Pondering stale lettuce and mayonnaise

There are some strange imponderables in life. I'm thinking this as I sit in a coffee bar pondering the remains of my BLT with two unopened packets of mayonnaise and wondering if it's possible to ponder the imponderable. I'm really keen to know who in the world eats mayonnaise which has always to me tasted how I would imagine dead cat to taste.

Then again I'm not sure I'd know what dead cat would taste like. I just don't fancy the idea. My dad swears he was once given cat at a Chinese restaurant in Birmingham, poorly disguised as a chicken. He said the bones were unlike those of any chicken he has ever eaten. The whiskers were a give away too. Maybe surviving on a tube of mayonnaise and a loaf of hard Austrian rye bread for a week on a low budget Interailing trip round Europe put me off the stuff.

Today I was absent minded thinking about the meaning of life and blogs in no particular order. There was something about today - a long succession of marketing tasks - that has left me feeling down. I'm not sure why that should be as I have now taken delivery of a kick ass sort of magnetic bottle opener that you can stick on the side of your fridge. Apparently Americans project their lives on the side of their fridges in the way Brits never do - to some extent this is because American fridges are six times bigger.

Those trips to relatives in the house in Charlotte are now fading into the hazy half remembered netherworld where our lives all trot off to but I still recall all the sickly little plaques on the fridge - "My Husband is my best friend," and "It's Not a House - it's a Home."

Until it was flogged off after the family split up.

I wonder if a beer bottle opener on the side of the fridge would have saved their relationship? Probably not but I'm a big believer in the theory "if you have a problem drink as much as you can and you'll probably forget about it altogether." Or your head will hurt too much to remember the disagreement.

My uncle used to advocate the idea of distraction therapy. It works like this. If you stub your toe and are moaning about the pain you should give yourself a worse wound to take your mind off the toe. So next time you stub a toe on your left foot go ahead and cut off your right foot with a chainsaw and you won't complain about the stubbed toe anymore.

"Simple delight," calls the barista as she hands over an overpriced coffee. Surely nothing simple can also be delightful. And that's another thing that is need of serious pondering. Since when did the rather down to earth position of 'person who works in a coffee shop' transform into the grand and exotic sounding barista?

My battery is about to die and I have an unpleasant trip to make to the Treasurers' Office for another default. This time I accidentally wrote a check from an incorrect check book and now have to pay a $50 fine even though I called up the next day and tried to stop the payment. Bastards.

OK now that's out of my system I'm heading to City Hall with a little present. Stale lettuce smeared with mayonnaise is very pleasant on a Friday afternoon I'm told.