Secondy Puberty

Zits!!!



Fucking hell.

Helmet Hair

I used to love caps. I still do. But now.... I have to be able to commit to wearing them all day. There is just no room for off and on with them any more. The hair does not put up with it.

The hair misbehaves. It is already protesting that I don't like it's cowlicks being wild and awkward. I try to tame them with product. I chop them. They fight grimly and mock my attempts. Introduce a cap into the equation and they are stirred up to new heights of disobedience. If the cap is coming along, it is to stay all day and lock the disobedience away from public viewing.

Enter the worst of all into the equation: the necessary hat. The work helmet. Where all element of choice is removed. Must wear helmet.... most definately will come out with bad hair.

Socks And Vibrators Don't Mix

When your ex packs all your stuff from the bedroom into bags and leaves them out front of what used to be your home, just check - before you throw it in storage for four months - that your jelly sleeve vibrator IS NOT NEXT TO A SOCK. The two may become one.

One of my favourite once-a-week blogs is Mining Mayhem, a site showcasing pictures things which the industry collectively refers to as incidents. You slip and fall, it is an incident. You use a heights harness in a stupid way and get busted by somebody who knows what they are doing (one of the dickheads I had to look after did), it's an incident. A bulldozer falls off a highwall (seen it), it's an incident. An explosive shot misfires (been there, seen it, scared pants off me) sending rocks hurling a hundred metres in the air and a couple of hundred metres beyond their marked intended exclusion zone, it's an incident that pretty much gets treated like a crime scene.

This is probably a multiple of incidents all rolled into one big, comical video.



I could watch it over and over. Brilliant.

A Meme! Holy YAY!

A while a go Maria posted a mammoth meme that had to come out in a couple of parts. Now, I'm going to bust it up even further. Thirty questions? I haven't got the stamina to answer thirty questions
in one sitting? No way can I sqeeze out anywhere near that in one sitting, especially when for some answers I seem to be prone to a form of literary elephantosis.

So here we go. Maybe five a sitting? I'd say five a day, but that would mean giving up the snooze button time religiously. I can't commit to that with any certainty since the cold snap of the last week.

1) ONE OF YOUR SCARS. HOW DID YOU GET IT?

I have a scar on my head. It's this lumpy raised line that will never (as far as I know) go down. It feels funny when I scratch at it, which is often. The story...

I'd been seconded to do a quick pressure job for my absolute favourite of all superintendents, a gruff loud man by the name of Mick. He would grab you, march you to several points that he wanted cleaned up (that all look identical) and fuck off and leave you to it before you could even ask a question. If you cleaned the wrong area you got yelled at. He was a fantastic man who kept you on your toes by the minute.

Anyway, I found myself cleaning a few places in greasy crawlspaces on a time limit. Because there was nobody but me left after he dictated the job and fucked off, I took the rare liberty of taking my hardhat off while I crawled in and worked. I finished, crawled back out, and stood up too early - before the incline of the roof was actually high enough to stand up under. Consequently, I stood up under a set of grease injectors which have adjustment tabs and buried about a centimetre of one into my head.

Fuck that hurt I thought. Dickhead. I touched my head to feel if there was a bump and instead there was blood. Fuck. Fuckitty FUCK. First thing, I went for the bag of rags I'd been dragging around with me and plucked one out. I pressed it onto that patch on my head and then had a look. It came back red. Not just a little. A big, big patch of red.

It's okay I thought. Head wounds bleed far more than others. I'll go get a second opinion.

With that thought I made my move toward the exit out of the belly of the huge machine I was in, off to search for my supervisor at the time, and also my best mate. Cath'll look after it. She'll tell me I'm a dickhead and it's all fine. Head wounds just bleed a hell of alot, that's all..

So I'm on my way out around this big circular area, and who turns up? You guessed it. Mick. Fuck. He'll blow his brain at me. There he is, coming into my area of work, yelling out for me at the top of his lungs to see if the job is done. I leave the blood soaked rag on my head and whack my helmet over it to cover up the evidence. He checks my work, I breathe a releived thanks, Mick and hightail it the fuck out of there to find Cath.

Cath is having lunch in our work truck. I peel off my helmet and rag combination and tell her to look. She's a mother and a horserider. She's been there for all sorts of injuries. She pries my skull and pokes a bit before she turns to one of the other guys and says it's bad. Go get Mick. Oh, shame.

