Since my parents learnt that Adam was more than a flatmate and I was more than a sad individual leading a futile girl-less life, he’s been embraced wholeheartedly as part of the family. Christmas and birthday presents are now flung enthusiastically his way each year, with increasingly larger and more expensive items being mailed to him on a regular basis from my olds.

This is fine. Adam has always been “Jeb’s boyfriend” for the past year and a half.

But lately my mum has begun calling Adam her “second son”. This new development, coupled with the realisation that for the first time, Adam’s Christmas present from my parents was bigger than my Christmas pressie, has made me suspect he’s been promoted.

I’ve constructed a sliding scale. If things continue at this rate, Adam will have taken my place as sole son in 2004, and I’ll be reduced to ‘boyfriend of Adam’ and will receive only thoughtless boxes of cheap chocolates and Powerball tickets on an annual basis. It appears I’m in for a demotion.

To be honest, Adam and I aren’t really big on Christmas. Although I’ll admit I’ve always enjoyed being trampled on in suburban malls during the Christmas rush, crushed inside an area of a department store I never wanted to visit in the first place but was carried along regardless with the crowd. As I’m sure anyone in a large city can explain, it’s not unusual to be caught with your face mashed up against a window in David Jones, vainly juggling overpriced gift-wrapped presents as you’re crashed into by the passing crowd, as you attempt to stop gagging on some silver tinsel which somehow found its way into your mouth in the midst of all the frantic festivity.

But besides that, that’s usually where it ends. A Christmas tree is never something we’ve bothered with - besides, after sensing the slightly-less-than-pristine environment we live in, any flora item would decompose within minutes after being placed in our living room.

The problem was that we needed somewhere to put unwrapped gifts and cards that had arrived in the mail. Thus, this year I incepted the Christmas Television. It was just our normal TV, but it had presents and cards donned all over it. Never accuse me of not being media savvy.

One thing which is absent from my now-slimmer-than-Brad-Pitt-genitalia social calendar is a Christmas party at work - because, as my repeated bleating moans have communicated to you for three months now, I’m still unemployed. Next to Melbourne Cup day (origin of the Australia-wide tradition of the annual four-hour lunch break to pay homage to two great Aussie institutions, alcoholism and gambling), the work Christmas party is something to look forward to. You’re always going to find out sordid secrets about your boss at the very minimum, and incept new methods for abusing office stationary in the most obscene methods possible.

Then again, my work Christmas party last year was enough to last me two years. Having been employed at one of Australia’s biggest dot-com companies, they were still riding onwards blindly in the hope that things would ‘just get a bit better’. So, in the tradition of setting fire to any currency in sight, the company decided to throw an all-out Christmas bash for all employees after work one steamy December evening.

As part of a small beleaguered customer service team at the time, I sat directly opposite a beautifully sunny yet sparse concreted outdoor area. Providing spectacular views of the city and Sydney Harbour, the area was usually locked off, but we were informed that this was where the Christmas party would be held. The theme of the party, our slightly potty human resources manager had decided, would be Hawaiian Tropical Christmas.

On the day of the party and without any warning whatsoever, a talent contest was proposed mere hours before the event, causing work teams to drop urgent business expansion meetings and scurry away into meeting rooms to secretively concoct songs and dances which sent up members of upper management. In the space of only a few hours, the whole company transformed itself from a team of co-operative young men and women in suits working together to achieve goals; to a group of garish shirt, grass-skirt and coconut-bra wearing loons accusing other cliques (or ‘performance groups’, as some demanded to be known) that they’d stolen their idea to make photocopied masks of the CEO in their biting parodic one-piece play set to the Village People’s ‘Macho Man’.

Unfortunately, I’d completely forgotten the theme was Hawaiian Tropical Christmas, and instead turned up to work that day in my usual uniform of heavy metal t-shirt and grotty jeans.

I used to mention Big Mo on my site last year - he was my boss at the time, and was little more than a gay substance-abusing nightclub-slave machine who hadn’t slept since some time in June. Needless to say, he was the best boss I expect I’ll ever have, and my best friend at the time. (Unfortunately, he’s disappeared into nowhere - none of his friends know where he’s gone or what he’s doing. The hot tip is that he’s disappeared to London to ‘relaunch’ his personality, as he had often spoken out loud of this desire).

