We'll Talk About It Tomorrow.

After writing the first three chapters of my novel (now abandoned - it morphed itself into a narrative about a crazy hose-beast whose nature depressed the bejesus out of me), and The Husband's relocation to Jo'burg coupled with the gods of labour declaring Capulet/Montague-style war on me (I have so much marking I doubt my eyeballs will feel the protective covering of my eyelids ever again), I've been feeling just a touch down over the past two days.

"It's okay to be down sometimes, Pant," I hear you say. And I couldn't be in a more enthusiastic state of agreement if I tried. It's just that I've got to focus on snapping out of it today because, I've come to realise, negativity attracts more negativity. Allow yesterday's antics to illustrate.

So I was ambling along the corridors of my workplace, mindlessly daydreaming about unlikely but highly desirable future couplings with Jake Gyllenhall - I do this in an attempt to drown out the unbearably loud drone of collective teenage angst - when a teen heavy-book-bagged me right in the solar plexis, snapping my brand new sunglasses in half, knocking me off my feet and all the air out of my lungs. I like to think it was a mistake - but the teenagers managed to scatter with such alacrity that if I'd had the capacity, they'd have vanished before I could have said, "Which one of you?"

With a swollen top lip from connecting with a stair and soiled white skinnys, I made my way back to my classroom a little shell-shocked. And as I turned a corner, another teen charged past me with such force that if I didn't have such a penchant for dairy products, I'm certain the bones in my arm would have crumbled.

And do you know what I mumbled? The words, "What has become of the youth oftoday?" found expulsion from my very own (injured) lips. Great. So not only did I look as though I'd been caught in a bar-room brawl, my clothes looked as though I'd sharted and I'd aged instantly - I was positively seventy-five. Brilliant.

But it's not just the youth of today that had it in for me yesterday. It's also the pushy beggars of the greater Durban area. I take the same route home everyday. Simply because there is only one route to take. And I meet the same beggars at around the same time. I also answer their requests for 20 cents with the same response - "You probably earn more than me, pal" - everyday.

But Lady With Hideous Teeth And Poor Dress Sense decided to get into an argument with me yesterday:

Lady With Hideous Teeth And Poor Dress Sense: Why do you always say that?

The Pant: Because it's the truth.

LWHTAPDS: Then how come you're drinking a coke?

TP: Thirsty. And I need the caffeine and sugar rush to get me through the piles of marking in my boot.

LWHTAPDS: I thought you had nothing.

TP: I do, I have a sum total of nothing for you.

LWHTAPDS: Then how come you've got a coke?

TP: Well, technically, the bank owns this coke. They've just suggested they trust me enough to think I'll pay them back for it at the end of the month.

LWHTAPDS: Can I have the rest of your coke?

TP: Will you leave me alone and go and argue with that rich man behind me if I give you my coke?

LWHTAPDS: No.

TP: What do you mean 'no'? No, you won't leave me alone? Or, no, you won't go and argue with the rich man behind me?

LWHTAPDS: I'll leave you alone but I won't go and speak to that man.

TP: Why?

LWHTAPDS: Because he won't give me anything.

(The man was driving a big fancy car and compared to my Wanda, which is held together by cable ties and hope, I figured he had more to give than I did.  But I handed her my half empty can of coke.  I needed her to go away.)

TP: No asking me tomorrow, okay?

(The light turned green.)

LWHTAPDS: We'll talk about it tomorrow.

Anyone got a spare wig and baseball cap to lend me? And a big-ass pair of dark glasses? Since mine are now in two.