I went to Corio Village, a shopping centre this afternoon after work – I had to visit a friend out Corio way and needed to pick up some food as well. Corio is the end of Geelong where the bogans live, and the unemployment rate tends to be a little higher than the rest of Geelong. Not that I’m typecasting – but when you go to Corio Village even in a pair of jeans, you feel like you’re over-dressing compared to all the Corio locals walking around in moccasins and the like.
*****
Another slow day at work. I don’t know how we get on to such subjects, but today we were all talking about those emergency necklaces for senior citizens. I’m not sure if you’ve seen them or not – they cost about $80 I think, and the person pays $35 a month. Basically, if they’re ever in trouble, all they have to do is press a button on the necklace and a medical representative of the necklace company rushes out to see if they’re OK. I was wondering: what if you fell over on the necklace and broke it? You’d be buggered then.
And we all know how terrible mobile phone coverage is out in the bush… I wonder if emergency necklace coverage would drop out too.
*****
I keep getting these messages on my mobile phone for someone named “Jack”. This has been going on for a few months now. I think Jack has given some people my phone number by mistake, instead of his. Because I’ve got no way of getting these messages to Jack (I don’t know his phone number), I thought from know on I’d just put them here…
Messages For Jack – 7/1/2000
Jack, you must have been pretty busy today. I got two messages for you today – both were from “John” – he wanted you to call him when you got back from your meeting. So who’s John, eh? Is this the guy you bonk during your lunch hour without your wife knowing? Eh? Eh? Eh?
Well, you obviously didn’t call him, because he called back later on and he wanted to know if you had “a tent he could borrow for the holiday”. So you’re having a dirty weekend eh? Shame on you. You should remember that you’re married.
*****
Today at a take-away food store, at lunch:
Me: I’ll just have a bag of chips thanks.
Woman with greasy hair wearing apron with suspicious stains: Would you like a bucket of chips, or a bag?
Me: (thinking that I’m pretty hungry and might get a bag) A bag’s fine.
Woman with greasy hair wearing apron with suspicious stains: Okay, that’s $2.00.
Me: (forks over money)
Woman with greasy hair wearing apron with suspicious stains: Here you go. (dumps paper bag reaching garbage-bag-like size proportions full of greasy chips)
And they were undercooked, too. Actually, the chips are probably why I feel like I’ve been wanting to chunder all day.
*****
At work, every few days we have an hour off to do research, or catch up on any work we still have to do. This time is known as “downtime”, but I often refer to it affectionately as “downie”, because it’s basically just time for a slack attack as far as I’m concerned. Ms. J has taken a disliking to me using this term, because she thinks it sounds like I’m talking about Down’s Syndrome. We asked Ant to see what he thought, and he said it sounds like “going down on someone”. Maybe I’ll have to slip ‘having a downie’ into casual conversation and see if any eyebrows raise.
We found out today that our work is going to honour our contracts and keep us employed until the end of January. We’ll find out on Tuesday if we get to stay on longer or not. If we do, it’s likely that we’ll all get different team leaders. I’m a bit worried because I really like my current team leader, and there’s one team leader who is particularly smelly and I don’t want to get her. Whenever you ask her for help you’re too busy trying to figure out exactly what could make a smell that bad, rather than listening to her advice.
Today…
Ms. J: Did I tell you about our landlord and the cat?
Me: No?
Ms. J: Our landlord rang us up, because our neighbour was complaining about our cat.
Me: Okay.
Ms. J: Our neighbour heard we had a cat, so she rang up the landlord to complain it was wrecking her garden. What she didn’t know is that our cat is only a few weeks old and was only let out of the house once.
Me: So what happened?
Ms. J: She’s talking about taking legal action, but I rang up the tribunal and there’s nothing she can do, so I say bring it on.
Me: (picks up phone) Judge Judy? I have a case for you…
*****
I put myself in a position yesterday where I claimed that “United States of America” is the longest country name in the world. Ms. J couldn’t think of anything at the time. However, last night I got an email from Lynne to let me know that there’s a country called the “Federated States of Micronesia”. This clocks in at 27 letters, as compared to “United States of America” which has 21 letters. I also had a back-up country just in case. The showdown occurred at roughly 9.30am:
Ms. J: United States of America, eh? Longest country name, you reckon?
Me: Maybe. (smirk)
Ms. J: I bet you didn’t think of the Federated States of Micronesia.
Me: Actually, I did. And I also thought of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Ms. J: You bitch.
Me: (sweet smile)
Thanks to Casper, Krystelle and Lynne for sending me the Congo country. (Lynne, I don’t know how you find out all this useless information…) Democratic Republic of the Congo clocks in at 28 letters.
What this means now, is that Ms. J has gone off to research atlases over the weekend in an attempt to find a longer country name. I’ve got a lot of ammo now though, thanks to Adam – he sent me this list of 5 countries:
* Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (30 letters)
* Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (33 letters)
* The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (36 letters)
* Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (37 letters)
* United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (45 letters, although I think this one might be pushing it)
Knowing my luck, Ms. J will find some technicality to weasel her way out of this, but the battle continues…
*****
At work, when we use the phones, we use a headset. But today, Monowoman (the woman with a monotone for every occasion) who sits in the cubicle next to me at work, really topped off every dumb thing she’s ever done. I think that she thought nobody saw this:
(phone rings)
Monowoman: Hello, how can I help you?
(five seconds pass)
Monowoman: Hello, how can I help you?
(five seconds pass)
Monowoman: Hello?
(five seconds pass)
Monowoman: Is anyone there?
(five seconds pass)
Monowoman: Hello?
(five seconds pass, and Monowoman notices she’s not wearing her headset, and she’s just talking into the air)
Monowoman: (puts on headset) Hello, how can I help you?