It was Mother’s Day on Sunday. I agreed to drive Adam and his two brothers to their mum’s place, which is near here, but not exactly walking distance. When they got back, Adam’s brothers gave me beer for my trouble. Is life always this good for taxi drivers? Sheesh, I might have to go buy a beaded seat cover if people throw beer at you all day if you taxi them around.
Adam told me that his brother Ray is quite smart, and has scientifically figured out a way for hoverboards to be made, a la Back To The Future. Little skateboardy things that hover above the ground and zoom around. The only drawback from this product being marketed to the general public is that the hoverboard would need to be powered by some special type of gold. I prefer to call it the Raymondboard rather than the Hoverboard, though.
On their way back from their mum’s, Adam and his brothers saw a rowing exercise machine that had been left outside a Salvation Army donation bin, so they took it for themselves. Bear in mind they’d probably all had a few too many beers that day anyway – I’m very disappointed I didn’t get to see three half-pissed guys struggling around the streets with a rowing exercise machine. Adam tells me that when they got it back to his brothers’ unit, they all sat in it and had a row. All three of them – in an exercise machine designed to be used by one person.
My stomach is DEFINITELY getting bigger. I really, really, really need to exercise. Not just because I’m putting on weight, but because I hear exercise is good and healthy and stuff. Then again if I just stopped eating crap all day I’d surely lose weight.
*****
We bought a whole chicken for dinner the other night, and we didn’t throw out the leftover bits, they were left out on the counter overnight. When I got up in the morning:
Me: Oh, we forgot to throw the rest of the chicken out.
Adam: We shouldn’t throw it out.
Me: Why not?
Adam: Dead animals should be buried.
*****
We’ve gone through about 5 lightbulbs in the past fortnight for our living room alone. They just keep blowing, and I don’t even think we’re putting in bulbs with a high wattage. It’s all rather mysterious. Something else too, why are all Adam’s boxer shorts and jocks disappearing mysteriously but mine aren’t? Then again, my socks keep disappearing… I bet he’s secretly stealing them because he thinks I’m hording his undies.
*****
The Eurovision song contest (which I will never, ever pretend to understand) was broadcast here on the weekend, and I found an interview on the net with this year’s Israeli entry to the contest. It’s a band named Ping Pong (which is probably Israeli for Limp Bizkit).
Interviewer: The song contains the phrase: ‘I want a cucumber’, what does it mean?
Singer: The meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
*****
Adam keeps recieving some mystery SMS text messages on his mobile… past messages have included ‘How’s it going princess?’ and ‘How are ya sexy?’ The only person we can think it might be is San Fran, the allegedly heterosexual guy from Adam’s old work. I rang the number who was sending the messages, and it sounded like San Fran, anyway.
*****
I began my work for Mr Marketing again this week. It was insanely cold on Monday morning, and my nipples were poking through my shirt rather rudely.
On the train, I couldn’t figure out why the woman sitting in front of me looked so strange. There was just something odd about her I couldn’t put my finger on. Then I suddenly realised and gasped:
Me: Sideburns!
The woman with sideburns snapped her neck around and gave me dagger eyes. Obviously she’d heard me. But seriously, females don’t generally have sideburns do they? Sideburns are the beginnings of fully fledged beards. Aren’t they?!
Then there was the woman sitting next to me, who was wearing enough shoulder padding to compete in a game of American football. It was so obvious she was padded that she may as well have sticky-taped foam rubber on top of her shirt and worn it that way.
One thing that irritates me about getting off the train at Town Hall station every day is the Free Crap Gauntlet Run. If you leave Town Hall Station between 7am and 9am and exit into the Queen Victoria Building, you have to take the Free Crap Gauntlet Run head on. Right in the busiest area of one of the busiest train stations in Sydney, a whole army of Free Crap Gauntleteers people give you crap promotional material.
