Crouching Tigress, Hidden Witch

Usually one to play fair, Mother Nature has a way of offering sufficient prior warning ( or at least a sly hint ) when it comes to the dark and dangerous - especially when it comes to the plant kingdom. From afar, elegant long-stemmed roses are pretty enough with their velvety blooms and distinctive fragrance - but step a lil closer and you'd be sure to take heed of the prickly thorns that surround them. Despite their seeming fragility, it's quite obvious that roses are blooms you don't trifle with. Easy enough warning to keep us away lest we get hurt.

But sometimes Mother Nature likes to throw a curveball. Despite the name, the noxious weed poison ivy appears relatively benign. Almost deceptively harmless with its shiny leaves of three with berries of white. You'd never quite believe that such a common lil country weed could cause such apocalyptic mayhem to the vulnerable immune system.

Certainly a much more evolved, far more dangerous villain if you ask me. Of course we can draw our own parallels in the real world amongst us.


Paul and Jared have a chat
You see, Jaunty Jared - a recently converted devotee of Gossip Girl or what I'm starting to call the Gos 'Mos - has developed a healthy fear of resident bitch Blair Waldorf. Or at least that's what he confided to me over laksa and pie tees during tea ( they really have to coin a name for late lunches! ).

I also confirmed that he has a cute tight tush but that's something else entirely.

Jared : But she's a bitch!
Paul : So? I heart Blair Waldorf!
Jared : But she's a bitch!
Paul : Tell me something I didn't know. Honestly, I'd rather have a straight-up biatch Blair Waldorf rather than a crouching tigress, hidden witch like lying, stealing two-faced social climbing Jenny Humphrey.

I am an opinionated sort. Certainly not a surprise.

I'll admit I like bitches - at least those who are pretty open and honest about it. Like the prickly rose, that nasty mean-girl attitude is right out there in the open so you know not to mess around without chink-free fire-proof armour. See that queen bee with her coterie of plastics in high school - don't cross her or learn the consequences. So that makes her ineffectually harmless. You don't go near an open flame without getting burnt after all.

But it's the sweet-faced Jenny Humphrey ingenues with the hidden cruel intentions that you gotta watch for. Or even the seemingly harmless fella with the religious turban and the goatee combo. Hell, the more pious they look, the more suspicious I get. You never can tell what's hidden behind that deceptively innocent, butter-can't-melt facade. Like the poison ivy, you never quite know for sure till you've gotten stung. And boy, it hurts like hell.

Hurts all the more when you're ill-prepared to deal with the unexpected stab-in-the-back.

So which would you rather - the rose or the ivy?