Tag: favourite stories

A perfect market

I lost my hairbrush to the roving blackhole in my bedroom. This was an emergency. I immediately left the house for Boots, a store I mentioned a few months ago. I wanted to earn some loyalty points.

With my hair forming a halo around my face, I picked out a nice black comb for about £3. Near the check-out, I spotted some Christmas wrapping paper. I pulled out a gold foil roll with a red berry pattern. For about two minutes, I stood there contemplating my choices.

“Hello, Joan.” Suddenly, Owen was also standing in front of the wrapping paper display.

“I lost my hairbrush,” I said by way of explanation. “So I haven’t brushed my hair today.”

“This hair also hasn’t been brushed.” Owen gestured to his short hair, which, I’d guess, would never need to be brushed. “What are you doing now?”

“I’m trying to look for wrapping paper that isn’t so Christmassy. I think this is the closest I can get.” I showed him the gold-and-red-berry combination, and a silver roll with white swirly patterns.

He glanced at the rolls. “Still looks pretty Christmassy to me,” he said, dashing my hopes. “You won’t find anything but Christmas paper here at this time of year.”

I was crushed. “I do have a few Christams presents that need to be wrapped but that won’t use up the whole roll. I wanted to save it for presents later on.”

“Ah, I see. Very cheap of you.” Before I could decide whether or not this was an insult, Owen added, “Or very sustainable.”

I knew only one response to this. “I love it when economics and sustainability coincide!”

I pressed the button

It was night time. I was sitting in the kitchen working on my new laptop. Di and Alex eventually came in and we started chatting.

We were having a good time and at some point, I pulled up my music player, cranked up the volume and we were singing the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge

“Love lifts us up where we belong!” we bellowed. “Where the eagles fly! On a mountain high!”

With ten seconds to the end of the song, the music got stuck. The laptop sat there, blaring out one loud and terrible note.

“Aargh!” We blocked our ears. “Turn it off!”

I tried to exit the program. Click, click, click. The exit cross didn’t work.

Control, Alt, Delete. Nothing popped up.

“Try the external volume control! There must be a mute button!”

I found it eventually and pressed the keys but the screeching wouldn’t stop.

“Turn it off! Press the power button!”

I held the power button for five seconds and finally, the blaring stopped.

I waited a couple of seconds before I pressed the power button again. The computer woke up and scrolled through the set-up. It got to the screen that told me that Windows hadn’t shut down properly and I should probably try safe mode.

Well, I tried safe mode, and I tried ‘Previous settings known to work’, and I tried ‘Start Windows normally’. With every option, the computer paused then flashed me the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) for half a second before it reset. I didn’t even have time to see what the messages were. Something about ‘unmountable partition’.

The computer was stuck in a reset loop.

Alex forced the computer off. “Let it rest,” he said, hopefully. “Sometimes computers just need to rest.”

I looked at him and Di, stricken. I had a month’s work on the computer and all my photos since arriving.

“I’ll wash the dishes,” I mumbled. “Washing dishes will make me feel better.”

I put on the yellow gloves and started scrubbing at the charred rice stuck in the rice pot. I moved onto the saucepan, working at the egg and tomato residue. Behind me, I heard Alex boot up the computer again. I kept scrubbing and scrubbing, all the while, listening to the whirr of my laptop. I turned around to look at him when the whir stopped.

“Nothing?”

He shook his head sadly. “Do you have a recovery CD? If it’s just a problem with the hard drive, we can start it up again. But… I think it will format your computer.”

I bit my lip and was silent for a minute.

Di said, “You can try and rescue the hard disk with the computer service tomorrow. Or wait until morning. Maybe it needs more time.”

I looked down at my feet. Di and Alex looked on in sympathetic silence.

“It’s really just my photos,” I said slowly. “I had some work on it but nothing that I can’t recreate in a day. But my photos… There are copies on the internet but they’re small.”

I wrung my hands and thought about all the time I had spent on setting up the computer and all the work I needed to do. I really didn’t have time to get my computer fixed.

“I’ll get my recovery CD,” I decided. “I just want to know that it’ll be all right.”

I got the CD and handed it to Alex. I sat down next to him as he loaded it up.