Big Mo, ever a fan of theatrics, immediately declared to a large group of people upon learning of the talent contest that his trusty customer service team would be performing a drag queen-inspired interpretation of a Spice Girls number. Collectively this turned everyone involved’s hair on end, except for Vanessa Undresser, the girl none of us liked - she distantly wondered aloud if there was an ‘Invoicing and Goods Fulfilment Spice’, but as nobody was completely sure if this was remarked in jest or sheer stupidity, we remained silent. Besides, I was already shifting uncomfortably in my seat due to Big Mo’s immediate delegation that I present myself in a matter of hours as Ginger Spice.

Gazing forlornly at the shiny new razor scooter I’d procured on my lunch break, I wondered if there was any way my new mode of transportation could possibly be incorporated into our talent quest entry. The razor scooter was part of a package deal for a new mobile phone plan I’d received just hours ago and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to keeping an eye on it during the evening to make sure it didn’t slip away as someone else’s early Christmas present.

A large group of militant-looking caterers were marching back and forth past our desks between the concreted area outside and a supplies truck. Even a giant tent had been constructed over half the outdoors lookout - the human resources manager was skittering around placing plastic palm trees in pre-calculated positions all over the place. The result was something akin to a very concretey cocktail bar. Still, it looked like it’d be a fun night - the bar area and stage were all undercover, yet an open-air area permitted everyone to socialise and take in the beautiful shimmering view of the city.

Hesitantly testing my scooter with one foot and planning to zoom elegantly to Big Mo’s desk, the front wheel suddenly veered towards a glass wall without warning and I crashed into one of the caterers, delicately balancing buckets of ice and a case of beer all in one trip.

‘Crap! I’m really sorry,’ I apologised to the fuming barman, who even in festive Hawaiian shirt and bowtie combo, still managed to convey his seething distaste for me very well. ‘It’s just that I’m supposed to be acting out Ginger Spice tonight, and… never mind.’

‘Here,’ he passed me an icy can of Toohey’s New. ‘I think you’ll need this more than I do.’ Thanking him for the beverage, my other workmates - Big Mo, McCraig and Kazza - then immediately chimed in that they be provided with an early drink as well. Making sure we knew he was breaking the rules by pouting, sighing and pointing at his watch theatrically, they all grabbed a can of beer for themselves as well. This drew the attention of the nearby finance department, who collectively began tittering with excitement and scampered outside to the tent area, only to be met by the furious demands of the human resources manager (now wearing a lei with the most schizophrenic colour scheme possible) that we all get back inside and not step foot into the tent until the FUCKING party was FUCKING set up, ALL FUCKING RIGHT?

As the grumpy finance team marched back inside, they decided to drag the rest of us down with them by immediately demanding our weekly timesheets far earlier than normal. Muttering under our breath, we all began mentally calculating the hours we’d worked that week and scribbling the details. Big Mo, having not slept for three days previously due to night-time clubbing, was unable to recall the fine details of his last few days and resorted to creating some imaginative working day details. Once he’d handed these to the finance team, we all began the weekly tradition of reassuring the sceptical payroll staff that yes, indeed, Big Mo really had worked an eighty hour week.

On this particular occasion, Big Mo had attempted to claim more hours than there physically were within a week, so I was forced to spend a good half an hour gallantly extolling the virtues of Big Mo’s hardworking ethic.

As five o’clock rolled around, the entire staff rushed out of the building onto the concreted outdoors area, a cacophony of terrifying primary coloured Hawaiian shirts. We were all presented with some suspiciously coloured cocktails and told to ‘party’. A gaggle of account managers confidently took the stage and commenced performing an interpretative dance version of a day in the life of an advertising sales manager set to the very Christmassy song, Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden. This went completely unnoticed as everyone attempted to grab what little beer was left before being forced to resort to the puce-coloured cocktails.

The now very frazzled HR manager was flitting around attempting to make sure everyone was enjoying themselves at the most optimal level, as if her job depended on it. In the middle of all this, a catering assistant asked her if she wanted the miniature sausage rolls served now or later, and was replied to with a screeching ‘YES!’

‘I don’t understand,’ responded the confused and slightly scared assistant, cowering behind one of the plastic palm trees. ‘Do you want them now, or later?’

‘I said YES!’ screamed the HR manager. ‘Now AND later!’ With that, they both scurried off in opposite directions.

