A short story about guns.

I wasn’t going to write a column about guns. But as I sat in my local library (I find it difficult to write humorously when not under the influence of the Dewey decimal system) my attention was drawn to a book on the shelf nearest to me. Its back cover announced its status as ‘‘Your guide to America’s favourite firearms’’. Instantly I was harrumphing in an annoyed, Harold Bishop kind of way. “That,” I thought, staring hard at the book, “is what’s wrong with this country.” Then I remembered it wasn’t this country, it was America. And then I felt a bit better.

am i right, ladies?

Curiosity got the better of me and soon the book was on my desk. The first thing I learned was that it had been published by Gun Digest, which I guess is like Reader’s Digest but slightly more trigger-happy. The most heated Reader’s Digest editorial meetings probably involve raised voices and occasional table-thumping – is it wrong to imagine the same meetings at Gun Digest ending in flesh wounds and bullet holes in the ceiling?

According to the blurb, The Gun Digest Book of Sporting Shotguns is the reference guide for you provided you’re a “hunter, clay target shooter or just someone who loves great shotguns”. Now there’s a personal profile mention you probably don’t see very often: “Gary enjoys movies, dining out and ripping waterfowl from this mortal coil using a 12-gauge Baikal IZH-43 Bounty Hunter.”*

Most of the photos in the book are of men standing with large guns in one hand and various dead animals in the other. Thankfully these photos are in black and white, although I can’t help thinking that if they’d been sepia they would have looked a lot more romantic.

One chapter title posed the question I know most parents have asked their children at some stage: ‘‘Is shooting school for you?’’ (Just as an aside – and you’re going to hate me for this – but you know what the most popular tuck-shop item is at shooting school? Chocolate bullets.)

If you think shooting’s just for blokes, this book begs to differ: “Ladies take to shotgunning instruction exceptionally well.” Well, of course ladies do. We’re packing heat under our petticoats at the best of times, you know. Especially on our heaviest days. What?

And hey, just because you get your jollies from shooting at stuff doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it: “Good manners are never out of place, especially at the gun club.” Yeah. Say please and thank you to the man with the sawn-off or the cute little rabbit gets it. (Do you know what the most popular pick-up line is at the gun club? “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just thinking about a gun in your pocket?” OK, I’ll stop now.)

I didn’t borrow the book. I didn’t even put it back on the shelf where I found it. Instead, I hid it among the books with the Dewey classification of 160: books about logic. I don’t think anybody’s going to go looking for it there.

*Actual shotgun. In the book. See, I know stuff about guns now.

A short story about a diamond-studded cyst.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, apparently, which is news to me because I always thought it was self-saucing chocolate pudding. No matter: according to a recent news article, it seems that diamonds and puddings are now delightfully similar in the sense that they can both be cooked up in a microwave.

A Melbourne physics professor by the name of Steven Prawer has figured out a way to bypass the billion or so years the earth usually takes to make a diamond: he now uses a microwave-like reactor in his Parkville laboratory to cook them up in just five days. In your face, earth!

"It's beautiful!" "Thank you, I just had it lanced."

Five days in the microwave is nothing, unless of course you’re Mrs Prawer: “Steven, what the bloody hell have you got going in here? I need to re-heat this chili con carne!” You’d never guess to look at or smell them, but Professor Prawer’s diamonds are made from methane. And I know what you’re now thinking but it doesn’t happen: the man does not fart into his microwave.

Instead, he combines methane with hydrogen (possibly in a fancy blender) then cooks it on high for 7,200 minutes (try punching that into your microwave – mine exploded when I did it.) Apparently the diamonds come out black because their miniscule size scatters the light, although I’m tipping that anything microwaved for 7,200 minutes would come out black. So chuck in a few breadcrumbs and start making “diamonds.”

