidadians equate good customer service with ass-kissing. They don’t feel fulfilled unless they get a virtual colonic irrigation courtesy the hapless employee who has to deal with them: “Can you believe that bank teller had the nerve to ask for my ID?! Everyone knows who I am! Well of course you know I let the manager know about it and that kind of thing isn’t going to happen again.” How more unfuckingreasonable can a person be? Believe me shit like this happens all the time here, it's just not publicised.

I work in a customer service environment. At every meeting we minions are constantly reminded that the customers pay our salaries and therefore it is in our best interest to provide the best customer service. We are also reminded that surveys show we have the #1 rating for service in our field, so to keep our salaries we must ‘wow’ the customers by offering the best goshdarn service EVAH! That’s great. In response, we suggested to management that they find a way to educate the bloody customers on the attitudes and behaviours with which they should visit the company to do business. Head office sent us a DVD on how to deal with difficult people in the workplace.

Recently the local media has been running advertisements from the Ministry of Tourism, presumably with the intent of increasing the ‘niceness’ of us Trinis. If memory serves me correctly, one of the ads is seemingly a 30 second crash course on simple etiquette: “Good morning!” “Thank you!” “Have a nice day!” Ummm…shouldn’t we have already learned manners from our parents and the elementary school system? And isn’t it embarrassing that a government has to spend money to teach its population basic manners? Even so, the ads are geared towards us being nice to tourists. So it’s ok to be hognoxious bitches to each other, once we smile and bob our heads and tip our hats to the tourists. Well put me out in the plantation and whip me silly ’cause those ads will change nothing.

Until we, as a people make a conscious effort to return to our (now defunct) value system where we did not measure each other by the size of our bank accounts but by the worth of our actions and our principles, then excellent customer service will be like Vision 2020 – nought but a pipe dream.

Adventures of a chronic underachiever.

Remember the good old days when success meant just getting a job and not getting pregnant too soon or out of marriage? Ok, so I may not agree with the pregnant thing but the job issue I can understand.

I will admit that I have not lived up to my expectations. I may have not lived up to the expectation that others had for me either, seeing as how the majority of them thought I would end up as a drug dealing, alcoholic, STD carrying, lesbian, prostitute – sorry to disappoint, folks – but damnit I have an ok paying job [at least for my lifestyle], and my personal situation isn’t so bad as to warrant any drastic changes. So why do I feel lower than worm turd whenever I have the misfortune of meeting up with people I knew?

Lately I’m being haunted by people I went to school with. I last saw these bitches over eight years ago and since I never really kept in touch with anyone I blissfully thought our paths would never again cross; so much for blissful thinking. Between then and now, some names kept popping up – who passed the bar, graduated from medical school, became a veterinarian, entered politics or became an IT professional – and I could deal with all of that. I’m not hypocritical enough to say I’m happy for them, but I could deal with that. What I pisses me off though is when they lord their successes and achievements over me.

So I’m at work, rowing with the other slaves when I am approached by a customer. In the middle of my attempt at rendering assistance, he would ask “Hey didn’t you go to _ ?” Now usually my response would be “No. Do I look like someone who would go to that school?” That sometimes shuts them up. But this guy I remembered. He was pretty decent. Which is why what transpired next bowled me over:

“Didn’t you do the languages?”

“Yeah…”

“So how you’d end up here? As a __ ?”

“Mmmmm. So what do you do?”

“I work for a consultancy firm.”

“Oh, ok…. well that’s the end of your business here. Have a good day eh!”

See what I’m talking about? It’s the same thing with goddamn strangers sometimes. People I don’t even fucking know! I remember ending up in a similar situation with a supervisor once. There she was yapping about how happy she was that her son had graduated from Howard because she didn’t want him wasting his youth working in some low-pay entry level position like her subordinates, and here I am telling her to go fuck herself.

My father always lectured to me about book sense vs. common sense. He used to say you could have the world of degrees under your belt but once you have no idea what’s going on around you and how to handle the shitty situations life throws at you then you’re nothing more than an educated jackass. Honestly, I used to think papa just said that to justify his lack of tertiary education but now I can appreciate the truth to his statement. I realise what he meant whenever I ask one of these supposedly intelligent people their thoughts on the crisis in Sudan and they look at me quizzically: “There’s a crisis in Sudan?” Or when I ask them their thoughts on the political situation in Zimbabwe and they have no idea who Mugabe is. Hell I’ve even asked them about shit that affects us locally, Martin Joseph’s three year crime forecast, the Unions’ call for a nationwide day of strike action; and these university graduates would just gape at me.

