Me (on phone to my mum): It’s exactly the friggin’ same!
My mum: No it’s not! Sport is stronger!
Me: Why WOULDN’T they make them all the same strength?
My mum: I don’t know. It’s their marketing!
Me: Oh, look. I’m walking into the bathroom right now. I’m checking my deodorant.
My mum: It won’t even say. Look, sport deodorant is FAR stronger than normal deodorant, I’ve tried it. Trust me!
Me: We’ll soon see. Hang on.
My mum: Check the ingredients.
Me: There aren’t any ingredients.
My mum: Bullcrap. You’re lying.
Me: Seriously, there aren’t any ingredients on deo… who wants to know what’s in deodorant anyway?
My mum: Me.
Me: I think I’m better off NOT knowing what’s getting scraped into my armpit every morning.
My mum: Well, I think this just proves I’m right by default.

Thus concluded the debate ‘Is Sport Deodorant Stronger Than Regular Deodorant?’, Me vs My Mum.

*****

Adam and I ordered a Pizza Hut meal on the weekend, and with it came some strange ice cream known only as Baci.

To me, Baci sounded like a dangerous abbreviation of bacteria, so I was suspicious. Adam dared to try the ice cream first, and promptly declared that he wanted to break up with me. Only for 20 minutes, though; just while he finished the ice cream. It was that good.

I had to try it after he said that. And he was right, it was worth a temporary divorce. Not very healthy though. I’ve been consciously trying to be healthy lately. We hired some videos on the weekend and I almost bought some chips to munch on while we watched it, but decided I’d get peanuts instead.

Me: Peanuts are healthier than nuts, you see.
Adam: (pulls the same face at me that he uses whenever I burn incense) No they’re not! They’re ten times WORSE than chips.
Me: Really?
Adam: All the fat and salt and stuff.
Me: Fuck it, even when I’m TRYING to be healthy I’m not.

I got an interesting email from someone this week, wondering if Adam asked me to marry him (and if gay people getting married was as everyday as straight people marrying), if I’d say yes. The very idea of Adam proposing me to is quite ridiculous in itself, but I don’t think I would get married to someone this soon. Come December 15th I’ll have been going out with Adam for a year - it feels like I’ve known him forever - but I think I’d be with someone for at least two, maybe three years before I considered marriage.

But I don’t know if I believe in marriage, anyway. I’m not so sure it fits into today’s society. ‘But what about a commitment ceremony for you and Adam?’ you cry. Well, I find them incredibly cheesy to be honest. Nothing against gay guys who have had commitment ceremonies, but two guys in bad pastel suits exchanging bizarre vows under a big tent constructed in their backyard with a gathering of around ten people doesn’t sound that great to me.

Ant, a guy I worked with at an old job of mine, was gay and had a commitment ceremony with his boyfriend. He was attempting to explain exactly what the vows meant to me. The way he interpreted it to me, it was simply a business contract with a few bits altered so the contract referred to people instead of companies. Now that’s just creepy.

*****

‘Bauble. Bauble,’ McCraig muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he walked indoors from his cigarette break.

‘What’s a bauble?’ I enquired, realising the festive season wasn’t that far away. ‘Christmas bauble?’

‘No,’ he replied quietly. ‘I’m the bauble, according to Vanessa.’

I wasn’t too sure about all this. Was ‘bauble’ some sort of word that people like Eminem had begun using that I didn’t know about? It took me six months to work out that ‘jiggy’ wasn’t some sort of orange juice or something. Even worse, it took Will Smith to make me realise what the word actually meant.

‘Why are you a bauble?’ I trod carefully with my words, in case bauble was something very bad indeed.

‘I asked Vanessa if she thought I’d lost weight by going to the gym over the past few months,’ he continued, obviously hurt. ‘She thinks my stomach is a bauble.’

I inspected his stomach carefully, and indeed - a bauble was the correct shape. I decided to put it in a more polite manner.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say bauble,’ I assured McCraig. ‘Perhaps… pear-shaped is more correct.’

‘Oh my god,’ he cried. ‘Pear-shaped? Ever since I got my bauble my whole LIFE has gone pear-shaped!’

*****

I scuttled away from McCraig and his not-very-festive bauble to the cafeteria. I spotted Robb Flynn Jnr, resident waiter and cafe-boy, as I entered. He immediately began showing off by juggling some oranges.

‘You’re a show off,’ I called out to him. He picked up a banana mid-juggle and added it to the sideshow. ‘You aren’t impressing anyone,’ I persisted. Satisfaction was mine when the banana almost flew into his ear and knocked his head to one side, causing a falling citrus to knock him on the top of the head.

‘What would you like this morning?’ he asked.

‘Just a cappuccino, the regular,’ I advised. I usually had a ham and cheese toastie in the morning as well - it’s become that much of a tradition that Robb Flynn Jnr brings the toastie over to my desk.

‘Would you like your ham and cheese now or later?’ he asked me.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Er… you want it now or later?’ he questioned, a little unsure.

‘Yes,’ I replied again.

‘Um… which do you want?’ he persisted, totally confused at this point.

‘Yes,’ I stated, pokerfaced.

‘I’m not sure when you want it. Do you want it NOW or LATER?’ he asked me, perplexed.

‘Yes, now; and yes, later,’ I explained.

‘Arsehole,’ he breathed out.

‘Hey, you were the one pulling that whole ‘would you like an apple danish or an apple danish’ routine last week,’ I rebutted. ‘I looked like a dickhead. I wish more people were around just then to see that orange hit you on the head.’

‘This isn’t the end of this,’ he assured me.

