Alternately, “Why Itsrane hates swans”.Seriously, symbols of love? Graceful? Majestic? Hardly! They may have people fooled, but I got my eye on them.
Look at that malignant, breadcrumb gobbling fucker. Look at him!
I never cared much for swans. They floated around Geneva looking oh so pretty, and tourists would toss stale baguettes at them. At least it kept their uncontrolled brats from being a physical annoyance in addition to the already present auditory annoyance. Then, The Incident happened. The way I viewed these demonic creatures changed in the blink of an eye. Or maybe, in this case, it’s more appropriate to say the turning of an ankle.
I’m getting way ahead of myself let’s back up a bit.
Late night – or early morning – twitter, March 15 2013. I see a post which reawakened the memory of The Incident, and I just had to reply.
And of course, I have to share my embarrassment with the internet. It’s stupid, it’s funny, and it’s far enough in the past for me to see it as happening to someone else. And as it happened to Teen Me, it might as well be someone else.
So, it was summer, in Geneva Switzerland. The weather is usually pretty nice, but we were having a bit of a heat wave. I don’t like heat. I never liked heat. I know I’m supposed to be able to handle it, but I just can’t stand it. So I was grumpy. I didn’t want to be down by the lake that day, but my mom managed to wear me down. And since she didn’t want whoever she was meeting to see what an uncouth embarrassment her daughter was, I had to dress up a bit. Which meant fancy shoes, and no slobbing with jeans and a comfy t-shirt which has seen the inside of the washing machine too many times.
So I was being an angsty, sulky teen. My cousin happened to be there, so I arranged to meet up with her, and ran off as soon as I could. Said cousin and I wandered around, talking, and were way past where the lake narrowed into the Rhone river when my mom called me and told me to do something that involved more walking. Teen Me of course found this to be unacceptable, and got quite mad. Cousin was sympathetic, and offered to go with me. Anger averted.
Mom’s directions are never clear, so we ended up going to several locations which were completely wrong. When we finally reached where she wanted me to go, and do what she wanted me to do. Blisters had started forming on my heels, because my mom didn’t like my ratty sneakers. See, mom? I told you comfort trumps looks!
We started walking to the train station. Which was on the other side of the lake. I was livid, but trying to keep cool. Suddenly, one of these fuckers was standing right in front of me.
It’s like it’s ordering us to admire it, but only from afar. That fucker.
Fuck if I was going to step around it. I just barreled on. The fucker looked at me and stepped aside.
But not before dropping a huge pile of liquid, slimy bird shit on the ground. One foot in it, and down I go. And of course, I slid into more swan shit. FUCK.
I stood up, limping slightly, and covered in what I first thought was lake slime. But it smelled like… oh God.
Cousin was caught between feeling terrible and laughing hysterically.
Of course, the adventure was not over, not yet. We looked around for the nearest place I could get cleaned up. There was only one public-type building where we could get away with using the restrooms without being patrons. The Four Seasons Hotel.
Yes, I walked into that hotel lobby, the right side of my pants covered in bird shit, alternatively cussing in English and Arabic. As nonchalantly as we could, we slipped into the restrooms, where we tried to get as much poop as possible off my pants.
Of course, cleaning up using only toilet paper and water is impossible. Luckily there was a department store between this super-swank hotel which now reeked of avian shit and the train station.
Manor, you’ve saved me of smelling like poo-gas!
So I got a new pair of pants.
My mom was never told of this adventure. She asked a number of times where this strange pair of pants came from, since she’s never seen me wearing that pair before. My general reaction was to divert attention. And look as blank as possible.
“Oh, remember that one time, when we were messing around the stores, and we got so much crap, and uh, I think Auntie M was there. How is she? Did you talk to her recently?”
But seriously, fuck swans.
Honk, honk, motherfucker.
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