Now I know I’m giving the impression that I’m anti-university or something, but I’m not. I just get the impression that tertiary level education is used in our society purely for financial gain. It seems to me that people enroll in these institutions just to get that expensive piece of paper that somehow deems them to be superior in intellect to us lesser mortals. I remember encountering a newly graduated dentist who couldn’t spell the word ‘thousand’; man, I should have made the effort to remember her name.

We in Triniland here like to talk about education. We like to say how we or our children just graduated “with Honours you know” from the University Of Wherever, and Some Big Company is already courting us/them with a nice salary, vacation perks and a pension plan. We like seeing those letters behind our names. And this is good. Really. I mean it. But I think that in the quest for the almighty dollar we have forgotten that higher education is just that – higher education. I mean, if you already have the privilege of being accepted into an institution of tertiary studies the least you can do is actually learn.

Another problem lies with our education system itself. We’ve already eliminated science and social studies from the S.E.A exams resulting in whole generations who know the lyrics to every Rhianna song but not the words to the national pledge. In addition to renaming and caribbeanising G.C.E to C.A.P.E, we’ve also dumbed down those exams, yet secondary schools countrywide celebrate their heretofore unprecedented astronomical pass rate. Thus we end up with a pile of graduates some of whom don’t know how to represent fifty cents as a fraction (yes I’m serious), those who can’t string a sentence together without using ‘like’ every other word and others who find difficulty in grasping the concept that life exists outside the student guild.

I swear, with the present degree craze that’s sweeping the country, I won’t be surprised when Triniland turns into an Orwellian nightmare without the revolution of course. We’re way too complacent for that.

Of Sex, Porn and Cousins.

I believe I now have an idea of how my mother felt when she found my box of condoms and realized I was on the pill. I had made not the slightest effort, mind you, to hide either, but the poor lady was struck speechless for a few good days after.

A couple weeks ago my little cousin asked me for porn and I felt a kind of cold numbness originate in my belly and ooze outward to my extremities. I had to twice ask him to repeat himself. My ‘little’ cousin is one month younger than me.

What unnerved me was how excited he got when I was able to unearth two CDs and a DVD of the ‘stuff’. I was finally able to see first hand the physical manifestation of a description I often read in novels: his eyes actually shone.

I’ve always wondered how the parents of teenage parents feel. Is it that they are angry that their children have burdened them with another mouth to feed even after they themselves have taken family planning precautions, or is it that they are more appalled at the realization that their innocents have been not only boinking their brains out but have been doing so without protection?

Y’know, it’s funny; when I was still in school, I remember eavesdropping on a rather steamy conversation between two of the more – uh – popular girls. Apparently the previous night was the setting for a clandestine encounter between one of the chicas and her then boyfriend. With all the giggling and the who did what to whom and how, you’d swear they were the only ones who had ever had sex. Ever.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has noticed this predilection in today’s youth; how they blithely go about with their new found sexual consciousness, ‘discovering’ vibrators, KY and doggy style as if people haven’t been getting fucked since Adam ate the goddamned apple.

When next I stock up, I should probably purchase some extra condoms for cuz. After all, I may not believe in abstinence, but I sure as heck am an advocate for sensible sexual practices. And who knows, if he’s for porn now, the possibility exists that he may also inquire the directions to Villa Capri.

Love and Literature

Well that’s it. There is officially no hope for me now. I have no choice but to relegate myself to the fact that I shall share the same dwelling with my mother - mate less- for the rest of my natural life.

After the inevitable failure of my last relationship, I decided that the next male I snare would need to have more than a modicum of intelligence before he gets the privilege of being referred to as my larger half; I fancied myself somewhat of a sapiosexual. Then I discovered that all the intelligent men I would more likely prefer, read and analyze Dostoyevsky, Hemingway and Naipaul. Hey I like to discuss a good book too, but as opposed to having an indepth discourse on man’s struggle with both his internal and external environments, I’m more of a ‘hmmm…interesting…’ kind of girl.

And too besides, I prefer low-brow fiction anyway. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass remain two of my all time favourites and I wouldn’t part with my copy of The Wind in the Willows for a pound of the purest gold. Make it ten pounds and we could talk - but I digress.

