So how did most of Australia’s highest-ranking politicians celebrate Federation Day, marking 100 years of Australian federation? By leaving the country.

On Thursday morning, I was in a whirlwind trying to get ready for work and still catch the train on time. I was trying to inhale two pieces of toast whole, when I heard a furious knocking at the door. Who knocks on the door at 7am? I figured it must have been Adam’s brothers or something, so I opened the door.

Old angry Italian woman: (tries to barge into the unit, then shrieks) NESSUN ELETTRICITÁ!
Me: Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Old angry Italian woman: The electrician!
Me: Electrician?
Old angry Italian woman: The electrician, he live here!
Me: No, there’s… um.. there’s no electrician here.
Old angry Italian woman: (tries to walk inside) No, he in there! Shorter man!
Me: (phsyically having to block her from getting inside) Listen, I’m about to go to work.
Old angry Italian woman: My heater. It not work! It only cold! NO HOT! You know?
Me: Well, there isn’t an electrician here.
Old angry Italian woman: (wails) SÍ, ELETTRICISTA!
Me: (confused, tired, angry) Look. I really need to go to work. There is no electrician here.
Old angry Italian woman: (jabs me in chest, then points into the unit, mutters lots of Italian) He fix my heater!
Me: No he won’t, because he’s not an electrician.
Old angry Italian woman: (suddenly brightens) He is here?
Me: (forevisioning the woman rushing past me into Adam’s bedroom) No no no no. There’s nobody here.
Old angry Italian woman: I see him here yesterday. He fix, he electrician!
Me: No he’s not an electrician. Ring up the real estate agent and they will organise your heater.
Old angry Italian woman: (doubtfully) You think so?
Me: Yes. This guy isn’t an electrician.
Old angry Italian woman: But he is here?!
Me: No-he’s-not-here. (tries to close door) I have to go to work.
Old angry Italian woman: (jams foot in door) But it only blow cold air!
Me: I can’t fix it.
Old angry Italian woman: (mutters what I am sure are Italian swear words and storms off)

The old angry Italian woman lives downstairs from us. I’ve never really seen much of her around the block of units. Sometimes I’ll say hi to her when I walk past her but she never responds. Then suddenly there was this rude awakening on Thursday morning. Before I left to work I woke Adam up to find out what the hell was going on.

Me: Did you hear all that?
Adam: Yeah. Bloody hell. What did she want?
Me: She seemed to think you were an electrician. Her heater was broken, and she wanted it fixed. Now.
Adam: Ohhhhhh… right. (guiltily shuffles around)
Me: Did you tell her you were an electrician?
Adam: No!
Me: Oh. Well why did she think you were?
Adam: Maybe it was because of when I talked to her the other day.
Me: What did she say to you?
Adam: I’ve got no idea. She just mutters and I don’t even know if she’s talking in English. I just said ‘yep’ to whatever she was saying.
Me: She must have asked you if you were an electrician.
Adam: I guess.
Me: And I took the brunt of it. Thanks.
Adam: Hah!
Me: I hope she visits again during the day and brings her heater with her, then you have to deal with her.

As I mentioned in a previous journal entry, our entire office has moved to a different floor in my work’s building. It’s fantastic. There’s so much more room - I have 1000% more working space! It’s great.

Except there’s one thing. I mentioned that the Accountant DJ and Slow Sally’s desk were placed very far away from everyone else. Well, I was far away from them as well, until I was informed by Mr Marketing of a layout change - I now sit right next to them. Just when I thought I could escape from them, too. Jen leaves on Friday though so I may just take her desk when she finishes - it’s right next to my work cubicle, but it’s another chest-high cubicle wall between the two idiots and myself.

(Actually, the Accountant DJ now sits right next to a really old fax machine. It’s incredibly noisy - you can actually hear it dialling out all day. It doesn’t annoy me at all but it sends the Accountant DJ up the wall).

As you can imagine, I was in no mood to deal with the Accountant DJ that morning. He greeted me by creeping up behind me as I booted up my computer and flicked both my ears. It’s lucky I know meditation, otherwise I would have tried some of the ninja moves Adam’s taught me on him.

Hang on. Hang on. Let me stop telling that story for a second. I can’t believe this. I’m typing this early on Sunday morning. VERY early. We’re talking around 1.30am to be exact. Someone’s knocking at the door. I looked through the peephole and it’s that nutter of an Italian woman knocking. She won’t relent, either - she just stands there knocking, knocking, knocking. She’s got issues. I can’t wait to move out of this block of units. Maybe I should just get Adam to go downstairs with a hammer, smash her heater, and tell her it’s fixed. I don’t know. What’s she doing up at 1.30am anyway? Hoping she’ll get a glimpse of tit on a late semi-porno SBS movie?

