‘Hello? HELLO!’ the insane Italian woman rapped on our door. When we didn’t answer because we’re so scared of her, she moved on to all the other units in our building. Not one person dared answer their door.

This is the insane woman who tried to enter Adam and my unit without my permission, as she was convinced Adam was a communist electrician who could fix her broken heater. Despite my repeated assurances that he definitely wasn’t an electrician, she wanted to go into our bedroom to make sure. Presumably to check for power tools, or something.

When she finished banging on everyone else’s doors, she returned to our front door. In terror, I watched her fuming through our peephole. Behind me, Adam was grinning his head off, almost daring me to answer the door. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped when I noticed she was holding her heater.

‘SHE’S GOT HER FUCKING HEATER!’ I mouthed to Adam, so she couldn’t hear me. ‘Really?’ he said loudly in disbelief, and walked noisily over to the door. The woman’s face grew even redder when she realised someone was inside our unit.

After we looked at her through a fisheye peephole for around five minutes, she stomped around in a circle, then retreated downstairs to bang on Wezza’s door. This would have really freaked him out, as he would presumably have been stoned that time of night. The scary old Italian woman is horrifying enough when you’re not stoned.

*****

Vanessa Undresser, McCraig and myself had to catch a taxi to the other side of the city for a meeting. Vanessa’s a seasoned taxi woman - she catches them almost daily for meetings. I’m just learning the joys of the Cabcharge - I’ve never been given taxi vouchers for a job before. McCraig, however, is not much of a taxi person at all, and once we drove off he immediately begun a probing interview with the taxi driver.

McCraig: So, what’s your name?
Taxi driver: Uhm uhm uhm… we’re not really supposed to say.
McCraig: Oh. So what do I call you?
Taxi driver: My taxi license number is up there if you need it (points to sticker).
McCraig: What, so I call you T4861?
Taxi driver: Um… well, that’s my license number.
Vanessa Undresser: Um, McCraig, I think-
McCraig: So, Mr T4861, what is your impression of the average Sydney taxi passenger?
Taxi driver: Oh, they be a rough BASTARDO!
McCraig: Oh?
Taxi driver: I used to drive in Melbourne, nice people. But in Sydney, everyone’s a rough BASTARDO!
Me: We’re not rough bastardos.
Taxi driver: Well, you do get a lot of different people. There are the happy people like you.
Vanessa Undresser: Yes, see? We’re happy people.
Taxi driver: And then there are the DRUNK BASTARDOS!
Me: (hissing at McCraig) Quick! Next question!
McCraig: Um um um… so what would be the worst passenger you’ve had in here?
Taxi driver: (look of fear on face) Oooh… scary drunk lady.
Vanessa Undresser: Scary drunk lady?
Me: Scary drunk lady wouldn’t be Vanessa here, would it?
Taxi driver: (looks in rear vision mirror) I don’t think it’s her, no.
Vanessa Undresser: (pinches my leg)
Me: FUCK!
Taxi driver: (turns around in seat) Ehh?
Me: Um… so, the scary drunk lady.
Taxi driver: Ahh, yes. I drive her a long way, then we get there and she doesn’t have any money. I wanted to take her to the police station, but she is screaming at me. Oh, terrible woman.
Me: Was she a bast-
Taxi driver: (screams) BASTARDO!
McCraig: Er, so… next question. Have you ever driven anyone famous?
Taxi driver: No, no… lots of business people though. I do not like them.
Me: Why not? (fearing a reprise of ‘bastardo’)
Taxi driver: They do not talk, eh? And when they do, I cannot say the rude words.
McCraig: Oh, well we don’t mind you saying the rude words.
Me: What can’t you say?
Taxi driver: Oh, you know… (like he’s hiding a dirty secret) The words like ’shit’.
Vanessa Undresser: You can say shit here.
McCraig: Shit!
Me: Shit shit!
McCraig: Go on, say it. Get it out of your system.
Taxi driver: SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT YOU FUCKING BASTARDO!

*****

On Friday I got a phone call from the business who pierced my eyebrow.