Every week, the Express Woman’s Magazine runs a twenty question interview with some local ‘celebrity’. Being the stalker that I am, I pay particular attention to the answers given by the studly males and I am always perturbed and disappointed when the response to “The best book you have ever read?” turns out to be The Bible. Huh? Hey it’s nice to know men have a sense of spirituality, but unless he’s open-minded (and personal experience proves to me that whoever considers a religious tome a good read, is anything but), conversations would soon get boring. I mean, there are only so many times one can hear about begetting after begetting after begetting before going insane.

Seriously though, I can’t remember the last time I met a man who infused the butterflies in my belly with such excitement as to remind me that they yet live. Ok, so actually I can, but it’s been a while. It would seem that finding one who is mature enough to not take himself too seriously, yet doesn’t make behaving like a jackass a routine thing, is about as easy as locating a sack of flour and a bag of rice these days.

I wonder if I’ll get laid at all this year.

Calling the guy who did this

an asshole would be an insult to that most reviled of orifices:

As was reported in the Sunday Guardian [28.4.2008], some fucked up piece of shit threw lye on two rottweilers kept by a 74 year old man as pets and protection. The eight year old dog may die from her burns and the six year old was partially blinded. It would seem that the perpetrator (allegedly a neighbour) has a bit of a history of pelting the dogs with stones.

You don’t need to be an animal rights activist, nor even have pets to be appalled at the heinousness of this crime. And yes cruelty to animals is a crime. I never fail to be astonished at the number of Trinidadians who don’t know that.

I have dogs. I’ve always had dogs. I may not have known all I know now about their care – but I have never intentionally mistreated an animal. At a point in time, we had to move to an apartment. My mother called the T.T.S.P.C.A for the dog we had and her two or three remaining pups. I was young, I knew I could do nothing, yet up to this day I am still haunted by the thought that Sparky and her children more than likely were put down; Trinidad isn’t noted for pet adoptions. I know she probably thought she was doing the right thing, but honestly I still hold that against my mother. So I refuse to even try to understand why someone would deliberately hurt and animal. I know about the cycle of abuse and how it can manifest itself in children and as a result the adults they become, but I am also absolutely convinced that some people just like to cause pain to other creatures. I think this guy is one of them.

At the risk of sounding like an antisocial deviant, I am more disturbed by seeing homeless animals than homeless people. People can manage. They can ask for food and shelter, be understood and assisted. And how many people do you know have been abandoned because they no longer ‘serve their purpose’?

I have never beaten my pets. They were housebroken and well trained without me once having to lift a hand, shoe or broomstick at them. I actually got into a fight with a cousin once because she hit one of my dogs - she can definitely say she knows what the brush part of a broom tastes like now.

And you can be sure as hell that if anyone were to throw lye on my fuzzies, s/he would get that back and more.

For the love of the children.

I’m going out on a limb here, but Trinidadian parents have got to be the most ignorant in the world. Not ignorant due to lack of knowledge you understand, at least not in all cases, but rather because you stand the risk of personal injury in the event you are misguided enough to comment unfavourably upon either their offspring or their parental skill.

I didn’t realise that Prestige Holdings’ greasy fingers had grabbed a hold of another piece of Arima with the opening of a Long John Silver’s restaurant along with Pizza Hut, TCBY, and an additional KFC until earlier on this year. But although Arima is now officially cinema-less, you can still stare at some inane movie while sending your cholesterol level through the roof, via the flat-panel television screens that hang from the ceiling. And all those years those bouncers spent blocking movie goers from sneaking KFC into Windsor. Ha! Well we’re eating KFC in the at least what used to be the cinema bitches. Whatchoo gonna do now, huh?

So I’m at a table munching on some fries and wondering if, with all the renovations, they ever got rid of the roaches that had made the Windsor, in all its dank, urine-(and God knows what else)stained glory, their personal utopia. Of course it’s hard to stick to a chronological, coherent train of thought as there is an inordinate amount of seemingly unsupervised children engaged in vigorous physical activity all around me.

Now the good people at Prestige Holdings have supplied a playroom for the children presumably to encourage the whole ‘family friendly’ aura or to provide a place where the little fuck-trophies could burn off all those large servings of trans-fats. What the playroom does however is turn an otherwise routine bout of digestive tract abuse into a mental dissertation on the benefits of mandatory sterilisation.