After that it was decided that I should go to the mine First Aid room. These guys rarely have any fun. They have to be there on call all day and all night, have all the training in the world, but really not much actually goes wrong. So when a case like mine comes in they pull out all the stops. I arrived with a rag on my head and walked out with a full under the chin and a few hundred times around bandage. They have remembered my face for the last few years (primarily, I think) because I made them take photos on my phone for me of just how ridiculous their over the top bandaging effort actually was. We laughed a lot despite the situation.

Next came the trip to Singleton hospital to get stitches. It's a reasonably large town, surrounded by industry and mining, with coal and money spewing out of every orifice. Yet this hospital reminds me of the one that was near the tiny little town I grew up in. It was small and pretty backward. The nurse unwrapped my ridiculously bandaged head. She poked around. She remarked that it would need stitches and disappeared for a while. When she came ambling back through the door she was holding a bit of paper, not the stainless steel bowl of accessories that I expected. There was no doctor following her. Oh, that's right. The doctor had already gone home for the day.

The piece of paper she gave me was a map to the nearest doctor's surgery. In there I spent a further several hours waiting (now in the company of my unpleasant boss) before a doctor pried open my already well clotted and dried wound. He put a stitch in and left me to it. The unpleasant boss stood by while I paid for the whole procedure.

Singleton Hospital? I mean, thank fuck a piece of machinery didn't fall on me. Thank fuck my hand wasn't severed. Who knows what the idea there would be? Here's a map to the nearest metal shop. They'll cut it off in the press for you.

2...

No way. I've written enough for today. That'll do.

Have to admit I'm tempted

Oh, all those things about getting older. The kilos stay on, the eyesight gets worse, the price of beer becomes outrageous, and suddenly you realise you have no idea what all the kids are talking about.

Luckily, Google and Wikipedia are my friends. I can cheat a little. I don't have to pretend that I know any more because I've read the articles and I've clicked the links.

What am I on about? Planking.



It now has it's own Wikipedia definition. Basically we have something that started off small, with the Planking Australia facebook page, but went worldwide extremely quickly because of the whole nature of Facebook (ugh). The Planking Australia page currently has 140,000 followers.

A guy in Brisbane has died after trying to plank on a seventh floor balcony and, surprisingly enough, falling to the ground. Another guy is in a coma after trying to plank on a moving car. Eight people from across three states have been sacked by one retail chain alone for planking at work. Schoolkids have been suspended over it. There are police warnings, statements from the PM, workplace warnings. Though I detest the "fun police" idea and firmly believe it's the stupidity of some individuals that bring things out of control this way.



Really, this one does belong in every workplace safety bulletin. With the plain heading of "Dickhead".

But, I have to admit I'm tempted.

Bin for Laden

I'm feeling like an arse.

In America there's people dancing on the streets in joy that Osama bin Laden is dead, people spontaneously singing the Star Spangeld banner, shouting out USA! and waving flags. Kids who should not know hate waving signs.



Here, I sat in front of my computer and raised my eyebrows. The most I spoke was a comment to my girlfriend - Hey babe. They reckon they shot Bin Laden. Why am I feeling like an arse? I'm not excited at all. I don't think it's a milestone in any way other than to take away the known element - the focus of a name - and bring back in to play the core of terrorism: that the perpetrators are faceless. At least with a figurehead those who felt the need to hate had somewhere to point that hate. Those who felt the need to fear had someone to blame for that fear. Now what?

Just because the guy who was the face of Al Quaeda to the media is dead do we think it's over? Even if Al quaeda itself were to proclaimed eradicated it would not be over. There will always be terrorism in some form because it is a very strong capacity in humans to be terrified.

I can't get excited about it at all.

I can't even decide on which of my ideas I support the best. I'm just not passionate about it at all.

Do I go with theory one: That Obama is coming up for re-election and needs some form of victory to justify that troops are still kicking around away from home? Piss off Pakistan so it can stay in the media for a while? Get some pictures of blood stained trashed rooms together (miraculously no blood on the walls, just the floors... even though there were claims of head shots)? Get some party pictures of everybody in the situation room like they're about to watch a football game. Then dump the body over the side of a boat and say it's out of respect?

