How to kill time (square)... doesn't really work...

This probably isn't the best time for me to begin a blog post packed with anecdotal hilarity, as I am feeling impressively hacked off. Ok, this may not seem a big deal, but my mayonnaise has gone, gone away from the safety of the fridge, and dammit, I need Helmans to survive! its friendly and familiar label reminds me that not everything is different in this strange land! Secondly it is SO FREAKING HOT in this apartment I want to take all my clothes off forever, and if you can believe that is in any way attractive right now, you're obviously not getting just how hot it is in here. And finally, a mouse just ran out of the bathroom. the BATHROOM. the place where clean is supposed to happen. Where does one clean oneself of mice, sweat, and the tears of Helman's gone by, if the bathroom is currently occupied by mice, weeing an pooing and possibly showering all over the shop? (lydia, if you're reading this, can't wait for you to come stay!) So I'm hungry, I'm sweaty, I need a big poo and I'm scared that if I attempt one, a mouse will come and watch me. And i'm not sure what the procedure is if a mouse runs out at you mid.. situation. I'm sure I don't need to get graphic here. You can come up with your own amusing solutions to this problem in a 'oh god imagine if' kind of way, but this is my life now! my life has become a hypothetical question asked to patients when trying to determine just how mental they actually are. Sigh.

Which, actually, leads me onto rather nicely to what I was originally going to talk about. God this writing thing is getting easier every day. (just to annoy me, 'God', or whoever it is made me spell 'easier' wrong like seven times whilst writing that sentence. oh very funny.)

So yesterday, I went to see a show in Time Square. oooh exciting well done me etc. But thats not what I'm going to talk about, ohh noo no. Now, if you remember, those who have been dedicated Tash procrastinators (protashitnators? Doesn't work. Damn.) the last time i attempted to go and watch a show in this frightening, human packed arena, I ended up, lost, scared, alone, and next to a freckled wall of a man slowly destroying the soul of a violin. I had no intention of this happening again. So i made sure I arrived a little early. 2 hours early. Excellent planning indeed, I'm sure you'll agree. So, looking around Time Square, and realising that once again, i was back in the place that silence forgot, I needed something to do. Somewhere to go, for free, to kill some time. What did you do? I hear you rise up and cry as one, where? where did you go? Well to be honest, I was dumbstruck. Had no idea. And then. ohhh and then. A man came up to me, and with a slightly frightening smile, placed a leaflet in my hand. 'theres a free film starting every fifteen minutes!' He said, with really massive teeth, and grinning slightly oddly-couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time- he sort of floated away.

I looked down at the flyer. And it all became gloriously, wonderfully, epically clear to me. It was time for me to explore the world of Scientology.

Arriving at the 'church' (ohh we've only just begun), I found another smiley human, this time in female form, she looked up at my entry, 'Hi!' she said, looking genuinely pleased to see me, 'I'm Jodie!'
'Hi Jodie, I'm Tash. I'm er.. here for the free film?' I emphasised the word 'free', just so that I could later proclaim from the start that I never wanted more than I was promised.
'Its your first time here?'
'oh yes. Yes it is.'
'Great' (smile smile grinny grinny smile smile) 'Just come this way'

So, I was shown into a very very empty room, and Jodie pressed a few buttons and a film started to play. I had a sudden irrational but very genuine fear that I was actually going to end up in a situation similar to that of an episode of The Demon Headmaster, dribbling, wearing a clone suit, and failing to crack the 'octopus' code with a knock knock joke.

Now then. I learned some VERY valuable things from this 20 minute presentation. Things I'm going to tell you, because I bet you don't know them, and your life is probably being ruined, as my life had been ruined, because of it. Did you know that we all have 'engrams'? I didn't. An engram is something your brain stores when it has a negative experience. Some insane person might try and call it a 'memory', but its not, its an engram. And these negative engrams are the reasons for all of your problems. Do you get depressed sometimes? Its engrams. Have you ever sneezed? Probably an engram. Did you get your leg chopped off in a freak gammon slicing accident? DEFINATLY engram territory.

