Uncomfortable Truths

Hi. I like your shoes, are they new?
About a year ago, I wrote this for a truly excellent independent wordy juggernaut called The King's Tribune, which you should definitely pay the pittance they ask for to get it delivered, all quivering and moist, into your inbox every week.
And now I'm reproducing this thing here, because its intention is to make people feel  bad and I'm a bitch who likes that kind of thing.

UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS

People eat dead animals because they are delicious. People do everything they can while they’re eating dead animals, or purchasing parts of dead animals to eat later, to ignore the fact that we know that these animals have been grown and killed and chopped up for us to eat. We ignore that fact because it gets in the way of us enjoying our meal of dead animal parts and crackling.

Bindi Irwin has boobs now.

Generally speaking, women are physically weaker than men. They’re more likely to make decisions based on emotion. Mind you, they’re a lot less likely to make decisions based on what their penises want, so there’s that. Still, there is no good reason that women can’t or shouldn’t serve in the armed forces or go to war or lead countries or run companies or build bridges or control spacecraft. Almost none of those things have jars in them that need opening.

Penis size does matter. Not as much as you think it does. But it matters. There’s such a thing as too small, and there’s such a thing as too big. You are not either of those things.

There’s a reasonable chance that Tony Abbott will be prime minister of Australia. There are people who will vote for Tony Abbott based on his personality alone. There are people who think it’s fine to see the outline of Tony Abbott’s genitals nestled in their Speedo hammock. They think that’s just okey-dokey.

Kyle Sandilands is liked by tens of thousands of people.

People don’t like to look at the physical deformities of others, or at people in wheelchairs. When people pass people with obvious physical deformities in the street, they notice them, but they pretend they haven’t noticed them.

People treat people with disabilities differently. People are nervous and uncomfortable around people with disabilities. They think more carefully about what they say to and around people with disabilities.

Human beings like the smell of their own farts and the smell of their own feet. Human beings are sometimes disappointed when they clean their ears with a cotton bud and it comes out more or less clean. They’re disappointed when they floss their teeth and no chunks of spitty food come out on the string. They like squeezing blackheads. They like getting a big chunk of sleep-crust out of their eyes. They pick their noses. They wee in the shower.

Some nuns are horrible, horrible people.

When we see someone on the street collecting for charity or a homeless person asking for money, sometimes we make up an excuse not to give them anything. We might have a couple of different excuses that we use at different times, but we have one favourite excuse that we use more often than the others.

Elle Macpherson has at least one grey pube now.

We only want to look after the planet if it’s easy, comfortable and convenient. It would be better for the planet if we didn’t use electricity. It would be better for the planet if we didn’t use plastic. It would be better for the planet if we didn’t travel anywhere except by foot. It would be better for the planet if we didn’t use soap or detergent. But for now, let’s separate our rubbish into vegetation, recyclables, and other. Mostly. Sometimes. Do we have to tear the little windows out of envelopes? Because we do not want to have to do that.

We’re racist. At the absolute and very least, we expect to see stereotypical traits or behaviour in people of particular races, including our own. Of course, the best thing to do as highly evolved humans is to rise above our racist impulses and not make any judgements or choices or decisions based on race. But we do. We’re racist.

Children are a pain in the arse.

We become less physically attracted to our partners as time goes on. We have other things to keep us going, like romantic love and support and comfort and reliability and companionship and both digging the shit out of crumpets with butter and honey. But we’re not as jazzed about our partner as we used to be. And sometimes what we thought was forever isn’t. And sometimes we just go along with things anyway, because it’s better than being alone. Either way, those quirky habits that you used to think were borderline adorable are now the main reason you want to stab each other in your sleep. And oh, god. Is that an ear hair? That’s an ear hair.

Genitals are ugly and periods are gross.

We believe that people who believe in things that we don’t believe in are stupider than we are.

Attractive people will be presented with more and better opportunities in life than unattractive people.

Our parents lied to us about things. So many things.

We should get that mole looked at.

We have friends that we don’t really like. We say bad things about them to other people, but we’re nice to their face. Some of our friends don’t really like us.

Parents have a favourite child. Your parents had a favourite child.

People with sun tans look better than people without sun tans. Slim people look better than overweight people. Acne is off-putting.

We judge people based on what they do for a living.

We wonder what our friends look like having sex, and then immediately wish that we hadn’t.

People in cities barely pay any attention to the needs of people who live in the rest of the country, and find it far more comfortable that way.

We will give money to charity, but we’d rather not volunteer.

We like watching extremely famous and rich American celebrities going off the deep end and damaging their careers.

Somebody is still watching Australia’s Funniest Home Videos.

We look into the shopping trolleys of fat people.

We want our exes to go out with people who are uglier than we are. We want them to see us with someone more attractive than they are.

We would rather that our children didn’t turn out to be gay. Being gay is more difficult than not being gay. Gay people are more likely to face prejudice, or be treated differently, or be teased and bullied, or not afforded the same rights as heterosexuals. We don’t want our children to have to deal with that. Life is easier for straight people.

We lie to people about how their haircuts look. They lie to us about how our haircut looks.

There are millions of tiny animals on you, right now. Some of them are feeding on you. They’re eating your dead skin. They’re crawling through your eyelashes. They’re in your intestines.

We don’t know what it’s like to die, but we’re going to find out.

Sometimes, just seeing the word ‘yawn’ in print can make you yawn. Especially if the word ‘yawn’ is in a sentence a lot, or stretched out like this: yaw-haw-haw-haw-hawn.

Once, you sneezed and got some mucus on your hand, and you wiped your hand on your clothes or on the tablecloth or on your friend’s furniture.

When your friends have problems, you don’t always want to hear about them, especially if it’s about the time they found someone’s mucus on their couch. 

When your friends break up with someone, you don’t want them to keep talking and talking and talking about it, even if it makes them feel better.

You pretend you have to get off the phone, even when you don’t.

You washed it in the washing machine even though it said ‘dry clean only’. You opened it at this end even though it said ‘open other end’. You used it after its expiry date. You didn’t wash it before putting it into the salad. You told them there was no garlic in it even though you put garlic in it. You made it from a packet but you told them you made it from scratch. You used one and threw the rest in the bin. You just scraped the mouldy bit off. You can’t be bothered, so they’re having chicken nuggets. When they asked if anyone had any chocolate, you lied even though you had chocolate. You put salt in it. You didn’t check what kind of eggs they were. You tried a grape in the fruit and veg section. You ate it straight out of the jar. You ate it off a knife. It fell on your lap and you picked it up and ate it anyway. It fell on the floor and you picked it up and ate it anyway. You ate a Chiko Roll. You served yourself the biggest one. You’re not always a vegetarian. You ate the whole packet yourself. You ate the whole packet yourself on the way home. You ate other people’s leftovers while you were cleaning up the kitchen.

That is seriously the ugliest baby you have ever seen.

Porn.