But back to Thursday morning. After I recieved my unpleasant physical early morning greeting from the Accountant DJ, I spun around and gave him as evil a look as a depressed person can give. (It’s not really that impressive, but in that frame of mind you feel like you can project your depression onto people you hate). He bounced around with his half-shaven stupid face grinning everywhere, and then proceeded to try and palm off his work to me. This is now a daily ritual. He’s only been working here for about a month, granted, so he doesn’t know EVERYTHING just yet. But it only took me a month to pick everything up, so why should he have a problem? I didn’t mind doing some of his work at first, but he’s giving me stuff to do that he should really be able to do himself. The thing that annoys me most, is that he gives his work to me as soon as I arrive at work. I usually get to work 15 minutes before my start time, so I can get some breakfast, have a drink (non-alcoholic, unfortunately), check personal email, and settle myself in. The last thing I want is him simulating an ear piercing on me and shoving work in my face as soon as I sit at my desk.

After the Accountant DJ palmed off his work to me, he then demanded to know where I’d gone on Wednesday night. See, on Wednesday, Slow Sally was sick (she works in the afternoon shift of the Accountant DJ’s job). Seeing as she was sick, the Accountant DJ had to work her shift as well. Normally this wouldn’t be life-shattering, but as the working day closed I quickly realised I’d have to catch a train with the Accountant DJ. I tried to leave the building before he noticed I’d left my desk, but he yelped at me when he saw me trying to catch the elevator.

So we drudged down to the train station, him being a general idiot the whole way. All I wanted to do was get away from him. He realised when we got to the station that he didn’t have a ticket. I told him I’d meet him on the platform, then scuttled away and hid in a little alcove on the platform where I was sure he wouldn’t find me. He didn’t.

Yet on Thursday morning he was demanding to know where I had gone. Why I had nicked off. Didn’t I want to catch the train home with him? I told him that I was standing right near the escalators but I don’t think he was convinced.

*****

You may have seen the icon for the Linux operating system - a cute little penguin.

A box full of little Linux Penguin stuffed toys arrived at our work, and the things are bloody everywhere. I can’t go anywhere without being assaulted by one of the stupid things. The thing is, I’m not even quite sure if these are proper Linux Penguins. They seem to have breasts. Penguins don’t normally have the cleavage of Pamela Anderson Lee, do they?

After around 30 minutes of playing with her Linux Penguin, Jen yelped that her penguin had breasts. I told her that everyone’s penguin had breasts, and that she was slow. After about a minute, she spat ‘I am not slow!’ I retorted that she must be, because it took her a minute to respond.

When Jen talks to the Mail Girl, she can’t resist imitating her British accent. If the Mail Girl announces ‘I’m going out for lunch now,’ Jen can’t resist mirroring her accent, except she emphasises all the wrong bits.

Mail Girl: Your British accent is horrible.
Jen: Well, I bet your Australian accent isn’t much better.
Mail Girl: Go on then. What do you want me to say?
Jen: I dunno. Something Australian.
Mail Girl: Like what?
Jen: Anything, but don’t say ‘throw another shrimp on the barbie’.
Mail Girl: (in an accent that sounds halfway between someone from New Zealand and the UK) Drop your pants, luv.
Me: What?!
Mail Girl: Drop your pants, luv.
Me: Nobody says ‘drop your pants, luv’!
Mail Girl: Well, it was the first thing that came into my head.
Me: Maybe the Australians you’ve met during your time here asked you to ‘drop your pants luv’ but it’s certainly not a common quote!

*****

I was using an ATM machine at lunch when I had a flashback to my uni days. You know how some ATM’s are in the foyer of a bank, and you need to swipe your ATM card through a little machine to get the doors to open after hours? The druggo flatmate I used to live with figured out you can use any card to make the doors open, regardless of if it’s a bank card or not. He used to use his Club X card to get into the bank, which amused him no end.

*****

A sly looking woman arrived at work halfway through Thursday and announced she would be listening in on our phone calls, to ‘assess how our system works and to offer creative input on how it can be improved’. However, I believe I’m the only one who really knows what she’s actually up to.

