I was supposed to have a job interview today for what is quite possibly the only job I’m genuinely interested in, out of what’s been offered to me. Most of the stuff I’ve had interviews for aren’t particularly interesting, but I’d be happy in them.

The interview was for a executive assistant position. This is most alarming, as I didn’t think I had the skills for a personal assistant, let alone an executive assistant. The recruitment agency lady knows I want to move into this line of work and she said she’d try to get me a job like this, but I don’t think either of us expected I’d actually get something. (As it happens, I’m not having the interview until Monday now, because I got, er… hungover sick).

The money would be good and I’d get to travel a bit, too. Here’s hoping the 40-something woman I’d be assisting doesn’t try to have sex with me, eh? (Isn’t that all personal assistants are for, sex and coffee? No? Shit. I better go revise my resume again)

I didn’t have any job interviews yesterday, and I figured I may as well take a walk around the local neighbourhood to see what was around (hundreds of lebanese food and pizza shops, as it happens).

I was walking past someone’s unit, and they were sitting on their balcony. I glanced up at the two wrestling-type blokes sipping lattes, and continued walking.

‘Oi!’ one of them shouted after me. ‘What’s so funny, eh?’

‘What?’ I replied, very confused.

‘What you larr-fing at?’ the shorter guy drawled in a cockney accent.

‘I’m not laughing at anything,’ I said.

‘Fuck off,’ they both dismissed me. And I wasn’t laughing at them, either. It just happens that I’m a happy person who smiles a lot. This seems to offput people, and I have no idea why. Whaddya want me to do, crack your head against the wall as a greeting? And here was me assuming the locale would be markedly friendlier than the Bronx (ie, the westie suburbs).

I continued to walk until I found myself at a CD store, which sold second hand as well as new music. Let me loose in the singles section of a store like this, and I’ll be there for hours searching for rarities. There were heaps of stores like this when I was living in Melbourne, but less so in Sydney. There wasn’t really anything of note that I was interested in, except for an old Insurge single from 1995 (a good Sydney industrial band - think Filter as loony lefty unwashed enviro-nazi eco-terrorists). Also, a B-52’s dance remix EP from ‘98, which I didn’t even know existed. Sadly, I’m a bit of a sucker for the B-52’s - they were the first album I ever bought as a kid and I’ve never kicked the habit since. (However, don’t start me on how much I hate ‘Love Shack’).

I excitedly clutched my purchases and made my way to the counter. There wasn’t anyone there, so I gazed towards the back of the store, assuming someone was in the storeroom. Strangely, there was no storeroom at all.

Five minutes passed before the bedraggled store owner sprinted into the store, full of apologies. ‘I had to go to the toilet for a second,’ she panted. ‘Lucky you’re trustworthy, I guess,’ she breathed as she laid herself flat against the sales counter.

‘You don’t trust the people around here?’ I asked.

‘Put it this way,’ she explained as she packed my CD’s. ‘I EXPECT something to be stolen if someone’s in here on their own.’

‘Well…’ I considered. ‘I don’t think anybody’s going to steal a B-52’s CD.’

‘Ha ha ha!’ she laughed. ‘Not fuckin’ wrong!’ The look on her face switched in a somewhat polar opposite fashion as she scanned the CD I’d purchased and realised who the artist was.

I’m not sure if it was through embarassment or accident that she undercharged me by $5. Or perhaps that was the only way she could get rid of the CD.

I continued on my walk around the neighbourhood - one place I wanted to look at was a furniture store nearby. I trudged my way through the searing daytime heat being blasted at me from the pavement, and entered the furniture store’s showroom.

I looked around, and could only see a couple of beds. There were a few lounges, but not that many. I thought I’d entered via the rear of the store in error.

‘Can I help you?’ the sales attendant asked, looking up from an article in the magazine she was reading: ‘Better Boobs - The Natural Way’. (Do what I do - eat shit food. That’ll help your boobs, let me tell you).

‘I’m going to be buying a bed soon,’ I explained, looking around at the meagre amount of beds in the place. ‘Do you have any other beds besides these few?’

‘Yes!’ the sales attendant exploded into her routine. ‘Hundreds!’ she shrieked, sending hundreds of tiny flecks of spittle across the room at me, presumably to emphasise the hundreds of beds available.

‘Where are they all?’ I asked.

‘In YOUR HEAD,’ she whispered to me, clearly having taken her training manual far too seriously. I sighed.

‘Do you have a catal-’

‘We can custom design any bed you want,’ she eagerly continued, taking no notice of what I was saying.

‘How much would a-’

‘Simply book an appointment with one of our designers, and-’

‘Look, I think I’ll just… come back later,’ I interrupted with a sweeping motion of my hand. (Not for dramatic purpose at all - simply to ward off her offensive body language. Presumably flailing your arms about like a windmill is supposed to translate into value for money or something).

I escaped while I still could from the furniture store which sold only five beds. Sorry, HUNDREDS.

Scampering up the road as best I could in the hot weather, I made a pitstop at a local petrol station for a bite to eat. After liberating a pie from a lukewarm oven, I trundled over to the cash register, where two hippy-looking young women dressed in shawls and all were waiting with a loaf of bread.

The man operating the cash register sighed in a world-weary fashion and darted his eyes around to ensure there weren’t too many people around. Then he did something that surprised me: he burst into song.

‘You are my favourite hippies,’ he crooned. ‘Hippies, hippies, hippies. My favourite hippy girls in all the world.’

The girls, obviously delighted with this serenade, promptly paid for their purchase with the exact change, performed a curtsey and paraded out the door. One slightly annoyed petrol station attendant and very bamboozled customer remained.

I was a little apprehensive to approach the attendant over the situation. It looked rather… personal.

I carefully placed my purchase on the counter as the man angrily swiped it through the scanner.

‘What’s, er… what’s the hippy song all about?’ I asked.

‘What, My Favourite Hippy Girls In All The World, you mean?’ he replied.

I deduced that he was referring to the hippy song he’d just sung and not one of the other hundreds of hippy songs currently in high rotation on commercial radio. ‘Uh, yeah. Those hippy girls. What’s, um…’ I trailed off, unsure of what I was actually asking.

The man sighed and wiped his brow with a hint of sadness. ‘I don’t even know how it started,’ he sighed. ‘They come in here every day. They buy something. I sing the hippy song, and they thank me.’

‘How the hell do you even start to compose a hippy song?’ I blurted. I tried to imagine walking outside my house every day and singing ‘Mailbox, mailbox, mailbox, my favourite mailbox in all the world’, but couldn’t quite picture it.

‘I don’t know!’ the man half screamed at me. ‘I don’t even know why I work here! I bloody hate it! And then, every day…’ he paused for a moment to catch his breath. ‘HIPPIES!’

‘Your favourite hippies in all the world, though,’ I prodded.

‘Aaaaargh!’ he cried, as I made a hasty exit.

So I gather that here, theft is expected. Stores operate on a minimalist stock basis. Owners sing ballads to you on a daily basis.

New suburb, new suburb, new suburb, my favourite new suburb in all the world.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2001 at 12:07 am 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.