I watched this unravel with a mixture of wonder, slight horror, and a fair amount of disbelief. The great thing about this 'scientific' video, is that proof seems to be something that isn't cool enough to be considered. At any point. Instead, they BLOODY LOVE to use 'examples'. And by examples, i mean use actors, with a voice over the top. Graphs are BORING man, lets get a sexy voice to make up some stuff! There must have been 30 of them
'This man had a car accident' (video of slow motion car accident)
'The paramedics are able to save him' (yadda yadda you can imagine)
It cuts to inside the ambulance, where the two 'ambulance men' are having a wee chatsie about relationships, for some bizarre reason. 'Yo, whatever happened to you and Shaniqua?' (PROMISE this is true)
'awww we broke up man. I just couldnt be involved with something so long term.'
V/O kicks in.
'without knowing it, this whole conversation is inbedded in the victims mind, as part of his traumatic engram. See what happens when he later comes across a situation similar to the crash'
Cue conversation with his girlfriend in a car where for no reason, he randomly yells 'I CANT DO THIS ANYMORE. I JUST CANT BE INVOLVED WITH SOMETHING SO LONG TERM'.
And there you have it. Proof that engrams exist.

So the film ended. And INSTANTLY on cue Jodie walks in through the door like an grinny robot.
'Did you enjoy the film?'
'Oh.. yes. It was, umm very interesting.'
'You just need to fill this in.' She hands me a questionnaire, where I'm to put all my details, and answer questions about the film. I decided to use a cunning psudenym (psydenom? psudenim.. whatever. it was very cunning) and so Natasha Yak was born. I only answered one of the questions, and it was 'what do you think the film was trying to say?' I wrote 'That memories can sometimes affect you.' It was either that or 'That you are all as mad as snakes', and I felt that since they were all so grinny, that would be a little on the mean side
Shit though. It had only been 20 minutes. I still had HOURS. I bit my lip. How could I ride this out?
THEN, i noticed a little check box at the bottom. 'Would you like to complete a free personality test/IQ test?' Did I? Ohhh yes I did. Free air conditioning, comfortable chairs and lots of people being nice to me for no reason. Why not?

Jodie was VERY happy I was staying for the tests. She smiled. I smiled. Everyone else in the building silently reading to themselves from a variety of books with soothing covers smiled. I was shown to a little cubicle, and given the tests. Going into them would be highly boring, but I'll just give you an example of the type of question on the personality test
'Do you think your opinion is as important, or more important, that the opinions of others?
Y/N/maybe'
With so much aching room for interpretation on every question, i just ticked yes. Yes it is.

So. about 40 minuted later I waited nervously for my test results. Well, I say nervously, I actually mean quite breezily, comfortably and grinnily. Finally a young man came over, and said he'd be going over them with me. Now I was quite knocked back by this. I thought it would be the kind of result similar to that in a 'Shout' magazine flow chart test, 'Which summer style is 4 U?' where there are in reality only four possible outcomes, and each one is in fact a type of lip gloss, or perhaps a brain washing book. The idea of actually going into a room with a man and talking about my personality hadnt really occurred to me. But oh well, a few more minutes ticked off eh?

