Chaos

 This morning I was expecting to wake up to the sound of panicked screaming, the subtle tinkle of glass shattering in the distance, the incessant shrill wail of a car alarm and the hungry crackle of uncontrollable flames. As I lay entrapped within the folds of my comfortable bed last night, I worried about how I would have to step over all the mangled bodies, some suicides, others not, as I walked towards the bathroom for my morning session of bladder emptying. I imagined how I would be forced to toast my morning bread on the burning corpse of some stranger while slicing another cadaver into bite sized chunks for topping.

 To my extreme surprise I in fact arose to the pleasant sound of civilization as we know it not collapsing and had a peaceful morning in a reassuringly non post apocalyptic world. Contrary to my expectations, it turns out that failing to write a blog post for one day does not result in the immediate end of the world. Which I suppose is, although a little disheartening, generally a good thing. Especially considering that my excuse in the event of being held responsible for the termination of the human race would have been quite poor. Standing atop a smoldering mountain of rubble looking down at a disgruntled mob of rag tag survivors seeking vengeance and simply stating, "I'm sorry everyone for causing the apocalypse, I didn't write my blog post for yesterday because I was having a Halloween horror film fest," probably would not have tamed their anger.

 However if its any consolation to anybody, it wasn't that good a film fest. For one thing we watched about one and a half films which probably doesn't quite constitute a film "festival". At best, with extreme optimism, it was a film "autumn-fair-held-in-a-sparsely-populated-village-in-the-countryside", though realistically speaking it probably didn't even achieve that low height and was perhaps something more akin to a film "birthday-party-of-that-unpopular-kid-in-school-who-isn't-even-bullied-because-the-bullies-haven't-even-noted-his-amazingly-insignificant-existence-yet".

 This lack of actual film watching was due largely to the presence of beer in the lower levels of the house and the general tendency for teenagers to migrate towards the presence of alcohol and consequently, in this instance, away from a showing of the "Rocky Horror Show" but this did not necessarily make it an enjoyable night.

 The first wheel was presumably invented when a caveman, lets say Ugg, found a circular piece of rock and decided to attempt to roll it. Having found that this was extremely entertaining and potentially useful, Ugg then contacted his friend Arg via the use of vocal cords and together they created the second wheel. That night, celebrating the invention and hopeful future mass production of wheels, the two cavemen entrepreneurs hold a party. Its held in Ugg's cave and Arg arrives a few minutes late, carrying a chunk of mammoth leg as a present. He walks into the cave, where a roaring fire has already been lit and is just about to call out when he spots Ugg, sitting in the shadows, making out with Ugga, the girl from the cave next door. That was the invention of the third wheel.

 Winter is apparently the season of romance and relationship forming because the number of couples seem to be increasing exponentially. They spawn in the slightly shady corner of every room in a house holding any thing remotely like a party, multiplying and infecting every possible location within a domestic setting like some sort of romantic mold growth fueled by desperation and alcohol. And this film "autumn-fair-held-in-a-sparsely-populated-village-in-the-countryside" was no different.

 I was at all times throughout the evening, a third wheel if not more. But at least a third wheel is something, its a tricycle. True, tricycle's aren't the most popular of transport means but at least toddlers still enjoy them so the third wheel is a vital role in bringing happiness to toddlers. Of course what brings about this realization that being a third wheel is a relatively good role, is the experience of being a fifth wheel.

 Even then you can still find comfort in the fact that vaguely important fifth wheels do exist in the world, those wheels attached to the back of big range rovers for example. There, presumably, in case some thing like a randomly occurring shard of diamond on the road manages to puncture one of the monstrously thick tires made specifically not to be punctured. Indeed the event is extremely unlikely to occur but the fifth wheel is an important back up, an existence necessary to give emotional and mental comfort to the paranoid range rover driver.

 The seventh wheel however, the seventh wheel is inconsolable. There is nothing like sitting on a sofa and realizing that you are in a tight competition with the empty beer bottles strewn across the floor for the number one spot of most obsolete object in the room. And taking into account the fact that glass beer bottles can be near endlessly recycled and reused, as well as at some point having had the honour of containing the beautiful happiness inducing substance known as alcohol, whereas you are just a purposeless pile of flesh sitting on stuffed leather while using up oxygen that the three other couples making out in the room presumably have more of a dire need for considering all the panting their making, you are probably the champion of unnecessary existence.

 So the moral of the story is, I need another bottle of beer or three.