WARNING: Your hard disk will be completely erased. Do you really want to continue?

It almost made me cry. Or maybe it was laugh.

“Are you sure?” Alex asked.

“Yes. Do it. Press OK.”

“I’m not pressing it! You have to, Joan.”

I gritted my teeth, reached over and pressed the button.

The Secret Life of Alcoholics*

“What are we going to get for Alex’s birthday?” Di asked. Alex is one of our housemates.

“I was thinking of getting him two boxes of Stella Artois. Do you remember how we were at Sainsbury’s that first week and how wistfully he looked at those boxes? We couldn’t carry them home last time.”

“That’s a great idea!” Di agreed. “Let’s go tomorrow afternoon.”

The next day, we left the house at 4 PM and rode 15 minutes down the road to the big supermarket. We found the beer easily. The special price for two boxes of 20 bottles was still available.

We took the boxes through the checkout and opened our backpacks to put them in.

“Uh oh.” I tried to rearrange the box to fit into my 30 L backpack but it was just too wide.

“It’ll fit in my backpack, I think,” said Di. She unzipped hers for the other box. Our hearts sank as it quickly became obvious it wouldn’t fit. “Maybe it’ll fit in my bike basket…”

We wheeled the boxes outside to the bike parking lot. Di picked up the box and carefully placed it into her basket. “I hope it doesn’t break the basket,” she murmured.

It didn’t fit.

“What are we going to do?”

We looked at each other and had the same idea at the same time. “We’ll have to take the bottles out and carry them,” Di said.

“I think we should put them in our backpacks, not in the basket,” I cautioned. “I reckon there’d be some law against riding a pushbike with 20 bottles of beer in the basket…”

We spent the next five minutes reloading the bottles into our backpacks. Then, with 10 kg of beer and glass on our backs, we gingerly hopped onto our bikes, turned on our lights (it was getting dark) and rode onto the street.

I laughed all the way, even as I struggled up the one hill in Cambridge. My bag tinkled with every pedalling motion. Rider after rider overtook the two of us. We did make it home without an accident.


*Don’t worry, mum, I’m joking.

Before walking

We were walking through the glasshouses at the Cambridge Botanic Garden when I spotted a sign that made me laugh. It said, “No perambulators beyond this point.”

“Look at that! Isn’t that funny? It says ‘perambulator’!” I laughed.

“What’s a perambulator?” asked Jon, puzzled. Jon is from Calgary in Canada.

“A pram.”

“What’s a pram?”

That stumped me. “Erm. It’s a chair with wheels. You push babies on it.”

“Oh, a stroller!” Jon clarified.

This exchange, too, was funny to me so I recounted it to Di when I got home.

“In Australia, we say ‘pram’,” I explained to Di. “If you said ‘stroller’, we’d understand but I think ‘pram’ comes more naturally.”

“What do the English call it?” Di asked.

“It said ‘perambulator’!”

Di started laughing. She laughed a lot. Yeah, I thought it was funny too, but not as funny as Di seemed to find it.

“That makes so much sense!” she said. “It’s like ‘before walking’.”

I was confused for a second, then I got it. “No, no! Not pre-ambulator! Per-ambulator!”

A tropical flower in the glasshouse.

The reason we went to the Botanic Gardens was that it was Apple Day.

I ate my very first toffee apple. My next task is to try a caramel apple.

The Chicken

At the start of every week for more than four months, I’ve taken the Hume Highway from Melbourne to Shepparton. Just as I pass Clonbinane (one hour north of Melbourne), a hill looms directly in front of me.

One day, I got a lift with Paul, my boss. When this hill appeared before us, he said, “Ah! There’s the chicken! I always look forward to seeing the chicken.”

I was startled. “I always thought it looked like a chicken too! I never mentioned it.”

“Well, Nat and Katie knew about it,” Paul said, naming the two work colleagues Jamie and I replaced on this Shepparton job. “Katie always said, ‘Have you seen the chicken yet? You know you’re halfway to Shepp when you see the chicken.’ “

I was quite pleased. So I wasn’t the only one.

The next week, Jamie was driving me up.

“Look,” I pointed. “There’s the chicken.”