 Professor Prawer’s diamonds are set to play a part in Bionic Vision Australia’s quest to develop the bionic eye. Diamonds of various forms have long been implanted into human bodies thanks to their low rejection rate (nobody knocks back a diamond, right?) with diamond coating commonly used on artificial hip joints. This would explain the pensioner I read about last week who proposed to his lady-friend with a hip replacement.*

In a bionic eye, a tiny man-made diamond would be used to stimulate nerves – mainly because that TV ad with Normie Rowe singing about hormones just wouldn’t fit. Specifically, the diamonds would be used to stimulate what are known as optic ganglion cells. This pleases me for two reasons: 1) it allows me to use the word ‘ganglion’ in this blog, and 2) it provides me with a segue to tell you about my ganglion cyst.

First, say ganglion aloud – it’s pronounced gang-glee-un. What a great word. Terrific to say, not so terrific to have growing out of my arm: a huge lump that The Bloke speculated may have in fact been my long-lost conjoined twin finally making an appearance. Anyway, apparently ganglion cysts used to be known as ‘bible bumps’ because back in the day, the method for treating them was to strike them with a heavy book and since most households had a bible, that was that.** To finish my ganglion story: the whole thing was gross, it ended up going away by itself but I sure as hell wouldn’t have minded it so much if it’d had a diamond sticking out of it.

 *Actually, it wouldn’t. I just made that up.

**For once, I’m not making any of this up.

As originally published by the sparkling folk at Melbourne’s City Weekly.

A short story about pooing in a cinema.

The Sprout is almost two and a half and last week I decided it was high time she had her first trip to the movies. Some people might say two and a half is too young for the cinema but I disagree on the grounds that I suspect I’m raising an already highly verbal film buff: if The Sprout finds something really amusing, she drawls “That’s funny, Bullseye!” (a line from Toy Story 2) and the other day while I gave her a ‘horsey-ride’ on my leg she called me her “noble steed” (a line from Shrek.) And her list of movie-quotes is growing (hence my decision to keep her away from all of Quentin Tarantino’s work.)

So on a tightwad-Tuesday morning we headed to our local movie theatre and upon discovering that Underworld: Awakenings was sold out* we saw The Muppets.As previously mentioned here I am a huge Muppets fan and no, that doesn’t mean I’m one of those weirdarses you see on trashy talk shows acting like a toddler while wearing adult-sized nappies. I only do that in private.

bugger cgi. muppets on bikes is the world's greatest special effect.

The Muppets is an exercise in pleasant nostalgia and so was the experience of taking The Sprout to see it. With my kid sitting next to me, wide-eyed and wondrous about the “big TV” in front of her I couldn’t help but recall my own first taste of the cinema: at age eight I was treated to The Care Bears Movie, an animated film with a running time of 77 minutes. I don’t remember anything about the movie other than the plot being difficult to follow, mainly due to the fact that thanks to the giant Coke I’d asked for I had to duck out to the toilet approximately 77 times.

The Muppets, on the other hand, ran for an hour and 38 minutes during which time The Sprout didn’t duck out to the toilet once. This may have had something to do with the fact that she’s still in nappies, which I guess technically makes her one of those weirdarse Muppets fans who also acts like a toddler…where’s her interview with Maury Povich?

 In the lead-up to our cinematic outing I’d tried to familiarize The Sprout with the Muppets by showing her The Muppets Take Manhattan on DVD and it paid off. In the cinema, she yelled out the names of all the Muppets she recognized the minute they appeared in the movie. So when I say it paid off, I mean she made me proud despite probably annoying everybody else there.

At least this meant that for once I wasn’t the most annoying person in the theatre. Mine is usually the voice you can hear constantly whispering questions like “Who’s that guy?” or “So where does this chick fit into the story?” and not just because I drink large beverages and then miss plot points during trips to the loo. No, I didn’t have to ask The Sprout any plot-related questions in The Muppets. Just bot-related ones: it was the first (and hopefully last) time I’ve ever had to turn to the person sitting next to me in a movie and ask “Hey, have you pooped?”

