Adam and I would love to live in a house in the inner suburbs, but we’re not that rich yet. For now, we’ll continue to rent our unit. Money isn’t the only problem though. We’ve got a few requirements for the house we’d like to live in - the most important requirement is that the house has a fireman’s pole.

Me: So where would we put the fireman’s pole?
Adam: Hmm. Well, I think it should go to the kitchen.
Me: From where to the kitchen?
Adam: Not sure.
Me: A fireman’s pole from the living room to the kitchen would be good.
Adam: But nobody has a living room on the second floor of their house.
Me: True. I guess you’d want to put the fireman’s pole between the rooms you travel to and from the most.
Adam: So where would you put it?
Me: I’m not sure. Maybe between the bedroom and the toilet.
Adam: Could be an idea, there.
Me: Although you could spy on people in the toilet from the top of the fireman’s pole - and then you’d find out my horrible secret.
Adam: What’s that?
Me: I’m really a woman.
Adam: Well, that sure would explain a lot.

Because I wake up earlier than Adam every morning, we have two sets of alarms. I use my mobile phone’s alarm, and Adam uses the alarm on the clock-radio. My phone is on Adam’s side of the bed, so every morning he has to wake me up when it goes off. Usually he’s just woken up and isn’t too sure what’s going on, so he grabs the phone and throws it at my head. It’s being thrown with more and more force lately - maybe he’s not getting enough sleep.

Adam told me the other day that I was snoring, but at first he thought it was our phone ringing. Maybe there’s more to my nasal passages than meets the eye.

Speaking of Adam - he has a new phrase.

Me: I don’t know of anyone else who has toasted sandwiches with only scrambled eggs in them.
Adam: I thought of the idea.
Me: Well, I’m sure you’re not the first.
Adam: It’s copyright.
Me: Is that so?
Adam: Yes. It’s copyright Adam, ninteen ninety… (realises that we’re not in the 1990’s anymore) thousand.
Me: Copyright Adam, Nineteen Ninety Thousand?
Adam: YES.

*****

I was in a good mood the other day.

Me: I am the best!
Adam: No, I am the best.
Me: Why, I even come with a user’s manual, I’m that good.
Adam: And what is this manual?
Me: The Holy Bible.

*****

Three Interesting People I Know who are All Named Mark

1: Disappearing Mark. I have a cousin named Mark who is 2 years older than myself. He was adopted/fostered by my aunt and uncle when he was around ten years old. I used to idolise Mark whenever I visited his house - I used to think he was so cool. Then one day when he was 15, he just disappeared for a few weeks. We knew he was okay because he kept calling home, but it was never explained to me where he actually went. Then he went back home. At age 17, he left home without reason or warning, and was gone for months before he appeared again. Again, not sure where he went exactly. The pattern continued every few months - he’d have an argument with my aunt or uncle and leave home, then quietly retreat back. This kept going on until he reached age 20 in 1997, when he left home and didn’t return until just last week. My mum phoned me to let me know that my disappearing cousin Mark had returned home. Apparently for the past three years he’s been travelling around Australia with a wrestling league or something.

2: Relationship Problems Mark. When I was in my last year of high school, my best mate Jim had a mate named Mark. We all used to hang around together, and Mark was a pretty quiet guy. The three of us went to a music festival on New Years Eve, and Mark was decidedly depressed. Jim and I both knew it, but we didn’t know what to say. Mark and myself were standing near the back of the crowd about ten minutes to midnight, and I thought I’d ask him if anything was wrong. ‘Yes,’ he blurted in a manner rather uncommon for someone of his shyness. ‘It’s New Years and I’ve got nobody to kiss. This is the worst fucking moment of my life’. I told him I’d never kissed anyone on New Years before and this made him start to cry. I felt like an arsehole.

3: Marcus Graham. Technically I don’t know him, but I wouldn’t knock him back under any circumstances.

*****

As I caught the elevator up to my floor at work this week, it struck me: why do elevators have mirrors in them? Nearly every office building’s elevators have mirrors in them. I don’t see any need for mirrors. The elevator mirrors only make my life worse - I’m constantly checking if I’ve got boogers in my nose when I’m travelling in them.

I may have mentioned that Mr Marketing is a DJ on weekends. Recently he did a gig at a club in my area, and he left something he owned behind at the club.