“What?!” Jamie said. “Have we talked about this?”

“No, I talked about it with Paul last week. Every week I’ve been seeing this chicken and he says that he, Nat and Katie have noticed it too.”

“Well, so have I,” said Jamie. “I keep forgetting to mention it when we’re driving.”

A month later, Erin joined us on the job and was introduced to the chicken. The chicken photo on this blog entry is thanks to her efforts in the car. It’s a good farewell present.

Triple ‘Oh!’

Paul, our first aid trainer, was teaching us what happens when you call ‘000’ in an emergency.

“The first thing they ask is ‘Police, fire or ambulance?’,” he said. “Today, we’re asking for an ambulance.” He wrote ‘AMBULANCE’ on the board then marked out about six or seven dashes underneath the word.

“What’s the next thing you think they’ll ask?”

“I guess, where you are?” someone suggested.

“Right.” Next to the second dash, Paul wrote ‘PRECISE LOCATION’. “What next?”

And so we went. Very quickly, we had on the board ‘AGE’, ‘CONTACT PHONE NUMBER’, ‘CHIEF COMPLAINT’, ‘CONSCIOUS?’ and ‘BREATHING?’.

There was one more spot left.

“One more to go, guys!” Paul urged. We stared at each other in puzzlement. Silence. I racked my brain. What else do paramedics need to know? Dangers on site? Medical history?

“Come on, one more… It’s a three letter word…” Paul hinted.

The two youngest men in the room said simultaneously, “SEX!”

“Correct!”

Fax machine

For my last day at work in Shepparton, I sent an invitation out to all the friends I had made while on secondment. “To celebrate the end of my five months here, I’m having lunch at the golf club. You’re welcome to join me.”

On the morning of the lunch, someone suggested I pre-order so that the food would be ready when we arrived at the club at 12:30 PM. I called the golf club and arranged for them to fax me the menu.

“Just fax us the order when it’s done,” Justin the kitchen coordinator said. “I’ll attach a business card so that you have our fax number.”

When the fax arrived, I scanned and emailed the menu to everyone who accepted my invitation. By 11 AM, I had ten orders.

Like the good environmentalist that I am, I dug around in my folders until I found a piece of paper that was blank on one side. I carefully scribed out people’s orders, taking care to get the combinations of chips, salad and other sides right. I added my phone number and fax number. Then I got up and put the order through the fax machine.

The rest of the morning was very busy. There was a lot to tidy up before I left. At 12:10 PM, I stopped for a breather. Phew! My brain hurt. I thought maybe I should call the golf club to make sure they had gotten my fax.

“Hi, is Justin there? Hi, Justin. It’s Joan.”

“Joan!” he cried. Justin sounded very jolly. “Joan, how are you? It looks like you’re having a busy day!”

What?

“Uh, yeah, it has been a bit busy. How did you know?”

“Hahaha! You faxed us your ‘To do’ list!”

What!

I pulled out my lunch order and flipped it around. Sure enough, the other side was headed with 20-point font stating, JOAN’S TO DO LIST.

Justin continued laughing. “We couldn’t call you back because there was no phone number! You didn’t say what company you were from, either.”

Oh dear, how embarrassing.

I didn’t try my luck at the fax machine again. Instead, I read out the orders over the phone. Justin did a good job and had lunch ready for the group within ten minutes of our arrival. As expected, everyone at the table had a good chuckle at my expense.

Send in the big guns

Jamie walked into the house and found me and Erin slumped in the living area.

“How’s it going, team?” he asked, with the cheerfulness of someone who has just had a great workout at the gym.

“Mission failed,” I announced. Erin and I, too, had visited the gym. Erin was up in Shepparton until the end of September. I had taken Erin to the gym this evening, hoping to get her on the ‘No worries, no commitments’ deal Jamie and I were on. If anyone could do this, it was me, champion negotiator, super mediator.

“Failed?” Jamie said, surprised.

“Yeah,” said Erin. “The reception lady said that deal was only for people who did the ‘$40 for 40 days’ special. She said I could get a 12 visit pass. It costs $116!” Jamie and I were paying $51 per month.