*As if I would take a two and half year old to see this film. It’s about vampires. I’d wait until she was at least three.

As originally published by the Jaffa-rolling folk at Melbourne City Weekly

A short story about forgetting Valentine’s Day.

Ok, so I forgot Valentine’s Day. But when I say “forgot” what I actually mean is “had no intention of observing.” You see, The Bloke and I have a Valentine’s Day rule: either buy a present for under ten bucks or don’t bother buying anything.

(This rule wasn’t my idea. The Bloke’s rationale was that when your half-hour lunch break doesn’t allow you to shop anywhere other than the crappy suburban plaza near your office, it’s either a ten-buck gift or donuts. And yes, one year the gift was actually donuts – at least suburban plazas have food courts.)

everything about this makes a little bit of vomit come up into my mouth.

For the past six years I’ve chosen to buy a gift for under ten bucks but then those ridiculously large Toblerones started to bore me. Sure there was that one year I bought a screwdriver but rather than buy it to be saucily suggestive I did it because The Bloke actually needed a new screwdriver. However, I would’ve been better off buying another Toblerone. (Tip: if you buy a cheap screwdriver, don’t be surprised when its use somehow strips the threads on whatever you’re trying to screw into. And if you don’t yet know what “strip the threads” means, just buy and then use a cheap screwdriver.)

Anyhoo, this year I chose Option B and bought nothing. Note that this is the first time Option B has been chosen by either party in the option-choosing arrangement. Choosing Option B was a mistake and didn’t go down well. Choosing Option B made “someone” feel a little unloved, despite my argument that “someone” should never have offered an Option B if it was never meant to be chosen. In any case, I stuffed up. And now I need to apologise.

So in keeping with the overall theme of being a tightarse, I’m not going to apologise with an expensive gift. I’m going to apologise here, for free…

Dear Bloke,

Roses are red, violets are blue, here are some reasons why I love you:

After winning tickets to see the musical Jersey Boys, you got about ten minutes in before muttering “Just do Big Girls Don’t Cry and get off.”

You once wondered aloud why nobody’s ever opened an 80’s themed Indian restaurant called Korma Korma Korma Korma Korma Chameleon.

You like garfish. Most people our age probably think garfish is a character from the Garfield cartoons.

You think Foxtel would benefit from a “Broken Leg Channel” where the presenters either have broken legs or only broadcast broken leg content, eg. a home improvement show that demonstrates how to renovate your kitchen while you’ve got a broken leg.

After seeing the newspaper ad for it, you declared that the Carol King & James Taylor concert would also feature “the overwhelming stench of menopause.”

You refuse to decorate the outside of our house with Christmas lights on the grounds that if you want to see bright light at home you can always just stick your head in the fridge.

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day. From now on, let’s just go out to dinner.

As originally published by the very romantic folk at Melbourne City Weekly.

A short story about the dentist.

My tooth hurts. To truly appreciate this statement you have to hear it the way I’ve been saying it lately. Scrunch up your face, tilt your head to the side with your chin jutting slightly forward and put on the whiniest voice you can muster as you elongate every word: Myyyy tooooth huuuurts. Now you’ve got it.

Clearly, I need to see a dentist. The trouble is that on my list of “Things I really enjoying doing” seeing a dentist is located just below mopping up Australian Open tennis players’ lower back-sweat with my tongue.*

yeah. really friggin funny, arsehole.

My first childhood dentist went by the name of Dr Saw (no, really.) I was unable to appreciate this irony due to the fact that at the time I was seeing Dr Saw I was too young to spell. Operating purely phonetically, however, all I heard was “Dr Sore” and thus wasn’t spared any terror.