*****

After I drunk my cappuccino, I inevitably needed to go to the toilet. I decided to go to the non-unisex toilets at my work, where I could get some good old stand-up urinal action. Stand-up urinals are a thing of the past when it comes to unisex toilets.

Enjoying the luxury of not having to pull a toilet seat up, my mind began turning some ideas over. I’d drunk a bottle of V energy drink that morning and was thinking about the ingredients. Things like gurana, caffeine, gin seng and other strange energy-inducing substances don’t really get consumers interested in these drinks anymore. That’s when I got the idea.

Energy drinks - with added adrenaline.

It was such a good idea that the alarm on my wristwatch started beeping. I realised with frustration that the loud beeping watch was on my right wrist, which is my urinary-aiding hand of choice. I attempted to lean over with my left hand and press the button to stop the alarm (all this mid-urinary-stream, too), when I pushed my hand a little too far. Far enough to direct my hand to somewhere that definitely wasn’t the piss-trough.

Of course, in situations such as this, I always get caught; so naturally two men walked in at that time and saw a guy that appeared to be taking a wee with the aid of two hands - and STILL not being able to manage to aim correctly; with a weird beeping penis.

*****

Apparently, when you sweat too much, bad things happen. Especially if you wear boxer shorts, I’m told.

I’m sad to say that it was discovered last week that I have dermatitis. After an initial panic by Adam worrying he might catch it too (it was fun to string him along and hear him cry ‘But I don’t want to get.. DERMED!’), I ventured into a city chemist to get some cream treatment.

I don’t like city chemists because they’re always full of people, and someone will always overhear what disease you’ve got at the time. I crept up to the prescription counter and whispered ‘I’d like some dermatit-’ when a large, loud woman pulled me aside.

‘You’ve got dermatitis?’ she breathed heavily. I wasn’t sure if this was some kinky turn on for her or not. ‘Er… why do you ask?’ I worriedly asked her.

‘NEVER, EVER ask for dermatitis cream,’ she advised. ‘Tell them you have vaginal dermatitis,’ she continued.

‘I don’t have vaginal dermatitis though,’ I protested.

‘Yes, but if you tell them you need a vaginal dermatitis treatment, they give you double the amount of cream for the same price,’ she explained.

‘Well, there’s the whole thing with me not having vaginal dermatitis, let alone a vagina,’ I said flatly.

‘I could get it for you,’ she eagerly offered.

‘It’s okay. I’ll go with the whole regular non-vaginal dermatitis treatment, thanks all the same,’ I muttered as I pushed past her. I bet she worked for Brand Power or something like that, too.

*****

Today I discovered there is someone at my work with the same first name initial, and the exact same surname. He’s pretty much the anti-Jeb - older than myself, and much more polite. Still, this didn’t stop us from having a good conversation this morning. I think myself and Jeb II will get along quite nicely. Maybe I’m living the real life version of one of those scary superannuation ads where old people come up to men and women in their thirties and say ‘I’m you, thirty years from now’.

*****

I was using the terrible unisex toilets at my work this afternoon, when McCraig walked into the bathroom. He walked into the cubicle next to the one I was using and made a curious noise. I walked out to wash my hands and he called me over to look at something.

‘Check that out,’ he pointed down a drain in the floor. ‘There’s a $20 note down there.’

I got down on the ground in the cubicle to take a closer look. ‘I think we can pull this off,’ I guessed, tugging at the metal cover. After a little effort, it released to reveal a $20 note at the bottom of a dirty, furry, mucky pipe. It looked like I’d be able to reach down and grab it though.

‘Do you want to grab it, or do you want me to?’ I asked him. ‘You’re the one already on your hands and knees,’ he smirked.

I carefully put my arm in the hole and felt my fingers brush against the money. I struggled to grab it, and realised that my arm was becoming stuck.

‘My arm is becoming stuck,’ I panicked to McCraig. ‘Shit,’ he replied.

Then, the toilet door swung open and Vanessa Undresser walked into the bathroom. Here I was, head down to the ground with my arse stuck in the air, with McCraig behind me trying to crouch over me and see into the drain.

‘What the fuck are you two doing?’ she demanded.

After some hasty explanations and some reluctant trust on her part, she took a look down the drain. We agreed to split it three ways with her if she could help us get the money out. Or my arm, for that matter.

I was struggling to remove my arm when without any warning whatsoever, Vanessa Undresser grabbed my shoulder and pulled backwards.

‘Aaaaaaaaargh!’ I yelled in pain. ‘Aaaaaargh!’ Vanessa Undresser screamed in terror. ‘Aaaaaargh!’ screamed the two girls who had just walked into the toilet and saw McCraig crouching behind me while I was screaming at Vanessa Undresser who looked like she was doing something suspicious to my head.

The three of us walked out of those toilets without an extra $20 than we walked in with, and without our esteemed repuatation, either.

*****

We have a new employee working with us. She’s unashamedly blond however - TOO blond. I’m allowed to make fun of blond people because I’m blond myself.

She’s got a bit of the mannequin syndrome at the moment - she doesn’t really say much, she just sits there. Then again, most new employees do this anyway.

It was really bad because I couldn’t get the blond thing out of my head. Eg:

* Blond Girl sneezed. I said ‘Blond you,’ which was met with a puzzled stare. ‘Er, bless you,’ I quickly recovered.
* Blond Girl was talking to me about the cafeteria. I was explaining how I got a ham and cheese toastie every day. ‘I’m quite blond of them. Um - fond, I mean.’
* The team decided to go and have afternoon tea together. Big Mo declared it would be a ‘good team blonding session’.

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