’Member ting like licks? ’Member how like ah arse yuh used to feel after yuh get a good boff from mammy and daddy because yuh was playing de arse an embarassin dem in front ah everybody? Remember discipline? Parents nowadays are pansies. I’m sitting there listening to children refuse to leave when their parents call them and I’m seeing the parents concede defeat without even making the effort to straighten out the little buggers. Hell, there were so many kiddies running wild and unsupervised that if I were a paedophile, I would have been in heaven.

A woman at a neighbouring table decided to take God out of her thoughts and brought a couple’s attention to the antics of their female progeny:
“Da’s yuh chile? Buh look she missin ah shoe. Come dahlin, wha yuh do wit yuh shoe?”

“Hello, hello! Dat is not your chile. Leave my chile alone. I go deal wit she. I cyah onerstan why allyuh cyah leave odder people chirren alone yuh know!”

“Buh yuh cyah see de chile runnin arong wit only one shoe?!”

“Well she fadder here an he go handle dat. D_ look M_ lorse she shoe.”

“Oh gorsh. Doh jumbie de chile nah. Mih mudder go sen a new shoes fuh she.”

And that was it. The whole issue wrapped up nicely without once having to bother little M_ and having to divert her from her busy schedule of scampering behind a budding bandit.


I don’t know if the headache was brought on by my body’s exertions to assimilate partially hydrogenated soybean oil, dehydrated potatoes substitutes and whatever other crap Long John’s fries are made of or if it was because of the knowledge that same situation, albeit at ritzier locations and with more hybrid accents, is echoed throughout the country almost constantly.

So I left. And I thought of little M__ and her lost shoes. And I thought of her parents hostile reactions to a stranger who was trying to help. And I thought of the general lamentations of how today’s youth have no sense of responsibility, no sense of sacrifice. And I thought of how when we were younger we would take care of the two pairs of shoes we had (school shoes and ‘going out’ shoes) because we knew “mammy and daddy were working hard to feed us and provide for us and send us to school so we would get and education and make something of ourselves”. And I wondered if that litany would have any meaning to the children of today and I am tempted to try it out, but I don’t want to be the one hundredth and somethingth person killed for the year and over a shoe no less.

I leave de people dem chirren alone.

You don't make friends with salads.

The advantage of being a vegetarian in Trinidad is that no one visits you for lunch. Or dinner. Or for any festival which involves food. In essence, no one visits at all. The disadvantage is everyone is convinced you have a secret affair with The Colonel and incessantly try to tempt you with the cloying odour of flesh that has been deep fried in recycled oil. Yummy!

On revealing your diet choice to the average Trinidadian, more often than not you will be greeted with the following: - “Wait nah, you doh eat meat?! Well da’s haf yuh life gone dey aready! I cyar eat by you!” As if you ever invited them in the first place.

I honestly believe that most Trinis are incapable of understanding the concept of a meatless diet. Our seeming national obsession with wild meat is legendary, if sometimes disturbing. If I had $10.00 for every person who dismissed my eating habits with “allyuh young people and allyuh fashions” and “Doh worry, yuh go grow outta dat jes now.” I’d be able to quit my job and bitch full time. It doesn’t bother me though – sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me!

So we’re in the season of Lent and every Christian worth his unleavened bread is on the hunt for Nemo and friends, as if meat is the only thing worth sacrificing. How many people do you know who give up sex with the horner (wo)man? I swear the collective I.Q. of the office plummeted when I was asked the ultimate question: “So since you’re vegetarian you don’t really have anything to give up for Lent, do you?” Ironically, at that point I was trying to resurrect my New Year’s Resolution of renouncing cursing. It would seem that I stand a better chance of winning the Lotto; and I don’t even play…

Personally, I have nothing against meat eaters. I wouldn’t do it, but then again I wouldn’t do a lot of things. Listen: live and let live, eat or be eaten, it’s all good to me. Besides, if it’s a matter of my survival, I can’t say I would remain on my high horse and scornfully decline any drumsticks, flanks, ribs or - God forbid – fingers that may come my way.

See, I don’t eat meat because I think it’s wrong to kill animals for food; heck, my love of dairy products would incite the ire of even the most pacifist vegans. As to the health benefits…the water retention caused by my saturating just about anything that goes into my mouth with salt has me resembling Keiko’s younger cousin. Essentially I’m vegetarian because I can be. It’s all a matter of choice – the same way I can choose to pursue tertiary level education, choose who to marry and when (if at all), choose to work, and choose which god to worship among other things. I am grateful to belong to a society that in spite of its shortcomings, doesn’t deny me basic rights because I’m female or black or unmarried or whatever, and I have every intention of protecting my rights of choice regardless of those who would try to convince me that my selections are wrong. This is the same reason why I don’t go around condemning people’s decisions to adhere to a meat based diet. Hey if I can choose, so can they. Once they don't choose to barbeque my dogs...