In my mid-primary school years I began entrusting my oral health to Dr Shepherd and while his name didn’t scare me, his breathing did. While wearing the obligatory dentist’s mask (as opposed to a Halloween one) Dr Shepherd alternated between mouth-breathing and nasal breathing. The nasal breathing was whistly and the mouth-breathing too heavy for my liking – not that I’m suggesting anything untoward. It’s just that when you’re only eleven, a forty-something year old man leaning over you and breathing in any capacity is enough to make you antsy.

In my late teens Dr Shepherd advised me to have my wisdom teeth assessed by a specialist. Instead, I just stopped going to the dentist. A few years later it took less than 24 hours for me to go from “normal mouth” to “insane oral pain.” I visited a local dentist who said “I think it’s your wizzies” and referred me to a specialist who inspected my wisdom teeth and said “Ah, yes: I see what’s about to happen here.” To this day, I have no idea what was about to happen in my mouth. The Olympics? Oktoberfest? Whatever it was, it was halted by the swift removal of my “wizzies” two days later. I should’ve stuck with Dr Shepherd’s nasal whistling.

My reason for not enjoying dentist trips now is simple and clichéd: I hate how dentists try to engage you in conversation while your mouth is otherwise occupied. It’s beyond annoying. The worst part of it is that it’s the dentists who are doing the occupying – they should bloody know better. Not that I’ll be saying anything on my next visit, lest the dentist retaliates by making Moomba happen in my mouth.

*Apologies for this somewhat jarring mental image. It may be less traumatic for you if you imagine the tennis player being, say, Maria Sharapova as opposed to, say, Eric Pockley. Eric Pockley played the first Australian Open in 1905 and is now dead (though not as a direct result of playing the Open) and I suspect that imagining me licking the lower back-sweat of a dead man may cause some unease.**

**If the thought of me licking a dead man’s sweat does make you uneasy, console yourself with this fact: dead men don’t sweat. They ooze. Hope you feel better.

As originally published by the orally-sound folk at the Melbourne City Weekly.

A short story about not working.

Some of us may be back at work but let’s face it: none of us are actually working. You know it and I know it. You know it because you’re reading this instead of working and I know it because I’ve hired monkeys to tap out all my blogs for January. No, really. Bananasbananasbananas.

the visual definition of "could not give less of a shit."

The thing about January work days is that they’re very much like all the broken biscuits you shove into your mouth while you transfer the rest of the new pack into the cookie jar: they don’t count. January workers are there but they’re not really there, much like old Aunt Mavis who puts the TV remote to her ear when the phone rings and tries to change the channel on the TV with one of her slippers.*

In January, many workplaces operate with what’s commonly known as “skeleton staff.” This is the term used to describe employees who passed up the opportunity to eat for Australia over the Christmas break and who, rather than lying bloated on the couch with their pants undone, moaning “There’s only seventeen plates of leftovers still in the fridge,” instead chose to do things like keep going to work. I know, disgusting. Compared to the people at home with shards of leg ham protruding from their skin folds, these people look like skeletons and hence their name. **

Skeleton staff are paid by their employer to make personal calls, design and print their wedding invitations on office equipment and set up fake Facebook accounts with which to monitor/stalk people who really gave them the shits at high school. Skeleton staff will go through the desk drawers of colleagues who have managed to avoid being skeleton staff and take away all the staplers. Some skeleton staff have also been known to spend entire work days fashioning fancy badges that say things like “Skeleton Staff Member Of The Month” and “Skeleton Staff Now? Ask Me How” and then wearing these badges while standing in front of the fridge in the tea room for half an hour, waving cold air down the front of their blouse because the office air-conditioning doesn’t work properly when the outside temperature gets over thirty. Don’t even ask me how I know this.***

Despite their many faults, skeleton staff deserve to be acknowledged for being there without really being there when everybody else is at home on the couch.  They should also be feted and worshipped because without them, the world as we know it would stop in January. That, plus the fact that bananasbananasbananas.