It appeared everyone had forgotten about the talent contest once the cocktails began to work their fruity-flavoured magic. The group collectively shifted outside the tent into the warm, summer-heated balcony which gave us a beautiful backdrop of the harbour to drink by. The unmistakable voices of McCraig and Kazza drunkenly crying ‘WHOOOOOO!’ together broke the ambience, and I stumbled my way towards their voices through a jungle of giant plastic potted plants, trying to keep my balance as alcohol rushed through my bloodstream.

A crowd of staff were gathering around the edge of the balcony, where people were taking it in turns to fling some smuggled-in promotional frisbees provided by McCraig into the harbour, trying to hit some passing yachts. One of the IT support staff flailed his body around, carefully keeping a cocktail steady in one hand as he flung a plastic disc onto the upper deck of a chugging paddlesteamer. Hoots of encouragement and general egging-on led McCraig to try and bring things up a level, as he produced a company logo-embossed beachball from behind a giant plastic fern. The cheers and screams of excitement lead the giant beach ball to be tossed into the water without a further second’s thought. The giant orb plopped onto the path of an oncoming ferry and bobbed around like some wayward kind of multicoloured buoy.

As some waiters flowed through the gathered crowd with more cocktails on trays, the group began hooting for McCraig to produce more beach balls. With a flourish and a giant grin on his face, he flung four deflated beach balls around his head and was about to commence inflating them, until a furious HR manager disrupted the scene and ordered everyone to stop throwing promotional items into the harbour, and couldn’t everyone just fucking enjoy themselves, because she’d spent an awful fucking lot of time organising this fucking thing.

‘I was enjoying myself with the beach balls and frisbees,’ protested Kazza.

‘I agree,’ slurred a nearby marketing assistant. ‘If you ashk me, putting thingsh like that in the harbour ish all about ekshpanding our brandsh, putting them into new marketsh, and all that.’ To accentuate her point, she then collapsed into a banana lounge.

As everyone appeared to have abandoned the talent quest, someone began playing a Bryan Adams Christmas album over the speakers in a desperate attempt to generate background noise. As his lyrics of ‘I think you’re all going to have a merry Christmas’ flooded the room, I couldn’t help but feel that having these lyrics sung by Bryan Adams equated to the biggest oxymoron I’d encountered all year.

One of the girls in the finance team swept past me, and my drunken urges to talk to new people quickly kicked in. I’ve got this really weird habit when I’m drunk of telling women that they’re really attractive no matter what they look like.

‘Hey,’ I grabbed the finance girl. ‘Did I ever tell you that I’m gay? And you’re very attractive, you know.’

This was nearly always met with a big smile and a kiss, and I had no idea why I did it. She then grabbed a gaggle of other finance girls to tell them I was gay, and in response I admitted that they were all very attractive, really.

Leaving them to giggle over some more cocktails, I noticed that some arcade machines had been provided for use inside the tent. Spotting a pinball machine - easily my favourite type of arcade game - I zoomed in and grabbed it while I had the chance, and started whacking the ball around the table like a madman.

Unfortunately, the combined effects of a growing dizziness from the mysterious cocktail ingredients and people continuously greeting me over my shoulder upped my handicap somewhat. Relentlessly I kept pounding away at the flippers until I began reaching a score of spectacular heights. Had I not been concentrating to the point of slack-jawdom, I would have surely cried out that I was a dictator of balls, which would probably have required a lot of explaining. Still, as long as it was a woman, I could always tell her that I was gay, and she was very attractive, you know.

Without warning, Big Mo came rumbling past me and drunkenly fell and slammed his body against the machine. ‘TILT!’ screamed the pinball game, and my eyes widened in fury.

‘I almost had a fucking high score!’ I screeched, turning around only to realise Big Mo had pissed off to a Dance Dance Revolution game, where he was somehow managing to play the game with a cocktail glass in each hand, prancing around like an Irish line dancer.

My drunken logic decreed that I tackle Big Mo headlong in an attempt to make him understand the damage he did to my game of pinball, by destroying his impossibly high score on Dance Dance Revolution. As I flung myself at him, I crashed into his stomach knocking him sideways off the dance platform, causing him to begin giggling incessantly - not the desired effect at all. I tried screaming ‘TILT! TILT!’ in his ear, but that didn’t work.

Without intending to, I’d also accidentally knocked a girl off the Dance Dance Revolution machine next to Big Mo. Apologising profusely through an alcohol clouded mind, I wasn’t quite sure what to say next, so I told her that I was gay and that she was very attractive. She seemed very happy with this, so I escaped while I still could.