‘Hello!’ the hippy woman who works at the piercing salon shrieked down the line at me. ‘We’re just calling to make sure your piercing is okay!’

‘Oh. Thanks for the call,’ I said, wondering if they’d been sued recently and if they were paranoid. ‘It’s okay. It’s not, you know, infected or anything.’

‘Infected?’ she repeated, a little on edge. Obviously I’d used a code red word. ‘Oooh. You HAVE to use that sea salt we gave you when we pierced you. Remember? We TOLD YOU TO USE IT EVERY DAY.’

‘Oh, I have. But don’t worry, it’s not infected,’ I assured her.

‘Well, go to the beach,’ she instructed.

‘The beach?’ I wasn’t sure what she meant.

‘Yes, the beach. Just to make sure. You know, in case, um.. in case the sea salt isn’t enough.’

‘Well, thanks. I’m, er… I’m on my way now.’ I hung up.

The very next day, the piercing just disappeared. One moment I was getting into the shower, the next I was disembarking with one less piercing than I went in with. I found it on the floor of the shower, and I never even felt it come out. I’m just going to leave it out I suppose, it was good while it lasted. Now I am again experiencing the joys of:

* Being able to sleep on both sides at night
* Not having to worry if it was pierced on the gay side or not
* Being able to hit my forehead when I’ve forgotten something and not cause excruitating agony by mistake

*****

Four Examples Of Food & Drink Causing Havoc In Today’s Society

Tic-Tacs: There seems to be an unwritten rule that it’s acceptable to eat all of someone’s Tic-Tacs, as long as you leave two left. Apparently these two are enough to satisfy the buyer without feeling ripped off by the person who gobbled the excess.

Eggs: We’ve got a dozen eggs sitting in our fridge that have been there since I moved to Sydney. They probably pre-date my arrival by a few months, actually. I asked Adam if he wanted me to throw them out, but he’s keeping them just in case.

Beer: I came across an unwanted pop-up window while looking at websites on the weekend which featured a woman doing something interesting to herself with a beer bottle. I wished my old Druggo Flatmate had been here to see it - a female masturbating with a beer bottle was his biggest fantasy.

Cake: Vanessa Undresser had her birthday this week, and we bought her a cake to celebrate. Except then one of the managers decided that it wasn’t a real cake, it was a cheesecake; and it’s a bit rude getting someone a cheesecake for their birthday, isn’t it? No, we argued - it’s just a cake, a cake’s a cake, as long as we have a cake of some sort she’ll be okay. And anyway, is it really a cheesecake? It’s got coconut on the outside, it could be a regular cake. Try squishing it, the manager suggested. We were a bit apprehensive to do this because Vanessa hadn’t been presented with the cake, but the manager stuck his finger in it, convinced it was a firm sponge cake, and promptly discovered that it was a cheesecake when his finger made a big hole in the middle.

We were a bit worried about what Vanessa Undresser would think of the hole. However, just like the texture of the cake, the cake-hole seemed to matter hugely at the time; but that proved to be inconsequential when Vanessa ran out of the office crying about how old she was.

*****

Waitress: Hello, my name’s Amber. (thrusts menu in my face) I’m going to be your waitress TAH-DAYYYY! (shrills)
Me: (whispering to Big Mo behind shelter of the menu) Oh my God! This is the stupid American woman we got last time!
Waitress: What would you like to OR-DAHHH!
Big Mo: Um, could we look at the menu?
Waitress: Oh-kay! (bounces away)
Big Mo: Oh my god. How did we end up with her again?
Me: Could you understand what she said her name was?
Big Mo: Was it Shawna? It sounded like a porn star name, anyway.
Me: It might have been Bambi.
Big Mo: It might just have-
Waitress: (re-appears from nowhere) While you’re waiting, would you like some soda PAHP! (shrieks)
Big Mo: That’s it, we’re leaving.