*Old Aunt Mavis doesn’t actually exist. As in, she’s not really there while she’s not really there. Do you feel like this may be turning into some kind of philosophy lesson? Are you as confused now as I was when my first-year philosophy lecturer introduced the laser-pointer he was about to use to highlight his projected notes to a packed lecture theatre as “Barry”? As in, “Everyone: this is Barry, he’s going to help me point a few things out to you today.” Fifteen years later, I’m still really confused about why that nutbar did that.

**Pure, unbridled crap.

 ***I have worked as skeleton staff.

As originally published by the hard-working folk at the Melbourne City Weekly.

A short story about a bride-to-be.

It’s that time again. As the weather warms up, they begin multiplying and you notice them everywhere: huddled over café tables, they make long lists and pore over bulky magazines while ordering coffee and cake. Then they remember why they’re there and cancel the cake while re-ordering their coffees with skinny milk. Yep, I’m talking about brides-to-be.

put...the...bouquet...down

Melbourne’s summer months are the most popular for weddings and so for many brides, now is crunch time. Abdominal crunch time, clearly, although that’s something I’ve never really understood: why work hard to rock a rock-hard body down the aisle only to realize a couple of years after the wedding that relaxing delightfully into married life has meant that your bum now finishes half-way down the back of your leg? Or did that just happen to me?

Anyhoo, having planned my own wedding and then written a book about it* I’m always interested in the nuptial pursuits of others. Hence I didn’t hesitate to eavesdrop on a bride-to-be as she detailed her wedding plans to her mute friend in a café last week. I assume her friend was mute because she didn’t actually say anything during the conversation. Which now that I think about it could have been less due to being mute and more due to the bride-to-be not pausing long enough for her to get a word in. And that’s dangerous, because you should never disrespect the person who on your wedding day will be in charge of lifting your dress so you can use the loo.

Not that I’m having a go at this bride-to-be. Ok, I am: there was something about her that I just didn’t like. It may have been her tone of voice. Maybe it was because she has a poodle named Audrey. In any case, the following are some quotes from her (the bride-to-be, not the poodle named Audrey.) I scribbled the quotes on a napkin so that I might share them with you, along with my authoritative, I-know-about-this-stuff notes.

“I want your bridesmaid outfit to be a dress you can wear out somewhere again.”

This happens approximately never. Translation: “Your dress will be expensive, you’re paying for it and hopefully you’ll get invited to another fancy wedding one day.”

“Michael (the groom) is determined to wear a bow tie.”

With the exception of Bert Newton, nobody is ever determined to wear a bow tie. Translation: “I have told Michael to wear a bow tie.”

“I definitely want Audrey in the wedding.”

Dogs don’t want to be in weddings. They don’t even want to be named Audrey. Translation: “If I can stop her bum-dragging and licking herself, Audrey will be in a photo.”

“Michael and the boys will be wearing powder blue because we love that colour. Our bedroom is that colour.”

Ok, this is weird. Is the idea that the groomsmen will be able to attend the wedding and then camouflage themselves in the marital chamber at a later date? Translation: “The groomsmen’s outfits will not be something they can wear out somewhere ever again.”

* This would be a shameless plug if not for the fact that I’m modest enough not to include the title of the book here.**

** I will however, include it here: Tying The Knot Without Doing Your Block. Just in case you’re wondering.

As originally published by the non-bum-dragging folk at the Melbourne City Weekly.

A short story about drinking while not wearing pants.

Celebratorially-speaking,* I like to spend the end of every year kicking back in a large group of people I have no desire to glass while we all drink champagne and listen to Green Day’s ‘Time Of Your Life’ with our pants off.

Ok, this is a lie. At this time of year there are precious few people I don’t want to glass, which is what happens when you leave your Christmas shopping to the last minute then try to negotiate the Chadstone shopping centre carpark.

this photo has nothing to do with my story. i just liked it. happy new year, mr snake-face.