Mr Marketing: Jeb, you live near that club and I’m ages away… could I get the guy who owns that pub to drop something off to you?
Me: Sure, and I just bring it in to work?
Mr Marketing: Yep. I left my stylus at the club by mistake, so I’ll get the manager to drive around to your place and give it to you.
Me: Sure, that’s fine.
Mr Marketing: Be careful with the stylus though - it’s really fragile!

I didn’t have any problem with picking up Mr Marketing’s stylus. The only problem is that I didn’t have any idea what a stylus actually was. As soon as I got home…

Me: Do you know what a stylus is?
Adam: No. Why?
Me: I have to get Mr Marketing’s stylus and bring it in to work for him. He said it was really fragile, which means it’s either really small or incredibly big.
Adam: Hmm… not sure.

I asked Mr Marketing the next day what a stylus was, except I’m still recovering from my bad cough.

Me: Hey, I’ve got a question about the stylus.
Mr Marketing: Sure, shoot away.
Me: Well, iaaaaagh… (from out of nowhere, a throatful of phlegm had prevented me from speaking)
Mr Marketing: What?
Me: Phle-g-g-g-g-g-m (due to my phlegm, I pronounced the word ‘phlegm’ as it is written)

I had to check my dictionary to find out what a stylus actually is, and as far as I can gather, it’s some sort of record needle or something. So that’s okay.

*****

Most of the temps we have working in our area left on Friday. Scooter left a week early, because he managed to find a full-time job that involved driving his scooter around (don’t ask!). I’m thinking of perhaps going back to temping - you get varied hours and lots of different experience, although you tend to always do shitty jobs. At least I can do that while I make up my mind in regards to what sort of job I want.

I’ve been taking note of the way Mr Marketing treats his temps, and I’m going to start applying his techniques to the DJ Accountant. Suddenly, it’s all become clear: the key to not being stressed is to make sure those around you are more stressed!

I’ve stolen someone else’s bin for my cubicle, so I have easy access to a bin if I’m at either desk (yes, I have two desks… and I stole one of those, too). However, I’ve noticed the cleaners are only emptying one of my bins. The cleaner must just rush into my cubicle, see a bin and empty it; assuming that everyone only uses one bin. Well, some of us have special waste management needs, you know. Mostly the lazy people, but even lazy people have needs.

All last week, Slow Sally continued her singing. It got that loud that someone asked me on the phone when I was talking to them, if I had the radio on in the background. Mr Marketing repeatedly requested her to stop singing, but at least he doesn’t have to sit near her.

If it’s not her singing, it’s her stupid moronic work-related questions that drive me insane. Incredibly simple things that she should have learnt by now. At least work stops her from indulging in casual conversation, because that usually ends up being plain scary. I learnt last week from a conversation with her that she once had a job in phone sex (’it’s okay as long as you approach it with an open mind’).

I wasn’t quite sure how long I would be able to take Slow Sally and her endless questions and singing. It’s lucky I don’t own a gun. Fortunately for her, the only weapon I had against her singing was my full bladder of urine, but I never got a chance to implement that.

So it came as no surprise when Mr Marketing advised me late last week that he’d fired her. I guess it was going to happen sooner or later - hell, I predicted it about a month ago.

It would have pleased me far more, though, if Mr Marketing had LITERALLY fired her. You know, with a flamethrower. I’d like to have a day of taking things more literally than they should be.

Friend: Come on, jump in the car, let’s go shopping!
Me: Okay! (takes a run-up and leaps through the door into the back seat)

Or…

Mr Marketing: Can you take this letter and dump it in dispatch?
Me: Sure. (tears up letter into little pieces, swallows it, walks down to dispatch and waits for my stomach to digest it)

I was forced to catch the train with the DJ Accountant that night. We were sitting on the train carriage when he announced an interesting observation.

DJ Accountant: Hey, look at that.
Me: What?
DJ Accountant: That graffitti over there.
Me: The red writing?
DJ Accountant: Yeah. What does that look like to you?
Me: I dunno. Just a scribble.
DJ Accountant: Look closer.
Me: Um… it just looks like a scribble.
DJ Accountant: Don’t you think it looks a bit like a vagina?
Me: Er…. not one bit.

I suppose it takes a certain eye to spot crude sketches of genitalia in graffiti. My skills end at spotting phallic symbols in clouds.

*****

Sometimes when I press the ’snooze’ button too many times in the morning, I end up having almost no time to get ready. It’s in these cases I use the Shower In A Can to cleanse myself (ie, deodorant sprayed all over my body). I was in such a rush that when I put my pants on, they made a ripping noise. But try as I might, I could not find the rip anywhere. I was really worried it would be somewhere embarassing and I wouldn’t find it, but it remains a mystery.