Or do I go with theory two? Al Quaeda needs a new face. Bin Laden has been at it for ten years and it's time to give the guys someone new to respect. They'll be taking over from someone who was taken out by the very people they despise - a great motivator to start something new. It'll shut the Americans up for a while, too, because they feel they've made a victory. There'll be more pressure to take the forces back home.

Or theory number three: That it wasn't Osama at all. Just a dude with a beard made to look like him and that he's planted his own death.

Too many theories. Not enough desire to believe them. So I'm settled with this for the moment:

A dude is dead. The Americans are happy because they shot him. It apparently avenges the thousands of deaths associated with the twin towers plane attacks.

Diagnosis Fail

I've been using an internet stick. You know them. The ones that you punt into the USB port and supposedly magically enter the world of the internet from anywhere.

Bullshit.

Even though there seems to be three levels of network speed in the area the fucking thing disconnects. Then the program that talks to it won't fucking start. Then after several different pissed off combinations of double-clicking it still won't fucking start. Even after I bring out the old key commands – the highest sign of my annoyed state – the program still won't fucking start.

Of course, I'm writing about it because it happened just now. Happily cruising along and then



Well why the fuck not? I look at the stick poking out the side of my laptop and the answer is there. That little light that chooses whatever colour it likes to be depending on how fast it feels like going today, well, that little light has started flashing. We've dropped out. Gone AWOL. No more pointless surfing. No more pointless poking around on Facebook. No more looking at silly pictures just because you can. Because now you can't.

Then I looked at the Oracle in front of me and realised that it may have the answers. That button certainly looked like it might. Diagnose Connection Problems. Sounds important. Why not? Click.

Consult your computer manufacturer's troubleshooting information. You can also use another computer to visit online support services. Contact your computer manufacturer for additional assistance if required.

Let me paraphrase that:

Dunno. You're on your own there.

Great. My faith in Windows is as strong as ever.

Breaking Down

Seven golden rules for healthy eating habits

1. Drink plenty of water.

2. Eat more fruit and vegetables (at least two servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables every day).

3. Manage your portion sizes.

4. Eat less processed food.

5. Eat regular meals – don’t skip meals – and always eat a healthy breakfast (e.g. bowl of natural hi fibre cereal with sliced banana and low fat milk).

6. Restrict your alcohol intake.

7. Limit your intake of “extra” food. These foods are not essential to provide the nutrients the body needs and some contain too much added fat, sugar and salt. Examples include lollies, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, pastries, soft drinks, chips, pies, sausage rolls and other takeaways. Choose these foods sometimes or in small amounts.

I went to an osteopath yesterday. What a disaster. All my conceptions of my own health are out the window.

I thought I was strong. No. My back is in severe pain because my muscles have degraded so much through bad nutrition that I don't have the strength to support my own body weight. There I was thinking I had just overstepped things a little. I thought I just needed a little adjustment and I'd be okay again. Good to go. Not a chance.

The weight that I am now, which I thought was reasonbale, but still about seven kilos over where I'd like to be, is actually fourteen kilos above the upper limit of the healthy weight range for somebody of my height. Fourteen to drop before I'm even on the border of it.

The tension in my neck is ridiculous.

My muscle tone is terrible.

This has all happened through years of constant abuse, lack of nutritous eating and proper exercise and of course, the word that is spat at me as a devil by every health professional I've seen: Smoking.

My blood pressure, however, is spot on. And my pulse is good. Conclusion? My body is fucked but I have a good heart.

I'm crushed, to be honest. I really thought I wasn't that bad heathwise and now that it's all come crashing down around me I feel like curling up into a ball and crying for a while. There's a small glimmer of positivity there - this is a good wake-up call to lead a healthier, more active lifestyle. To lose more weight. To give up or cut back on the smoking. It's an uphill battle that I wanted to fight and climb through anyway. But that hill just seemed to morph from a small ascent into something size of fucking Everest. Not many people have the skills to get past base camp there! How the hell are me and my fourteen extra kilos with zero knowledge of proper healthy lifestyle going to ever be equipped to tackle this one? Will I ever reach the top and do I have the guts and abitlity to maintain my balance when I get there? Will I teeter on the top for a while before my strength runs out and I go rolling back down again?