A disturbing synth keyboard suddenly pierced everyone’s ears, and there grinning on the stage was a solo entry into the talent quest: one of the business development managers had actually gone to the trouble of driving home on her lunch break and fetching her Casio keyboard, so she could play trance songs for her entry into the talent quest. She’d even made up some boy band-esque dance moves to accompany her horribly analogue interpretations of Darude and Sash. Visually, it was some bizarre combination of looking like she was being anally raped and a female version of a Wham-era George Michael.

As she ceased a torturing reprisal of a Kylie Minogue song, someone called out ‘Get her off!’ Thinking quickly, I called out to her over a couple of people’s heads.

‘Did I ever tell you I was gay? You’re very attractive, you know!’

She squealed in delight and fled the stage to hug me. Everyone sighed in relief, but she quickly clawed her way back to the stage and shooed away a group of karaoke-equipped managers setting up their act. The opening strains to an Eiffel 65 song began warbling through the speakers, which made it seem like no better time than to duck back inside and check nobody had taken my scooter for a drunken rampage.

The shiny new scooter lay untouched against my desk - which was coated with the congealed vomit of a personal assistant with her head between her legs. Two hiccuping, swaying men tried to reassure her that she’d be alright, to which she responded by fertilising the potplant behind my desk. They looked at me with pleading eyes, desperate to get the girl feeling a bit better again.

Sliding in between them, I tapped the girl on the shoulder. ‘Did I ever tell you I was gay? You’re very attractive, you know!’

Unfortunately, this only resulted in further upchuck, so I delicately pincered my scooter away from the disaster area, placed it underneath Big Mo’s desk for safety and headed to the toilets for a potty break.

This work’s toilets were infamous for their shiny floors - you could easily see the action of every cubicle next to you by looking in what were virtually mirrors on the ground. Deciding it’d be best to steer clear of the cubicles and use the pisstray alongside another kinda cute guy, I realised he was someone who I’d made vague eye contact with every day on the train on my way to work, but never spoke a word to him.

I decided it’d be a good time to introduce myself. ‘I’m Jeb, we catch the train together,’ I greeted him.

‘Ohh, hey man!’ he smiled, almost putting out his hand to shake mine, until he realised something else needed to be shook.

‘Don’t wanna use the cubicles - the floors are like mirrors,’ I grinned at him.

‘Well,’ he paused, looking up at the roof. ‘I woulda thought that’d be a good thing. Seeya,’ he dismissed, and rushed out of the toilet. Frowning and trying to process thoughts properly through a mental minefield of cocktails, I began wondering if he’d just made a comment to let me know he was gay.

Determined to find out if I’d just made a new friend on some weird, fucked up, completely drunken and with-nothing-else-in-common-at-this-early-stage-but-our-sexuality friendship, I immediately sought out my source of encyclopaedic knowledge on all that is gay, Big Mo. Unfortunately, he was in the middle of an exceptionally alarming duet rendition of ‘It’s Raining Men’ with the freakin’ CEO, which in itself brought the word ‘drunk’ to new dimensions. Urgently motioning towards my friend and looking at Big Mo’s caterwauling face the whole time, my manager in return perfectly mimed ‘He’s Gay!’ during a percussion break as he simultaneously flung his body around in a tribute to epilepsy.

Armed with this new information, I began a whirlwind search around the party area, flailing through giant faux palm trees and swaying office staff - when I realised that I’d more or less been walking in a straight line, and my head was the only thing in a whirlwind. Spotting the guy who’d talked to me in the toilet passing by the bar, I quickly ran up to him and grabbed his arm.

Suddenly completely unsure of what I should be saying to him, I started out with the reliable ‘Did I ever tell you I was gay?’ Unfortunately, his eyes widened in terror and he scooted away before I had a chance to continue. I never did find out if he actually was gay or not, or if Big Mo was just drunkenly stabbing in the dark at his sexuality.

Screams from the far end of the balcony lead me to believe that Kazza and McCraig had resumed their frisbee and beach ball shenanigans, but as the crowd collectively roared into the tent, I realised a sudden downpour of rain had begun. The tent, however, could only accommodate two thirds of the crowd, which left a number of sodden and furious partygoers stranded in the heavy rain outside.

Thankfully, the thundering of the powerful droplets against the canvas roofing of the tent drowned out the warbling of five staff I’d never seen before miming to some song or other. Presumably they were IT support staff (or they were parodying IT staff), because they seemed to be clothed in computer peripherals alone. The computer-folk’s faces lit up when the crowd rushed into the tent, as they seemed to think everyone was climbing over themselves to see their fantastic talent quest entry.