FW:Fw:fw:

The only way I would endorse violence of any sort is if it is wielded against the scum of society: rapists, animal abusers, racists, paedophiles, wife-beaters, wilful environmental polluters and the jerks who insist on forwarding every single email they receive to me.

Ok, so in the beginning it wasn’t that bad. I was just getting into the World Wide Web thing and everything including the porno and casino pop ups were so gosh darn exciting. In those days whenever you stumbled across something funny you just had to send it to your bestest net friend, or when a co-worker’s address shows up in your inbox with the subject “You HAVE to see this!” you look, declare it worthy, and then forward it to Bob because you know he would appreciate such smutty humour. We’ve all done it. But at least have the sense to send the stupid email to only those who would like whatever the message is about.

I hate those religiously themed emails that ask you to send a copy to everyone on your contact list because if you don’t you’re showing that you’re ashamed of Jesus and when you die He’ll be ashamed of you too and will send you to burn in Hell for the rest of eternity. I mean hey, it’s bad enough I’m not liked well enough to be sent a simple “Hey Shrew, how you doin’? Let’s lime sometime.”, but I have to worry about the afterlife too? Oh hell fucking no. The Catholic Church is doing a mighty fine job of that already thank you very much.

Now correct me if I’m wrong (and I doubt it), but wasn’t e-mail’s original purpose to provide a faster and more cost effective way to communicate? Then communicate with me damnit! Personally!

Few things are as annoying to me as receiving the same forwarded crap multiple times from the same asshole. I usually feel like calling them up: “Oh, hey, ummm…about that email you sent me the other day; the one with the little kitty hanging from a twig or something and he’s saying “Hang in There.” That was so cute…the first couple hundred times I got it. Fuck bitch, what are you, retarded? Hey, here’s a thought: how about coming up with your own stuff you un-funny piece of shit.

Man, I’d like to see them forward this.

Sick Day

This is the result of a day spent away from work. It’s amazing the kind of latent crap that comes out when you have diarrhoea. Heh. Heh.

So here’s a little something I conjured up between my time spent on the throne and in the shower. I saw it on someone else’s blog and being the covetous rat that I am, I immediately hatched a plan to acquire one of my own.

Well, I visited the site and in ten minutes my little doppelgangers were born. Its likeness to me is nothing short of remarkable - crucifix, horns et al.

I must say I felt more fulfilled accomplishing this than I do after an eight hour day at work. Go figure. Now if only I could find a way to bring them to life, we’d take over the world! BWHAHAHAHAHAHA…..

Damn I feel ill.

Carnival Country

Not everyone is talented. This is why I work. At a real job. With bitches. Real live bitches. The majority of our soca entertainers should consider that.

Although I don’t fete, wine or drink, I like Carnival. It’s the only time of the year I can mount my high horse and look down my nose at those Canaval Jumbies with self righteous disgust. It’s quite addictive actually and I’ve never missed a year. Now I know how Pastor Cuffie feels.

Have you seen the cost of tickets for the average Carnival fete? Hell I could eat for two months with that moolah. And I’ll be eating good too. So they’re all inclusive. Big deal. The kind of prices I’m hearing, even a career drunkard couldn’t get his money’s worth. And too besides, all the live entertainment does is instruct the audience to ‘raise yuh hands in de air!’. When I was little that was used a punishment in school. I find it hard paying upwards of $500.00 to be punished when I could get the same - and worse - for free on the streets. Another thing is this bloody counting. If the soca tune is two minutes, you’ll be hearing 15 minutes of the performer counting to three.

I watched the Soca Monarch finals on television and it took away what little happiness I had gleaned from the knowledge that I have no work on Monday and Tuesday. What could possibly cause such abject despondency in a carefree, happy-go-lucky creature such as myself? Well it’s because I learnt that I’m not an independent woman. According to a number of contestants, my stationary pelvic area has set back my gender God knows how many decades. But I’m not worried; from the amount of dancing girls who displayed their autonomy onstage via jooking, rolling back and plain old wining, methinks the feminist movement is in good hands. Hazel Brown would be proud.