Jen leaves on Friday, which leaves only myself to do the job. Rather than hiring someone else, Mr Marketing is outsourcing my job. This woman is from the place where I’m getting outsourced. The bad thing is, if she decides I’m not up to scratch as far as my job is concerned, she can make me do whatever crappy job she wants at her own company. Not good.

Especially not good because I hung up on one caller by mistake while she was listening, and totally stuffed up two others. Only one call went okay, and all that person wanted was the ABN number of my company. I’m supposed to start with this new company in a month’s time. I can’t wait. (sarcasm doesn’t come across well when written etc etc etc)

I braved the cafeteria on Thursday and unfortunately Cafeteria Woman was there. As usual, she sat down opposite me with exactly the same lunch as what I’d ordered. Suddenly, she looked a little taken aback, and enquired politely:

Cafeteria woman: Are you married?
Me: (choking) No!
Cafeteria woman: What’s that ring for? (pointing to my anarchy ring - see July 6)
Me: Oh. That. It’s not a wedding ring.
Cafeteria woman: Oh.
Me: Do you really think I’d get married with an anarchy ring?

Although I don’t believe in gay marriage (so sue me), if I ever married Adam, it’d be a gay Satanic wedding.

Just to cap off my great Thursday, as I made a mad dash for the early train and somehow managed to catch it, the train doors shut on my leg. Normally when this happens to someone else the doors re-open, but not in my case. They just stayed shut. I started wriggling my leg and tried to pretend that nothing had happened, but it was kind of hard to do standing on one leg only. I realised if I wriggled, my shoe would fall off, so I just stood there and didn’t quite know what to do without everyone laughing at me. Eventually the doors re-opened, but it would’ve been just my luck if I caught the train to the next station with my foot sticking out the door.

I’m getting group certificates flooding in from everyone I’ve been employed by over the past year. It’s all a bit scary. I’ve never actually done my own tax before so this will be really interesting. I think there’s something really wrong with my HECS debt too. For those not in Australia, Aussies have to pay back their university fees with their tax. I only accumulated one year’s worth of fees, but I checked my HECS statement for 1999 and compared it to this year’s and it looks like I haven’t even paid any. Maybe I didn’t earn enough to start paying off HECS, but that doesn’t really sound right. In fact, my HECS debt has increased. I didn’t know you got charged interest.

*****

Have you seen those shows on TV, with a group of people ’stranded’ on a desert island? There’s either the UK version ‘Shipwrecked’, in which people argue all the time, then whinge to make everything better; or the US version ‘Survivor’, in which people argue all the time, then just go and sunbake to make everything better. I’ve noticed our household becomes like Survivor the day before I get paid - you really have to scavenge to find any food.

As for Adam’s personal fitness program for me, I haven’t done any more exercise since that one session last week. I suppose I really should start doing it again. Adam’s taught me where a few pressure points are on the body, and it amuses me that he has a freckle on the pressure point just below your ribs. A reference point, if you will.

I was then joking that he maybe had other freckles on pressure points I could use as reference. I joked that the freckle just behind his ear could be a pressure point, when he informed me that it actually WAS a pressure point.

Me: You must have bloody freckles on all your pressure points!
Adam: Yes. I was born this way deliberately.
Me: Oh?
Adam: All true ninjas have these marks on their body.

Seeing as we paid our rent on time, we asked the real estate agent to organise a plumber and an electrician for us. Our shower has been leaking really badly since I first moved in here (so much that Torana once thought I was in the shower while visiting here, when I wasn’t even at home); and one of our light sockets has blown.

It’s nice to have a shower that doesn’t leak. Er… on a very tenuous link, can I state that shower sex is really, really bad? Sure, it seems sort of romantic and erotic, but it’s not. Unless you enjoy waterlogged ears and getting water up your nose, and the like. I only tried it once but it was just ridiculous.

*****

San Fran, the Most Unheterosexual Man In The World (and also founding member of the Adam Fan Club) rang Adam on Friday.

San Fran: Are you going to go the the cocktail par-tay tomorrow, princess?
Adam: (curtly) No.
San Fran: Ohhhh. You’re horrible.
Adam: Yes.
San Fran: You’re such a snob. You never go out to parties with me.
Adam: Well, maybe one day.
San Fran: Well, you haaaaave to. Okaaaay?
Adam: Whatever.

*****

On Friday I was walking up to the service station, when who jumped out of nowhere but the old angry Italian woman.