*****

Adam: (clears throat)
Me: That sounded like a dove, that noise.
Adam: What, this? (makes throat noise)
Me: He he, yeah…
Adam: That’s not a dove, that’s a PIGEON you idiot!
Me: Oh, so it is. So what noise does a dove make?
Adam: It says (coos) ‘Peace, peace’.
Me: Come on. What noise does it make? I can’t remember.
Adam: Can’t remember. I used to have a dove though.
Me: Are you joking?
Adam: No, I had a dove. When I was a kid.
Me: HA HA HA! Oh my God. That’s just a classic. The gay guy owned a dove as a child. HA HA HA HA!
Adam: Grrr. I didn’t go out and get it, I ACQUIRED it.
Me: How do you acquire a bird as gay as a dove?
Adam: When my parents moved house, they had all these budgies and a dove at the new place.
Me: So it was all caged up? That’s not a bird of peace at all, that’s a bird of oppression.
Adam: Yeah. But they were seperated from the budgies, they had their own cage.
Me: So it was a bird of oppression AND apartheid.
Adam: I set it free, though.
Me: Oh, doves are always being set free. That’s all they’re good for. They don’t have a home at all.
Adam: That’s right, they’re nomadic.
Me: They don’t WANT to be nomadic though. How would you like it if you got kicked out of home every week and that was supposed to be a celebration of peace?
Adam: Hey, don’t mock doves. I was a dove in my past life.
Me: Oh, really?
Adam: Yes. And us doves are sick of you people mocking doves.
Me: Pfft.
Adam: Like that woman at the Olympics opening ceremony, who carried the torch around a part of the stadium. She passed the torch on, then pretended to make a dove out of her hands. What the fuck was that all about?
Me: Hey, don’t blame all of humankind for that stupid dove thing. Most of us thought it was stupid, too.
Adam: Well, things are changing. We won’t be the bird of peace soon. We’re making plans.
Me: Oh?
Adam: Yes. Soon, we will be pecking people to death around the world. We are going to become THE BIRD OF RAAAGE!

*****

After I’d attended the meeting that the Bastardo taxi driver took me to, I got another taxi to Central train station. I was dropped off in an area I hadn’t really been around before near a university, but I saw a sign which pointed me towards the direction of the train station.

I discovered that there was a giant, incredibly long subway tunnel leading to the train station. It took me almost ten minutes to walk from one end to the other, I’d say. And the whole way along, the subway was littered with bad buskers and people asking me for money.

Highlights included the woman playing acoustic guitar, who’d stuck bits of paper with ‘Shine!’ scribbled on them in crayon behind her. ‘Shine, shine, shine!’ she sang. ‘Shine! Shine!’ I’d pay her money to stop shining, it was all a bit too much shininess for that time of day.

I was then approached by a woman asking me for money.

Woman: Avya got two bucks?
Me: Sorry, no.
Woman: Don’t lie to me, cunt.
Me: (too embarassed to say anything)
Woman: I hate cunts what lie to me.
Me: (thinking: sure, I hate liars too, so make sure you don’t mask your true feelings for me!)

Once I caught the train, I was about to go and sit on the lower level of the carriage like I normally do, but there was a large group of people blowing party whistles proclaiming that this was the ‘party train’. I should have hooked them up with the Shine! Shine! Shine! woman. Instead, I retreated to the upper level of the train.

I never sit on the upper level - Adam always wants to sit on the lower level when I get the train with him. I’m not sure why, but most Sydney residents always seem to prefer the lower level, and tourists sit up top. Why is this? I know Adam’s reasons are perverted (he can perve better on the people standing near the area with the train doors if he sits downstairs). The upper level was such a novelty for me that I may just sit up there again this week.

Does this happen on the double-decker buses in London? All the locals sit downstairs?

*****

Work didn’t start so well on Thursday, when I was greeted by a gelatinous rubbery hairless old man jogging past me sweatily, as I attempted to go inside my work’s building. To make matters worse, he was actively rubbing and massaging his wobbly breasts around while he ran.

Once I’d sat at my desk, I realised that my water bottle had disappeared once again. I cursed the cleaning staff under my breath as I realised I must have forgotten to fill my water bottle the night before. See, the cleaning staff will take anyone’s water bottle if you don’t leave it at least half full of water. It’s quite ridiculous that I have to make an effort to go and fill my water bottle at the end of each day. McCraig has taken to locking his bottle inside his drawers to prevent theft.