Saying I spend year’s-end listening to Green Day’s ‘Time Of Your Life’ is also a lie. I don’t listen to it, at least not voluntarily. Occasionally it’s forced upon me by TV show finales, pub cover-bands who don’t know the chords for Semisonic’s ‘Closing Time’ and carloads of school-leavers high on life and/or the thrill of putting their P-plates on the family Camry, but that’s it.

It is, however, true that I drink champagne with my pants off. I’m doing it right now – it’s how I write every column. Ok, just the end-of-year ones. Oh, alright: I’ll cover up with a napkin.

Anyhoo, in the spirit of end-of-year reflections, allow me to reflect upon a handful of personal highlights from this year:

* I quite enjoyed discovering the single black hair that grows out of my inside wrist and the blonde one that grows out of my cheek. The wrist hair was pointed out to me by a cashier at Nandos (“Wow, that’s a weird hair you’ve got there” – true story) and the one growing out of my face I first saw and can now only ever locate in the rearview mirror of my car. I’ve tried to find it in the bathroom mirror but to no avail, so if I ever end up in a car wreck clutching tweezers, you’ll know what happened.

* This year I discovered just how dumb The Bloke thinks I am. While watching a sports documentary about Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s famous ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ fight in Zaire in 1974, I asked who the slightly Aussie-sounding fight commentator was. The Bloke then spent 20 minutes trying to convince me it was James Brayshaw. After some googling I discovered it was BBC legend Harry Carpenter, but I’m still smarting over The Bloke thinking I’d be so easily led. James Brayshaw – as if! (I would have believed him if he’d said Bruce McAvaney.)

* Back to hair, this was the year I saw the longest arm-hair ever, and it wasn’t even growing out of my wrist. At the park one afternoon I got talking with another mum. “It’s quite warm now, isn’t it?” she mused as she removed her cardigan to reveal bushy arms worthy of the strangest Pantene commercial never made. “Wow,” I wanted to say, “How often do you brush that? Are you growing your own elbow-length gloves?” Instead I pretended not to notice but now I can’t help thinking of her whenever I wear mohair and I worry about what happens when she cooks over a naked flame.

Until next year, happy festive season to you and may your 2012 be filled with highlights. I’m off to find my pants.

* You’re right, it’s not a word.

As originally published by the sober, pants-clad folk at the Melbourne City Weekly.

A short story about a chair.

As you traipse around in your quest to find the perfect Christmas gifts, let me tell you about the best present I ever received.

A couple of years ago when The Bloke asked me what I’d like for my birthday, I replied, “a chair”. I was heavily pregnant with The Sprout at the time and her newly decorated room was complete except for a comfy chair for me to sit and nurse in.

We visited specialty baby stores and I sat in all their recommended ‘‘feeding chairs’’. Some reclined, some rocked and all claimed to be purpose-built. To me, this meant they should have come complete with lactating breasts, but maybe I just take some things too literally. In any case, none of these chairs felt right so off we went to hell. Translation: we went to Ikea on a Saturday.

I’ve taken the piss out of Ikea many times in this column, a) because I can and b) because all my jokes arrive flat-packed and ready for assembly (see what I did there?). But now it’s time to praise that place, for it was there I found The Chair.

Quite simply, it’s the best chair ever. I don’t sit in it – it embraces me. You know when you “spoon” with someone? In our embrace, this chair is the back-spoon, but it’s better than a human back-spoon because it has no pointy bits. Am I right, ladies?

My chair doesn’t recline or rock but it bounces a little – a motion that was perfect for soothing an infant Sprout to sleep in my arms with very little effort. My chair’s only downside when it came to newborns was its cushion colour: walnut brown. Not ideal unless your baby vomits chocolate milk, but a problem easily addressed by the addition of an off-white throw rug. (I also once solved the problem of a baby poo stain on the carpet by fitting the room with a baby poo-coloured floor rug – eat your heart out, Shannon Lush.*)

I’ve nursed and soothed in that chair for two years. I’ve laughed and cried in it. More recently I’ve spent hours sleeping in it after placing it beside The Sprout’s bed on the nights she’s been upset by illness or teething, and not once has it given me a bad back. My chair will see me through all my kids, I reckon, even if I have 10 of them.**

My parents have a rocking chair at their place that was a favourite of my paternal grandfather, re-upholstered to match their other couches (that’s the chair, not my paternal grandfather). When the time comes I know my sisters and I will argue over who gets that chair, such is our sentimental attachment to it.