We walked into a room together, where I tried to be charming, witty, a bit overly enthusiastic, basically all the things that had gotten me into so much gosh darn adorable trouble so many times before. But something very very weird happened. No matter what I said, there was literally no reaction on his face. It wasn't like with a dear one, where a lovely smile might appear, or with clean shirt's friend, where a vague fear and slight disgust took over. It was just, well, nothing. I felt like i was trying to throw paint up at a ceiling, but it was so far away it not only didn't hit, it just sploshed right back into my face. Something very weird was going on. Eventually I gave up the pleasantries for lost, and we fell into silence. He then took a look at my personality, which was handly staring up at him from a graph. And oh dear. Oh dear Oh dear. It turned out there were A LOT of things wrong with my personality. It was only lucky that I'd come in at all.
'Oh right,' I said rather weakly, all my charm and smug and such like of knocked out of me, 'oh dear oh dear, so whats wrong then?'
'well.... You're cold. You're irresponsible, you don't listen to the thoughts and feelings of others. I think you have trouble accepting other people's opinions.'
At that point, i decided his opinion was ridiculous. Whew. Thank goodness for that. Still, still got an hour, better just wade in deeper I suppose.
'Right.' I said delicately, 'I can't listen to others? As in, I can't empathise?'
Now I watched a programme on Feral Children the other day. And it said the distinguishing features of human beings as opposed to other animals were two things. Speech, and ability to empathise. Was he saying.. was I... half feral?
'Well, you clearly have some issues with it. He pointed to the bit of graph that showed that i clearly had some issues with it. And indeed, there is was. A downward line. Can't really argue with that, can you?
'Oh... oh dear.'
'Yes. Now, is there anything in particaulr that you'd like to work on in your personality?'
I tried not to say 'become a human?' and instead, tried, TRIED, to give this boy one more chance.
'well, i suppose i could do with being more tactful. I have a habit of being horribly inappropriate at terrible times, and I dont want to go into the working world and on my first day end up naked on a coat stand, holding, you know, a raincoat and a dead swan.'
and SUDDENLY something amazing happened. He almost, ALMOST, giggled. I saw it, behind his eyes, something actually happened there and i thought OH MY GOD! There's someone in there! Right.
What commenced next was, I have some trepidation in telling you, a gruelling 15 minutes, where he tried to get me to talk about my failings, and I was absolutely determined to make him laugh. Determined. God it was tough. This was no amatuer game, I think I broke all my funny in the attempt. But,dammit, this boy had a sense of humour behind that dead. I had seen it. I had SEEN it and he was young! practically my age! He could be saved! And finally, deftly, with a ridiculously complicated joke that is too epic to go into now, but safe to say it involved Harry Potter, a fictional dictator called Egburt Margstar, and the phrase 'and oh how the children shall dance the jigs!' he finally, FINALLY, burst out laughing. I sat back, exhausted but gratified. and almost INSTANTLY there was a knock at the door. Honestly. An sort of surpised and quick knock. The door opened and a woman of about three hundred years peered through, with a half frown on her face.
'Are you finished with the analysis?'
A small flash of guilt appeared on the boy's face, and he rearranged my personality papers, 'erm, no, no not yet'.
there was a small silence. Then the woman turned to me and smiled 'OK, well, see you in a while.'
The door closed. Me and the boy, for just a split second, shared a guilty smile. 'Ok, well, I should probably take you through..' he stood up
'through? through where?
'through to Carol, she'll help you with the next part'
NO! i wanted to yell, no, no, lets go, lets go you and me right now and I shall show you the wonders of the true world! But he was gone, gone back to the engrams, and the world where laughter, apparently, is akin to stabbing a child.
Upon entering the next room, it was clear that there was no saving Carol. Carol was old. Carol was about seven hundred and twelce. Carol was gone.
'So I hear that you want to be more tactful?'
I laughed, and said 'oh yes, yes well I suppose my problem is I occasionally say wildly inappropriate things.'
'......WILDY inappropriate?' She looked at me with deadness.
'Well, yeah, I guess so.'
'Wildy???'
By this point, all of a sudden, I'd had enough. It was about half an hour till the show, this woman was reaching for a massive book and I had a feeling that it wasn't one to give me as a freebie. I was right. It turned out in order to begin fixing my personality, I'd have to buy this book ($17.99) and begin a course ($60) starting the following week. Of course, if she'd looked properly on the graph, she'd see that I don't respond to the opinions of others, and wouldn't have bothered. Probably just would have given me a chewy toy to play with in a garden somewhere. I shook her hand, told her firmly that I didn't need any of that, and thanked her for her time. She looked out at me and smiled, told me that was fine, but insisted I took a website address, and that she got my email (NatashaYak@gmail.com). Before I left this cool chamber of potential mad, I looked around one last time for the man who interviewed me. But he'd gone. Possibly to be punished for indulging in the human sin of humour. Perhaps the alien leader believes not in such a vice. Shame. I felt like I could have saved him. Perhaps I could start up my own church. This L.Ron Hubbard guy seems to be right on the money. Hey, I could write a series of books, get a few films out, brainwash a nation with the power of irrational funnies. Got a backpain? You've not said 8 ridiculous words today. Did your wife break up with you? Probably because you haven't been practicing your guffaw technique. Come one, come all, we can help you here. Turning your engrams into fungrams, and it'll only cost you everything you've got.