We noticed there was a woman who appeared to be having sex with our glass office door. You need a security pass to get past this door - maybe she was offering sex in hope of getting ‘backstage’.

Someone let her in, and we realised that she was the new girl, Kazza. Apparently someone had given her a security pass, but it hadn’t been validated yet. She’d just put it in her pocket and was trying to make it reach the pass detector, but as she had her hands full all she could do was rub herself against the detector in hope that the door would open.

Kazza didn’t get off to such a great start. She was supposed to start on Monday, but ‘forgot’ this fact. She turned up late on Tuesday, and I was instructed to train her on the stuff I do.

After I’d explained everything, I asked her if she had any questions. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Are those pubic hairs in your keyboard?’

I quickly examined the keyboard. ‘Er, I think they are,’ I replied. ‘Um…’ I continued, searching for an explanation. ‘Dunno,’ I shrugged.

‘Hey, Jeb,’ McCraig called out from the other side of the office. ‘Come outside and smoke some crack with myself and Big Mo.’ Kazza’s eyes widened. ‘Do you… do you actually do that here?’

Kazza isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, really.

Then there’s the lunch thing. At my work we can go for lunch any time of the day we want. However, Kazza clingingly unfailingly takes lunch whenever I do. I at first assumed it was new-job-jitteriness, but it’s as if she’s unnervingly shy, completely innocent, totally stupid or all three combined. It’s becoming hard to get some time to myself at work lately - I can’t really pay any attention to personal email because she’ll see it, and she’s always asking me what I’m doing for lunch. It was a struggle to get rid of my pseudo ‘date’ last week (I eventually convinced the woman to go with someone else), but this is becoming dangerous.

However, I’m not worried about if this could develop into a bad one-way romance like Cafeteria Woman at my last job. I know that there’s someone else who’s got eyes on her, and his name is Robb Flynn Jnr.

Yes, good old Robb the cafe boy was unashamedly goggling at Kazza when I showed her where our cafeteria was located. Instead of idly sitting around doing nothing in particular, Robb paid a lot of attention her, made sure she got a free muffin, then started moving heavy boxes around in an apparent attempt to impress. Kazza was quite impressed, too - she wanted to know all about him. I told her that he was a twat but she ignored me.

Normally, I’d let the two of them get to know each other, but seeing as Robb and I have a little vendetta against each other, I’m going to stop him in every way I can. I’m the common link between these two, and I’m pretty sure I can stop the two of them from taking an interest in each other.

‘UuuuuuGGGH!’ Robb Jnr unecessarily grunted as he picked up a four litre bottle of milk (hardly grunting material at all). ‘UggggHHHHH!’ he grunted again, grabbing a second bottle. For reasons unknown (perhaps to create a cosmopolitan look), he then put the two bottles on a tray and walked past myself and Kazza, smirking.

One of the bottles then slid from the tray and hid the ground, splitting the plastic bottle open and splattering milk all over Kazza. A normal person would have said something, but she was so shy she probably took the milk incident as a compliment from Robb. Quickly, he ran to grab some rags to clean up, shaking his head - he knew he’d ruined his chance. As Kazza and I quickly evacuated the area, I turned my head to make sure he saw I was smirking at him. He glared at me with slitty eyes and ran his finger along his throat in a ‘you’re dead’ type way, so I guess our little war won’t finish any time soon.

*****

Big Mo asked me at the end of Kazza’s first day how I thought she went.

Me: Well.. um… she’ll probably just need to go through things a little bit longer.
Big Mo: What do you mean?
Me: Um… she’s just a bit… slow, really.
Big Mo: Phew, I thought it was just me.
Me: No, not at all.
Big Mo: I’m worried I’ve hired a dud.
Me: There’s no going back now, really.
Big Mo: I guess. Geez, she’s a little bit of a ditz, isn’t she?
Me: A ‘little bit’? She’s putting on the ditz!

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