Why are you eating my sponges?

I met up with Warren and Francisco, visiting pals from far flung destinations, for dinner tonight. Warren is a South African film director and Francisco is his sexy Venezualan actor companion. We went to some terrible bobo cafe in the Marais that had the audacity to name itself The Philosophers. As if burnished metal in sperm like patterns on the ceiling made for heavy thinking.

The food and wine is speckled by colourful stories from our youth.

So Warren mentioned how he used to play mummy and daddy with the little Bloomberg girl. He really loved playing mummy and daddy with her until one day she said: "No, you're not daddy. You're the cat and you have to lie by the side of the bed." Then there was another daddy, and Warren would be very happy, later that year, when that daddy had to leave for Australia. He only found out much later that he preferred playing daddy and daddy, and now doesn't mind going to Australia.

I then tell them about my bizarre incident where I almost took all my hair off at seven in the morning by slapping hair removal cream on my legs, not washing my hands, and running that, mixed with shampoo through my hair. If you ever need to wake up fast, that's a good technique. Nothing happened because of my cat-like reflexes in emptying out half a conditioner bottle on my head, chanting fuck fuck fuck.

Francisco followed this up with how he once had Ben-Gay on his fingers after rubbing it on his elbow, and went to the toilet without washing his hands. Classic ancient frat joke.

Finally, Warren kicks in a clear winner. When he used to get nose bleeds, his nanny used to stick cotton wool up his nose and ask him to tilt his head back. One day, he got a nose bleed but his nanny wasn't there. So he went to the toilet searching for cotton wool. He found something that seemed tailor-made for nose bleeds. It was the right size and seemed made of fuzzy cotton stuff. So he stuffed two of those up his nose. But, as the blood went into them, they started to grow. And they grew and grew and grew, distending his nose so far that it required attention. He screamed for his sister who cried "whatever the devil made you stick those up your nose!" At which point she pulled the two handy strings hanging out, tearing off most of the inside of Warren's nose.

Which reminds me of some story I have of Shelton. This was when he went to New Brunswick for university and was staying with some friends who were ecologically conscious. Shelton, as I think I have eluded to before, has quite a knack for eating pathologically. He turns into zombie eating machine whenever there is any food around him. Don't laugh. It's scary to see so much white in someone's eyes.

Anyways, so he used to live with these two girls, hippy girls, the earth-coloured kinds who are undubitably vegetarians. These silly girls who run around eating sprouts, wearing Tibetan shawls and buying expensive ineffective shampoo made from sheep's dung. Well, one of them had taken to using the sponge instead of regular menstrual aids. The sponge is a little organic sponge that is reusable. You just pull it out, wash it up, dry it out and it's ready for another drink. Apparently, when they dry up, they look quite a bit like oatmeal cookies.

So, there you have it. Shelton's house had a party, a real house party, and Shelton had slept in the afternoon. The consequence of this was not only did he join the party a little late, but he didn't have enough time to eat dinner. He was sitting on the counter, chatting to some people, eating some cookies. He chewed mechanically, and later would confess that he couldn't remember the taste at all.

Suddenly, the roommate walks in, stares at Shelton and says, "Why are you eating my sponges?"