However, I’ve learnt a trick. When you exit the train station through the ticket barriers, you have to dive headlong into the Free Crap Gauntlet Run with your hands deeply embedded in your pockets. Any hand spotted by a Free Crap Gauntleteer that isn’t holding a brochure about a new gym that’s opened or a voucher for a free orange juice at some shitty little cafe is immediately filled with more promotional crap. By the time you’ve reached the end of the Free Crap Gauntlet Run you’ve usually collected a sample-size container of the plainest yoghurt you can think of, a mini-tube of the newest brand of toothpaste, copies of crap free ‘inner city lifestyle’ magazines like ‘Nine to Five’, and miniscule samples of some imported chocolate that leaves a ferocious aftertaste in your mouth until you have morning tea.
The Free Crap Gauntlet Run usually forces me to walk so quickly through the crowd I keep walking really fast until I get to work. In my rush on Monday to get to work, I actually managed to kick a pigeon. (Well, in Victoria, birds used to fly away before I stepped on them. Don’t know what makes them so different in New South Wales).
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I bought a pack of Lifesavers to eat on Monday, because I saw them at the shop and they brought back all sorts of memories… I hadn’t eaten them since high school, so I got a pack of Five Flavours Lifesavers. They tasted exactly the same as the used to in high school except for one minor detail – when you peel the paper wrapper away, the foil stays stuck to the Lifesaver, and it’s really hard to peel off. I just stuck the Lifesaver in my mouth anyway and sucked really hard to make the foil come off, then spat it out. Lucky I don’t have fillings – sucking on a Foil-Pop would have sent me through the roof.
*****
I wore my Static Pants on Monday. They’re a particular iron-free pair of pants of mine, but you trade off the fact that you don’t need to iron them with the fact that they stick to your legs with static all day. By pure bad coincidence, I also wore my Static Boxer Shorts and Static Tie all in the same day, so I was crackling with static every time I walked around. I was a walking, talking minor electrical storm on Monday.
*****
Good ole Mr Marketing:
Mr Marketing: You sound sniffly, have you got a cold?
Other lady in office: Yeah, I’m just in the middle of the most terrible cold.
Mr Marketing: Gee, you wouldn’t want to pass that on to anyone.
Other lady in office: I know you too well. You don’t really mean that.
Mr Marketing: Yeah, I know.
Other lady in office: Well, go on. Rephrase.
Mr Marketing: (sigh) Gee, you wouldn’t want to pass that on to ME.
Other lady in office: That’s the Mr Marketing I know.
I still love working for this company. I did a week of temp work for them not last week, but the week before. I’ve got some really good news too, but I can’t really talk about it at the moment… I’ll add it to my next update.
When I did my last week of temp work for Mr Marketing, he had lots of trouble with the printer. It’s good to see some things never change:
Mr Marketing: (looking at printer screen) “Replace toner cartridge?” I’ll fucking rip you a new one!
There’s another temp helping out this week – she’s a backpacker from the UK. Apparently I’m the first temp that Mr Marketing has had who isn’t a backpacker. This is either very good or very bad. The current backpacker girl is totally amazing though – within thirty minutes of arriving at the company she had everything down pat and was helping people on the phone in a manner it took me a week to do. She was one of the most professional office staff I’ve ever met. At the end of the day I was waiting for the train with her:
Backpacker girl: I was so nervous today.
Me: Why’s that?
Backpacker girl: Do you think Mr Marketing noticed?
Me: Noticed what?
Backpacker girl: Didn’t I tell you? I’ve never ever worked in an office before, I’ve only ever worked as a waitress.
I’ve noticed that the price of McDonalds products is cheaper by about five cents in country areas!! I’ve also figured out why us city folk are paying more for our Maccas.
You see, politicians in Australia know that they need to pay attention to country folk or they’ll be voted out. People in regional areas of Australia have had to put up with half-arsed essential services for too long, and something has to be done about it. Perhaps you missed John Howard’s media conference the other day?
John Howard: To compensate for all the essential services that regional Australia doesn’t recieve, we’re giving you CHEAP MCDONALDS!
Liberal Party Rent-A-Crowd: Yaaaaaaaay!