From behind me, a stunned HR manager’s face was completely blank. ‘Where’d all that rain come from?’ she wondered absently, obviously having not planned for this turn of events at all.

Naturally, being rather drunk, I couldn’t help but reply. ‘PRECIPITATION. YOU. FUCKING. IDIOT,’ I assisted. Then realising what I’d just said and who I’d said it to, I quickly moved out of her immediate area and into the pouring rain, between Kazza and a plump woman I’d never encountered before.

‘Kazza!’ I greeted the drowned rat next to me. ‘How are you?’

‘The rain makes me wet,’ she sobbed, then began hiccuping violently. ‘And I’m never going to be able to pick up the hot guy in dispatch I’ve been after all night in this state,’ she wailed. ‘Sexy men. Something I’ll never come into contact with in my whole life.’

‘Guns and dead people,’ I nodded.

‘What?’ she snapped out of her misery.

‘Guns and dead people,’ I repeated, blinking through the rain. ‘Those are two things I’ll never come into contact with in my life.’

This seemed to confuse Kazza, so I left her there as she turned this over in her mind. Turning to my left, the plump woman eyed me off strangely, then informed me: ‘Don’t worry, you’ve already told me you’re gay.’

Slowly making my way back through the crowd into the tent, I was walking past the stage when Big Mo hoisted me up and plonked me on my own in the middle of the stage, then before I knew what was happening, he’d plonked a giant ginger wig on my head and strapped a coconut bra to my chest.

‘Presenting… GINGER SPICE!’ he screamed to the crowd, as I became stuck to the spot, unable to move. Where were the other fucking Customer Service Spices? The opening strains of ‘Wannabe’ chimed in, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Nobody had discussed the ‘biting parodic’ lyrics we were going to use.

‘If you want customer service…’ I fumbled. ‘You gotta ring us on the phone.’ Bright purple and red lights began flashing at me alternately from the top of the tent, and the terror became all too much. Screaming in unbridled drunken forced-parodic-karaoke terror, I ran out of the party tent, grabbed my (now vomit-covered) scooter and inebriatedly scooted through the entire length of the office, to the road outside.

My mobile phone rang - it was Adam, just leaving his work’s Christmas party. ‘Mate, we’ve missed the last train home!’ he cried. I looked at my watch - it was almost 4am. Christ, I was supposed to be bright and happy at work in little more than five hours.

‘Fuckfuckfuck,’ I cursed, running all available options for remedying the situation through my head. Logic prevailed: ‘Meet you at the pub we always go to on Park Street in the city,’ I concluded.

‘I’ll be there in fifteen,’ barked Adam, and that was that.

Shortly after, we collectively hauled our sodden selves into the warmly inviting pub we frequented so often, but neither of us would dare to partake another alcoholic beverage. We decided that the more important issue at hand, was where were we going to sleep the night?

When you’re drunk and suddenly cracked alongside the head with a sudden attack of the tireds, the answer is simple: the nearest hotel to where you’re standing. Unfortunately, in this case, it happened to be the goddamn fucking HILTON. Being completely off our faces, the potential damage to my credit card wasn’t given a second thought as we ran yelling and carrying on into the delicately arranged reception area of the hotel at 4.30am in the morning.

Aggressively pressing the bell for service, I wondered if they’d even assist us - all the lights were dimmed and everyone seemed asleep. Not a person in sight. Eventually a disgruntled looking short little man in a ridiculously large cap slid through a door and behind the reception desk.

Nobody was too sure what to say, so nobody said anything. Expectantly, the short little man pressed his lips together and continued nursing a cordial loathing for us, which to his credit was probably his default response to most people he encountered. We mumbled something about wanting a room for the night, and were hastily provided with a key.

He muttered something derogatory-sounding under his breath, which really pissed me off, so I began riding around gleefully on my scooter in the entire split-level reception area of the Hilton. There was little he could do to stop me beyond angrily glaring. ‘Did I ever tell you I was gay?’ I drunkenly called out, hoping to annoy him as much as possible. ‘You’re very attractive, you know!’

Adam gave me a confounded look, then we made out way slowly to the hotel room where we collapsed until the next morning - which, in itself, is a completely different story. The partying mood kept going on for at least a week, really.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2001 at 7:58 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.