Old angry Italian woman: (snaps) Is your commie friend home?
Me: (frightened) My what what what?
Old angry Italian woman: My commie friend? (not sure if she’s speaking in Italian or calling Adam a communist)
Me: Um… (thinking it’s Adam’s turn to deal with her) Why yes, he is home. Go right on ahead and knock on the door.
Old angry Italian woman: GRACIAS.

*****

I really put my foot in it this week. I got sent an email from someone whose name I won’t say, saying he liked my page. I sent him an email back and for some reason assumed the guy was gay, when he wasn’t. I don’t even know why I assumed he did. He replied:

I am not sure if I have give you any indication re. my sexual orientation and you may have put your foot into something by what you just wrote. But before I bring clarity into this, I would like to know why you think I was gay?

The dumb thing is, I don’t even know. Aargh! I haven’t actually replied to him yet because I’m not too sure what to say. I feel like a bit of a dick for saying it in the first place.

I also got an email from Melissa on a subject I rarely touch on - KFC:

Once we bough one of those family meal pack thingies, and in our coleslaw was… wait for it… a bolt!! Yes, a black greasy disgusting bolt obviously from a piece of machinery!

I think I should move on from my KFC anger. I’ve come to accept that whenever I go to KFC there’s only a 25% chance I’ll get to eat actual chicken.

*****

We’ve moved the bed back into Adam’s room, after my parents’ visit last week. Now my room is really messy, but its a weird kind of messy. We just threw all my stuff against the walls of the room to make way for the bed. Now that there’s no bed in the room and just crap all around the edges, it looks as if everything is trying to escape the dried up spew stain in the middle of the room. (Thanks, Adam).

Adam went to visit one of the Three Adams on Friday night. I haven’t actually met either of the other two Adams (Hoffa and Wilbur), but I certainly do know ‘my’ Adam (Beza). Hoffa was supposed to pick Adam up Friday afternoon from our place, but Adam advised me he tends to forget things. He was supposed to pick up Adam at 3.30, and I joked that he might not pick Adam up until 6pm.

I guess I didn’t really have a concept of how backwards Hoffa Time is, because we called Hoff at 6pm and I had to drive Adam myself. It’s as if Hoffa walks around in his own little international Hoffa Time Zone.

Before Adam got out of the car, he advised:

Adam: I’ll be back around 3pm tomorrow.
Me: Hang on. Is this Hoffa Time or your time?

After dropping Adam off, I drove to the local supermarket in the area, which is a Franklins store. Franklins supermarkets are a bit strange - they always seem to be so messy and dirty. I read somewhere once that they leave boxes around everywhere to try and create a ‘market atmosphere’ but I think it just creates the atmosphere of a slum.

There’s three flavours of Franklins supermarkets. First there’s the original - Franklins No Frills. Then came the slightly larger version - Franklins Fresh. Now there’s a giant mutated version of their supermarkets called Franklins Big Fresh.

The entrances Big Fresh supermarkets tend to rebel against your regular supermarket. For starters, they’ve got these bloody giant plastic pieces of fruit with faces on them that sing and dance every fifteen minutes. (When I was living in Geelong we used to get stoned then drive to the local Big Fresh, to laugh at the dancing fruit). Instead of plonking you in the regular supermarket aisles, you have to follow this strange snaking trail through a) the fruit and vegetable department, b) the bakery, c) the deli - and only then do you get access to all the aisles.

Franklins is a Hong Kong-owned organisation, and they seem a little bit overly keen to emphasise the Australian factor in their supermarkets. After you endure the Dancing Fruit and wander up the snaking trail towards the aisles, you’ll notice they’ve got bits of farm machinery, horseshoes and rusted nuts and bolts stuck in random places all over the walls. I assume they’re trying to create some sort of ‘Australian outback’ atmosphere by sticking up sheets of corrugated iron at strange angles in random, illogical places. Maybe they’re going for the famous ‘in the middle of the outback at a shearing station which has a market attached to the side atmosphere’ angle.

There’s a giant sign at the entry to the supermarket which promises Franklins will be ‘a fun, entertaining and EXCITING shopping experience!’ The only fun part was when I witnessed the checkout people trying to deal with the stress of understaffing; it was only entertaining when I saw a toddler throwing things out of his mum’s trolley; and the only excitement I experienced was when the Singing Fruit sang a reindition of Dancing Queen titled ‘Dancing Peach’ (’fresh and juicy, like a mandarin!’).

As I drove out of the supermarket, I decided to drive to Hungry Jacks. They’ve got a special deal on at the moment where you can get Coke glasses for $1 each. Adam and I might finally have a set of glasses that match, just like a real family!

