Heavenly Justice

Ah Sunday, sweet Sunday.

As is often at this stage of the week, CS and I wake up with the satisfied feeling of having vanquished all our primeval violent tendencies. Pray, allow me to elaborate.

We are fortunate enough to have an attractive apartment in a reasonably central quarter of Barcelona. The only catch with the flat is that it’s located a mere stone’s throw from one of the city’s hippest and liveliest gay/hetero mixed dance clubs. Now, it can only be speculated what gets snorted, smoked or popped in this establishment’s action-packed toilet cubicles, but all we can say is that, on weekend nights, the youthful clientele spill out of the doors at closing time with more energy than when they went in and absolutely no intention of bringing the evening’s revelry to a halt.

The result of all this effervescent joy is that some of the kids return to their cars which happen to be parked just under our fifth floor abode, open all the doors, put the stereo on full blast and start bopping and yelling in the street.

Now I like Janet Jackson videos just as much as the next man (lie), but to have a live action version explode under your balcony and five in the fucking morning is a little bit too much to take. And I’m not the main problem for these kids.

When my Spanish girlfriend CS is in a good mood, the beautifully strong features of her pretty Latin face radiate a warmth and serenity that is beyond compare. When she’s in a bad mood she looks like Joan Crawford with rabies. And one thing you do NOT want to do with my little poppet is to brutally wake her from her slumber at an ugly hour of the morning.

This is the reason why we always have a store of ripe aerodynamic tomatoes on hand over the weekend. We used to yell at the kids in the past but quickly realised the futility of this recourse. So now we go straight for the horticultural artillery. And, modesty aside, I’ve become quite a crack shot. My college physics professor would be so proud of me because I have learned to instinctively calculate horizontal vector force of launching necessary to play against the forces of gravity so that an arc of projection will be traced which will splat the soft fruit on the dingbat’s hood or windscreen. And what a satisfying sound it makes.

One thing we’ve learned is that you should always go for the car and not the man. The bourgeois Catalan brats get all stroppy if they feel personally attacked and might start pushing all the buzzers at the front door of your building. There is also the risk of actually hurting one of the little bastards and one of their Daddies is sure know a good lawyer or two. (Always puncture the tomato with your thumb before firing it) However, when you pop their cars with a good stainer, they shriek like pinched poodles, jump into the besmirched vehicle (which you have now realised probably belongs to Mummy) and head for the hills.

And that is why, on mornings like this, we wake up slightly groggier but much more satisfied than usual.