Death By Tom-Tom

If you don’t know what Polish Pottery is, let me describe it like this: it’s similar to crack, but it only affects women and makes them purchase it by the gross ton in order to fill the house with heavyweight objects that are not only beautiful when set out at dinner but also useful for disabling prowlers.

About two hours’ drive from our house is a Polish Pottery wholesaler. I think this is mildly ironic, since we don’t live 2 hours from Poland, but never mind. So my wife and her sister (the famous Sis-in-law, last seen leaving me knee-deep in a raccoon grave that it was her idea to dig) decided to go visit it in order to get their fix.

Because the store is far away, they borrowed a Tom-Tom. If you don’t know what these things are, they’re basically super-cheap GPS systems that are designed to flip out at the most inopportune time and leave you stranded, preferably somewhere near where the crack addicts avoid because it’s “not too savory over there.”

They managed to get to the famous wholesalers and spend lots of money; apparently fiscal success for them is only overrunning their budget by 35%. I don’t care, though; if they didn’t spend it on anti-prowler ceramics I’d probably waste it on pornographic video games.

Once they’d gotten home, they decided on a whim to go back out and visit the Chocolate factory. I think their plan was to break a plate over Charlie’s head and make off with the world’s largest Crucified Chocolate Santa. After they’d filled the car with a hundred kilos of pure dark chocolate (I shudder to think of the loading on the rear axle at this point), they fired up the borrowed Tom-Tom and asked it to take them home.

Now, why exactly they needed the Tom-Tom to tell them how to cross town, I do not know. But it decided to take them right through the middle of the city. During rush hour.

Halfway across town, the Tom-Tom announced in a suddenly Schwarzeneggerian voice “You’re on your own, silly bitches. I hope some crazy derelict hobo lawyer doesn’t gouge out your eyes and piss on your brains. Mwu-ha-ha!”

Then it stopped.

I saw them much later that night, somewhat frazzled and stinking of urine, but otherwise unharmed. When I asked my wife if she wanted a Tom-Tom, she told me to do something that’s anatomically impossible, which I presume meant no.

Which was good, because I can’t wait to get Grand Theft Auto 8: Hoz on the Hoodz.