I picture my kids one day fighting over who gets my chair as I stubbornly refuse to die in it, instead bouncing gently with little effort, content in the knowledge that my final words will take the piss out of both Ikea and the film Citizen Kane as with my last breath I whisper the name of my beloved chair, “Poang”.

* For the uninitiated, Shannon Lush is the queen of cleaning and has written numerous books on the subject, one of which advised using stale urine to clean oil paintings. This led to the popular phrase “I don’t know much about art but I know what I’d wee on if it was dirty.”

** That sound you can hear right now is my uterus screaming. Don’t worry – it’ll stop in a minute.

As originally published by the expert spooners at the Melbourne City Weekly.

A short story about working in retail at Christmas. No, really.

If you’re reading this you’re obviously organized: you’ve done all your Christmas shopping and you’re now taking a moment to relax, secure in the knowledge that you’ve bought a gift for everyone on your list. Either that or reading the last sentence has just prompted you to remember someone you’ve forgotten and you’re now hoping to God you’ve still got time to shop.

I hate Christmas shopping. I love to give, but if someone else could do the shopping and just leave me to do the giving I’d be much happier.

don't think these guys aren't getting sauced right now, too. they are. in the pants. what?

I always have parking issues when I go Christmas shopping. I shop in a big plaza along with about eleventy-million other people, which makes the odds of finding a park in the same suburb as the plaza the same as the odds of getting in and out of Ikea in under ten minutes: slim to none.

Inevitably I end up stalking shoppers by following them from the shops to their car, or what they think is their car. I love it when they realize it’s not their car and they can’t remember where theirs is. I also love it when they find their car but then announce that I can’t have their park because they’re not leaving, they’re just offloading their purchases and going back for more. Note that when I say “I love it” what I really mean is “I want to punch these people in the clam.”

I also have issues with the 24-hour trading that happens the night before Christmas Eve. Everyone is drunk. Why people drink a bottle of Sambucca and then decide to do their Christmas shopping at 3am is beyond me. If you have ever received a plastic reindeer that shoots chocolate-covered sultanas out its arse when you squeeze it, you know whoever gave it to you was drunk at the 24-hour trade.

Even the shop assistants working the 24-hour trade are drunk. It’s the only way they can get through their shift. I know – I used to work in a department store.

One year I was rostered to work from 11.30pm until 7.30am. At 7.30pm on the night of my shift, my friend Sharon drove me to a bar. At 10.35pm Sharon – who intended to do all her shopping at my plaza overnight – accidentally ran over the left foot of the shopper we were stalking in the plaza carpark. At 10.36 the shopper started yelling at us and by 10.37 we had driven away. At 11.25pm we finally got a car space and I reported merrily to my shift. At 2am I phoned for a Mexicana pizza to be delivered to me from the food court. At about 4am I had a tiny vom in the staff toilets. Somewhere between 5 and 5.30am I fell asleep in the back corner of the manchester department, standing up against a shelf with my face resting on a pile of towels. At 6am I rang reception and said that if I heard Mariah Carey’s Christmas album played over the store’s P.A. one more time, I would personally throttle the receptionist. By 6.20am I had received “counseling” from my manager.  At 7.38am I was asleep in Sharon’s car as she drove me home.

If reading this has just reminded you that you’ve forgotten to buy something for your friend Sharon, don’t worry. You’ve still got time to crack open the Sambucca.

As originally published by the very sober people at the Melbourne City Weekly.