I drove down the road to the Hungry Jacks behind a minibus full of high school kids. One of the kids then saw it fit to shine one of those little red laser lights in my face. He mostly missed me, but then got it right in my left eye for about ten seconds and I almost crashed the car.

At the traffic lights, I was making little gestures to him - pointing at him, then pretending to slit my throat with my finger. I hastily remembered the licence plate number of the van, because the kid was shining it in other drivers’ faces too. I thought it was a pretty damn stupid thing to do, and bloody unsafe as well. MO8946, MO8946, MO8946 I chanted in my head, determined not to forget the number of the licence plate.

Maybe I should explain something. I wouldn’t have been so pissed off about the kid shining the laser light in my eye, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m blind in one eye. Normally I don’t tell anyone about my blind right eye unless I know them really well and trust them, but what the hell. I don’t see why I should be ashamed of it. (This also explains my total crapness at sport and why I avoid going to see 3D movies. It also gives me a great excuse for not being able to see those 3D Magic Eye pictures properly).

So when the kid shined the light in my perfectly fine left eye, I had no vision at all. Not very safe. Especially when you take into account my already crappy driving skills. (Parallel parking? What’s that?)

I decided to call the police right as soon as I got home. MO8946, MO8946 I repeated over and over in my head.

I drove into the Hungry Jacks drive-thru:

Disembodied voice: Welcome to Hungry Jacks, what would you like?
Me: MO8946.
Disembodied voice: Um. What was that?
Me: Oh, sorry. (Realising I was chanting the licence plate number a little too much) Just a double cheeseburger, and six of those Coke glasses thanks.
Disembodied voice: Sorry, you can only buy one glass per burger.
Me: Oh, okay. I’ll have two double cheeseburgers and two glasses.
Disembodied voice: So you’d like two double cheeseburgers and three glasses?
Me: I thought I could only get a glass per burger…?
Disembodied voice: That’s correct.
Me: But I’m only buying two burgers.
Disembodied voice: Two double cheeseburgers and three glasses, yes.
Me: Think about it.
Disembodied voice: (long pause) Two double cheeseburgers and two glasses? Drive to the next window please.

I stayed up late watching bad TV on Friday night. My favourite time to watch late night TV is the 1am to 2am timeslot - it’s just before the infomercials all start up, so all you usually have to choose from is:

* On the ABC, an old black and white movie from the 1930’s or a ‘Carry On…’ movie
* On SBS, a program that blows the mind of anyone on acid at the time (also known as a test pattern)
* On Channel 7, the US version of the Today Show, or the latest episode of Buffy
* On Channel 9, failed US sitcoms like ‘Wings’, or episodes of mid-90’s Australian sitcoms like ‘All Together Now’ and ‘The Bob Morrison Show’
* On Channel 10, a suspiciously higher amount of phone sex ads than the other networks, slotted between ‘classic hits’ video clips courtesy of Video Hits, months-old episodes of WCW Wrestling and shows where you’re not quite sure if they’re religious or not

*****

I downloaded RealPlayer 8 last night. I totally detest all RealNetworks products. They only seem to provide a new version of their products when they’ve figured out a new way to fit more advertising into the program. I heard if you dig hard enough into RealPlayer past the ads, there’s actually a program which plays streaming audio and video from the internet! Wow!

My parents emailed me tonight to say that they’ll buy me a Nomad II MP3 player instead of a watch for my birthday, if I want. Ooooh yes. I’ve wanted a Nomad for a long time. I’ll have to chip in because it’s a bit more than they were prepared to pay, but I’m definitely going to get one.

And yes. It’s my birthday tomorrow. Because I’m 21, I’ll finally be able to access jimbeam.com and find out what was previously restricting me from entering.

*****

I’m sure we’re going to see those stupid little Sydney 2000 Olympics mascots more and more in the coming months, but there’s a very important issue yet to be addressed. What happens to Olympics mascots after the games? A bit suspicious, isn’t it? You don’t really hear anything about them. Are they taken out the back of the Olympic stadium of the hosting country at the time and culled?

*****

I was writing an email to someone about how 95% of gay men don’t use urinals in toilets under any circumstances, and Adam disagreed.

Adam: I always use the urinal.
Me: Well, you must be the 5%.
Adam: I’m not so sure about that statistic.
Me: Trust me.
Adam: I always, always use the urinal.
Me: What, even to take a dump?

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2000 at 8:05 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.