*****

I always seem to encounter snide salespepole in the toilets at work. Upon my entry in the toilets, I slipped on a puddle of water (I hope it was water), and crashed into a cubicle door.

Salesman: The toilets aren’t that exciting, are they?

Then I couldn’t activate the hand drier when I was done. I musn’t register as human or something, because no matter how much I waved my hands underneath the stupid thing it wouldn’t activate. I had to resort to (gasp!) paper towels.

It was then that I noticed the bain of every man exiting a toilet: the pee splatter. Females may not be aware of the squeeze/milk/shake motion men have to perform after urination. If this process is not carried out, you run the risk of splatter. As I did on this particular occasion.

As I exited the toilet, I bumped into one of the resident tech-heads at work. The salespepole I can at least ignore, but the techies get so carried away about the smallest things.

Techie: Have you seen this? (waves leaflet in my face)
Me: Um.. no, I don’t think so.
Techie: It’s for a bank that operates EXCLUSIVELY ON THE INTERNET!
Me: Er, great.
Techie: The interest rates are slightly better than regular banks, so you’d better join up or you’ll lose out.
Me: Isn’t there something not quite right about a bank without a physical presence?
Techie: Get with the future!
Me: And I don’t even have enough money to really earn interest in the first place.
Techie: Technophobe!

I visited my proper, non-new-fangled bank during my lunch break to use the ATM. I thought it was a new ATM that talked to you, because I heard ‘Please enter your PIN’ and ‘Please select your account’ as I was lining up. I soon realised it was just a well-spoken man reading the instructions aloud when he said ‘Insufficient funds? Fuck you!’ in a well-pronounced manner.

For lunch, I decided to pay Subway a visit. According to the title on the nametag of the guy who served me, I was being served by a ‘Sandwich Artist’. I bet you have to do an Arts course at university to get a qualification like that.

*****

When I was on a short student exchange program to Japan during my high school years, I used to buy an English language newspaper on my way to school each day. I was just desperate to actually read English. The newspaper was written in really simple English and was designed to help Japanese to learn English. So every day I was sitting there reading a newspaper with headlines like ‘Fruit Is Healthy’.

One particular event during my time at a Japanese school that stands out in my mind, is when we were being asked questions at a student assembly. There were about 500 to 800 high school students, and we were taking it in turns to answer their questions about Australia. One of the questions we got asked was ‘Japan has many traditional songs. What are the traditional songs of Australia?’

Myself and the other Austrlian students looked at each other. There weren’t really any songs we could think of, besides everyone’s favourite thief-committing-suicide song ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Suddenly I had an idea.

‘There is a song that Australians like to sing when they go out to parties,’ I said in Japanese into a microphone. The other Aussies looked at me curiously.

‘Please teach us to sing it!’ requested the Japanese student.

‘Well, it’s easy to learn,’ I said. ‘There’s only one lyric - “You’re Going Home In The Back Of A Divvy Van”‘. (Note for non-Australians - a ‘divvy van’ is a police van). I got into trouble from my teacher after the assembly, but it was worth it to hear several hundred Japanese students chanting ‘You’re going home in the back of a divvy van!’

*****

On Friday, I was told by Mr Marketing that Slow Sally had lodged an official complaint with our Human Resources department. She was making claims that everyone she had worked with had treated her badly and that we didn’t do any work. She told HR that most of us were on drugs (well, that’s true in the Accountant DJ’s case), and that we look at porn all day. Um…?

Actually, Slow Sally once sent me a picture of a woman in a bikini top with ‘Whoo Whoo’ typed underneath it. I’m not sure what she was doing with pictures like that on her hard disk, but it makes her a bit of a hypocrite, I think.

Now that Slow Sally’s left, the DJ Accountant is working two shifts until they get someone to replace her. This means I have to put up with him all day.

I’ve noticed lately that he says ‘pacific’ instead of saying ’specific’. Eg:

DJ Accountant: Take a look at this. (hands order to me) Who would you send that to?
Me: Send it to someone in sales.
DJ Accountant: Like who? Could you be more pacific?
Me: (drapes flower lei around my neck) Send it to someone in sales.

Apparently the DJ Accountant has taken up the wicca religion, too. I’m not sure why it seems so fashionable to become wiccan lately. I thought Satanism was all the go a few years back? I suppose we can blame wicca’s revival on Fiona Horne - she never shuts up about it.

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