“We didn’t even take it lying down,” I added glumly. “I asked her if there was anything she could do. ‘We’re only here for a month,’ I told her. ‘It’s join or not join.’ “

“What did she say?” Jamie asked.

“She said that she couldn’t do anything. The prices are set by the council and she’ll get in trouble if they see she’s changed the prices,” Erin said. “I guess she can’t help it. It’s not her fault. Oh, well. I’ll just jog around the lake or something.”

“Yeah, that’s a shame…” Jamie said absently. “Maybe I’ll try talking to Mel when we next see her.” Mel was a friendly receptionist that Jamie and I sometimes chatted to in the evenings.

The following night, I had just finished washing the dishes and had wandered to the living room to see what was on TV. The front door opened.

“Hi guys.” Jamie was back from his evening gym workout.

“How’d it go?”

“Yeah, okay,” Jamie looked vaguely dissatisfied. “I’m keeping off the legs a little. They’re still feeling a bit tight.” He peered around to see what TV show was on.

“Did you get to talk to Mel?” I said idly.

He brightened. “Girls, our troubles are over.”

Erin sat up “I can join?”

“Here are your free gym passes for the next week…” Jamie slapped down four or five bright blue squares of paper. “…and Erin can take over Joan’s gym membership when Joan leaves after next week.”

We gaped at him.

“And, if we show up on the right night, you won’t even need to pay the transfer fee!”

Erin and I started laughing. “What?! How — ?”

“Cheerio,” Jamie said as he bounced out of the room.

The Spider and the Doorknob

“There’s a giant spider,” I called as I was pulling the bathroom door shut behind me. “Oh!” I cried.

“What’s wrong?” came Erin’s voice from around the corner. “Did the spider jump up?”

“No,” I said, puzzled. “I just broke the doorknob…and I’m bleeding.” I examined the doorknob. It was made of some sort of ceramic and had sheared off at the neck.

Jamie came around. “You are bleeding! Are you okay?”

“There’s a bit of blood but it’s a small cut. Look at this!” I handed the snapped doorknob to him. “How weird is that?”

“Yeah, that is a bit strange!” Jamie put his finger on the stump of the doorknob left on the door. I kept my eye on the spider less than a metre away.

“God! It’s cut me too!” Jamie exclaimed. He showed me the thin red lines of blood on his index finger and thumb. “That’s a bloody razor blade! I barely touched it.”

“We’d better fix it up so no one else gets cut.”

For a while, Jamie and I debated about the best method for removing the stump or sealing the door. In the mean time, Erin had gone into the bathroom, come out and wrapped a face towel around the stump.

“How’s that?” she asked.

Jamie and I stopped in surprise.

“Yeah.” Jamie nodded appreciatively. “That’ll do it.”

We all stood there marvelling at her handiwork.

One million yuan

I met Greg in my Dispute Resolution class. He’s a high school teacher. His dad is a retired school principal and mum is a retired nurse.

He was telling me about a life-changing experience. Jill, another person in our class, had led a three week trip to China. On this trip, he and about thirty other teachers saw the huge need for teachers and resources in the Chinese education system.

When Greg got home, he persuaded his newly retired parents to spend six months teaching in China. When they agreed, he organised for them to go over.

Greg tells me that the Chinese and Australian education systems are very different. I suspected this already. He explained that the systems have developed to meet the different needs of the countries. In China, there are so many people and the competition is so fierce that schools are highly disciplined. Students do not question the teacher. The emphasis is on rote learning.

Greg’s parents found this to be an alien environment but they did their best to adapt. Greg’s father is an English teacher. One Friday, in an effort to encourage creative thinking in his Grade 5 students, he set them an assignment: “You have won one million yuan. How will you spend your weekend?”

One million yuan is about AU$160 000. One million yuan is about 125 times what the average urban dweller in China would earn in a year. It’s a lot of money.

On Monday, the students submitted their essays. Something interesting had happened. Greg tells me that 95% of students had described their normal weekends. They did their homework, saw friends, went to the movies. Oh, some of them bought some extra DVDs and computer games but that was it.

What does this mean?

Apparently, the most creative response was from a small boy who wrote that he would spend his one million yuan on grenades and guns. He wanted to go to Iraq to fight the Americans.