“Hmm, apparently we have to drive… directly through this football oval,” Adam murmured, squinting and stabbing at his iPhone screen.
We’d trundled to the outer suburbs of Melbourne to inspect a motorbike Adam was interested in. In order to navigate to the owner’s home, we were relying solely on the Google Maps directions on Adam’s phone. Unfortunately, as any iPhone owner will tell you, the damn-fangled thing can sometimes have problems placing your exact location on a map.
“Hang on, here… oh… no, here we… hang on… turn… left? Right? No, second left…” sputtered Adam, as my arms flew akimbo on the steering wheel, attempting to keep up with his navigational directions. Without power steering, I was getting quite the cardio workout.
“RIGHT! TURN RIGHT HERE!” bellowed Adam, and we began hurtling towards the motorbike owner’s home. We’d really reached the outer suburbs: the pavements were awash with broken glass and discarded children.
Having reached our location, we gingerly stepped over the piles of gravel and other thematic junkyard decor to reach the front door. After ringing the doorbell and patiently waiting, the front door opened just a crack.
“Whaddya want,” a pair of suspicious eyes barked at us. We explained we were here to inspect the motorbike for sale.
The door flung open so he could get a better look at us. “No fuckin’ bike for sale here,” he spat. Further into the house, I was certain I could hear a shotgun being loaded.
We patiently explained that we’d seen the bike advertised, and this was the address we’d been given. “Nup, no bike here,” the overweight bogan grunted, wobbling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. Approximately four hundred children seemed to be screaming around the house in the background.
“Look, how’d you get this address?” he warily asked us. There was suddenly an intense feeling that we were being scanned for security reasons, as if we’d arrived to sus out the belongings in his house and return later in the evening to empty him out. Desperately repressing my already heaving bladder, I resisted the will to ask to use their bathroom.
“Ya got the wrong details,” he grunted, and slammed the door in our face. Again, I was certain I heard a shotgun being loaded. We carefully hurried back over the piles of gravel in the driveway.
“Did you double-check the address?” I quizzed Adam.
“Yeah, I wrote it down and everything, look,” he pointed at some paper. Which was when I realised our error: thanks to a frightful combination of the iPhone’s misplaced sense of direction and Adam’s confusion, we’d turned down Hutchison Street, instead of the nearby Hamilton Street.
We later found the actual guy selling the bike, but in the process, we learned just how difficult it is to scope out a house for theft in the outer suburbs. My hat is off to you, cat burglars. I bet you’re not using an iPhone to find your victims’ locations.