What truly irritates me about the season is the influx of foreigners. It’s like a disease. Not the tourists mind you – the obnoxious Trinis who spend a couple years abroad and show up with the attitude that we should be grateful to hear their grating hybrid accents. It’s easy to tell a fresh water tourist from the bonafides. They’re loud. Insufferably loud. And they talk slow. Real slow. So we natives can keep up of course. I’m sometimes tempted to ask them if they remember what it’s like to be a newly landed Trinidadian in a foreign land but I’m always afraid they’ll respond with “WHAT? WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” at the equivalent speed of a snail rushing home to catch re-runs of Sex in the City.

One show I would have loved to attend was 3Canal’s ‘Shine’. I was able to get a glimpse of it on television. (Local natch; no $300.00-per-month-and-no-movie-channels for this shrew.) Even while the calypso tents are going through their various controversies and kaiso gets less objective and more inclined to the calypsonian’s political bias, 3Canal and the rapso artistes are probably the only authentic Carnival experiences remaining in the land of Machel, all inclusive fetes and imported bikini mas.

But why ponder on these irrelevant issues when there are still fetes to go to, big trucks to follow and bumpers to wine on? So grab yuh rag and on de count of three: 1...2…1,2,3 Waaaavvveee!

It’s not that funny although it is true.

So the other day I’m talking to a friend of mine and I happen to mention the policeman who had stalked me for a (thankfully) very short time. On hearing the story my friend comments that for as long as he has known me at any given point in time I have been stalked or harassed by someone. I laughed and then I got depressed because it’s true.

When I was younger I used to wonder if I had a sign on my forehead. Wherever I went, some freak would make contact with me. I remember once I went to church, yes church, and during the sign of peace segment where you have to shake hands with other members of the congregation this guy walks up to me. Now the weird thing is that I wasn’t in the church. I was actually outside observing and listening to the proceedings. When the man came out of the building and made a beeline towards me at first I thought nothing of it. He could have been going to his car for all I knew. Instead he came up to me and introduced himself. Apparently he was a theology student and he invited me to a retreat in Salybia where they all go to get closer to the Lord or something. I don’t know, I never called him and actually I don’t recall ever going back to that particular church. Go figure.

One of my more disturbing stalkers actually was the friend of a friend. You know people always say when socialising try to do so only with those you know and their acquaintances for safety reasons. The people who say that are talking up their asses. Anyhoo, I met this one through my only female friend at the time. He practiced (and still does for all I know) kickboxing and was a very interesting, entertaining fellow. We would all hang out together and it was actually a very cool scene; until he got fixated with my feet. Back then I didn’t know about fetishes. So my boy started calling me at all hours of the night. He wanted to know where I lived to ‘visit’ me. The last straw was when he told my friend and me a story about some girl (a neighbour) who accused him of rape. He said he didn’t do it (don’t they all), but the allegation is enough for me. Last I heard he had turned his attentions to our mutual friend.

At least it would seem that my stalkerbility is decreasing as I get older. This year, apart from the police officer, there was only that strange bag-boy who seemed to have a sixth sense in finding me in the supermarket. He offered to write his number on one of my grocery bags and invited me on a date to a juice bar. What the hell is a juice bar? I’ve never heard of or seen one in Trinidad. And that bitch had a talent of appearing out of nowhere. I swear he rivals the best bandits out there. But he’s nothing compared to the gentleman who showed me his gun last year. Yes, his gun. Tucked into his waist band. Right next to me in a taxi. He said he was on his way to handle some ‘business’.

The scary thing about being stalked or otherwise harassed in Trinidad is that no one takes it seriously. If you go to the police (and I’m speaking from experience here) inevitably they just pass it off as a case of puppy love: “Oh gorsh, a nice girl like you. De fella cyah help heself. Give him a chance nah. He like yuh.” They’d probably say the same thing at my funeral. I remember telling another male friend about my predicament and he responded that I probably encouraged them. He may as well have said that rape victims ask for what they get and battered housewives deserve homicidal husbands.

I admit that I have become somewhat paranoid in my interpersonal reactions and most likely, this is why I have limited my social interactions to non-existence. My aunt says I should live my life and not be scared all the time, but it’s not a matter of fear. I just don’t think I could handle another St. Ann’s candidate yap to me about what issues or personal demons they may have.