So I’m just going to come right out and say it- I’ve contracted a nasty virus!

Now as much as I’d like to place the entirety of the blame on the rascally “other party”, I must first claim my ownership of the situation. Guilty as charged… I’ve been knocking about for a while now — frequenting all kinds of questionable addresses without even a thought of slapping on proper protection.

But oh, how I paid for it yesterday afternoon, as I sat squirming in my chair, reeling from my first glimpse of the carnage! It was all too raw for me to conduct a full inspection, so I stomped to the living room to ask mumsy and one of our oldest friends, Jules, about possible methods of damage control.

‘Ladies, I was utterly screwed last night. And now I’ve just discovered that my privates are running rampant with an nasty virus! Any suggestions?’

‘Where on earth do you find these men?’ Mumsy chastised.

“No silly, not those privates. I’m talking about my private files. Last night my computer was infected by a virus’. (Actually it was Mumsy’s computer which I’d done a takeover on, but let’s not get technical).

‘I take it you backed everything up?’

‘Well, no. Which means I’ve lost everything!’ I exclaimed.

Jules then joined the conversation- ‘well, I think you should pray about it and think positive thoughts; I find there are always positives to be found in everything.’ Jules’s limited action plan came as no surprise… I swear both her knees sport more calluses than an up-and-coming porn star’s.

‘You know, I have a spare laptop you can have. I’ll drop it around tomorrow’, Jules offered.

‘I could really do with that,’ I graciously accepted.

‘See, there’s a positive right there!’ She then squished me to her bosom as she prayed for further silver linings to reveal themselves.

Jules’s ability to mentally turn every situation around, reminds me in a sense of a phrase my American friend taught me years prior. I had picked him up in the middle of the night. There he sat in the passenger seat on high alert, scanning the sidewalk for 24-hour bottle shops, dissatisfied by the drinking hours the nightclub he’d just emerged from had provided him, when all of a sudden he hollered: ‘STOP! Quick, flip a bitch!’ At first I thought that he was insisting that I careen into two ladies huddled on the sidewalk. But then when he practically took over the wheel to pull me into a hard right, I realised he was suggesting what we in Australia call, a U-turn. Jules does that with her perception — flips a bitch on it.

‘I guess it could be worse,’ I added, trying out her life mantra. ‘I could have been exposed to the canned variety of spam.’ We both vigorously nodded.

This marginal shuffle in a positive direction was just enough for me to go investigate the damages. Applying a similar concept to checking a patient’s nappy after an enema, I turned my head slightly clockwise, away from the crime scene, contorted my eyelids into a squint position and examined the area by testing the workings of my farthest peripheral vision.

I discovered that, similar to patients after a gastric lavage, my computer had pretty much been cleaned out. Although, astoundingly, of all the hundreds of files on display, the only four that HADN’T been held ransom (for a fee of $850) were the only four that I desperately hoped NOT to lose. Those files contained my cookbook, the cookbook-related photos and my children’s books… all spared when I turned off the computer in the middle of the night. However, I must thank mumsy for providing me the motivation to get up and do so. If she hadn’t infiltrated the computer with album upon album of her holiday pics, and then taken the initiative to run them in all their highly incandescent glory as a screensaver, my collapse into full sleep wouldn’t have been accosted. Shutting down that mumsy spotlight must have been what intercepted the final acts of the heist.

Feeling ever so thankful about my change in predicament, I decided to flip an entire bitch on the situation by writing down all the positives that had come from it:

1) On account of the virus, I’ve become the proud owner of another laptop. Granted, it takes over 10 minutes to boot up and turn on, but just like an old flame of mine that smoked copious pot, what it lacks in start-up vigour, it makes up for in size. Just yesterday, its compact structure afforded it the means to become lost within the folds of a blanket. THE FOLDS OF A BLANKET! And, not a heavy winter rug, but the kind of flimsy throw that you drape for decorative purposes only.

2) My new laptop is very lightweight. My old one would cause awful indents in my thighs, leaving me stumbling to fetch drinks with limp canters. So this has truly given me the ability to Google without the pressing fear of DVT’s.

2) The positives mentioned above pale in comparison to the rewards I’ve gotten from my new laptop’s screensaver. Instead of rotating pictures of mumsy holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and such, Jules has set my new laptop to recycle inspirational quotes. For instance, the last time I took a break, I returned to these words on the screen: ‘Don’t waste your time on revenge. Those who hurt you will eventually face their karma.’

3) Lastly, the internet virus gave me a much needed distraction from my loveless life. I had reached the point where the only romance that I’d had of late was when Mumsy accidentally threw a leg over me mid slumber when a family gathering forced us to share a bed. And I let her keep it there, which is never a good sign. Actually, the topic of my love life has just reminded me of another screensaver which flashed up last night. What was it again? Oh yeah: ‘Love is for giving, love is forgiving.’ I just felt some global warming in my chest region.

This bitch has been officially flipped!

flipped bitch photo by insta- @lit2last