Night Out

An hour of preparation shared between the shower, razor and the bedroom mirror.
An hour of self-admonishment for forgetting how to let loose with my style.
Five cans of Rum & Dry.
Half a dozen cigarettes and a couple of slices of cold pizza.

Smash the last can of rum down on the half-dozen block walk to the train station and there’s no turning back.

We’re going out on the town.

More specifically, I’m going out on the town to the only local gay bar I know in existence. That was another point of self-admonishment. I’ve forgotten my dyke style. I haven’t been around my kindred spirits for so long I’ve forgotten how to make my statement among them.

Twenty minutes of train journey.
Twenty minutes of enduring some snotty little teenage girls talking about how many guys they got onto and how so-and-so is so disgusting for getting onto so-and-so.
Get me another fucking drink.

I turn on the music player on my phone as I get off the train. Let’s have some pump-up music, in the form of Big and Rich’s party track Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy:
Well I saddle up my horse and I ride into the city
I make a lot of noise ‘cause the girls they are so pretty

Yep, yes, and hell yeah. I’m hoping to see me quite a few of those pretty girls, bust a few beers down and perhaps make a few friends. Then I plan on getting my merry arse on to the dance floor and working off all the pies I shouldn’t have had on the way to work. Then, hopefully, I’ll make it home without sleeping past my stop on the train.

It worked out, sort of. I listened to bad karaoke run by a fantastically camp tranny. I watched two absolutely gorgeous women play some great pool. I was hanging out in the smokers’ section chatting to the occasional random person when…
I got picked up on.
You’re joking. I think to myself.
I haven’t hit my peak with the style. I’m wearing sneakers for fuck’s sake. I’m carrying ten kilos more fat than I want to, and in all the wrong places.
Surely this is a joke.

I bailed to the dancefloor because I wasn’t actually there to pick up. I just wanted a night out.

She continued to seek me out, cornering me in the smoker’s section.

No joke. She definitely wanted me. Wow! Holyshit and whatthefuck all in one big swirly mix. I ended up trying to go home because I wasn’t exactly that interested in her. She was sexy all right, but I was tired and she was extremely forward. She asked if she could kiss me before I left. Sure, I say. Why the fuck not then?

It was nice, although it felt as though she was trying to rape me in the middle of the courtyard after a while. I broke it off, kind of embarrassed to be virtually fucking in front of everyone, and also not wanting to have her think I was going to take her home. Another day, maybe I would have. Not this time. I had only just started coaxing my dykeness back out of the closet and there was no way sex was going to come easily to me. I thought it best to head home. That’s where things turned nasty.

I was a fucking tease
A mole.
Apparently I knew that she’d had her eyes on me from the second I walked in the door.
An arsehole.

So maybe it’s going to take a while to get my mojo back in full swing. Certainly it’s going to take a while to deal with being hit on. That normally doesn’t happen to me and was a daunting surprise to say the least.

But the mojo, my inner dyke style?
It’s coming. It’s coming back with a vengeance.

What Happened to the Weekend?

Yesterday I was planning to write about a nice little drive in the rain through the local countryside. There were nice little rainy landscape shots. There were geese. There were heritage buildings. There were bunnies and flowers. There were signs and reflections and patterns and all things photographically inspiring.

And then there was major pain. The type of pain that landed me in hospital.

So began couple of hours of morphine and uncertainty as to what the hell was going on. In fact, I still don't know what really happened. It was somewhere between my chest and crotch, but it was sending cramping pains all over my body. Mainly I just lay there in pain while the nurses shoved opiates at me and asked if I felt any better. Occasionally I dozed off.

There were a couple of beautiful moments of Australianism to witness. God, our people just make me smile.

One of the nurses came by with a plastic cup and shoved it out toward me. The doc said you should have this. It tastes like crap. I raised my eyebrows at her. Serious, darl. It's gunna stick all the way down your throat and you can't have anything for ten minutes after you have it. It's horrible crap. Well, at least I didn't have any good expectations for it then.

Where's me tape? Who stole me tape this time? Inspiring, definately.

Anyway, after a bunch of drugs and a few scans I still don't know what caused the pain. I have been told though, that I need to avoid cheese and large meals, as well as smoking and drinking. Have these people been informed of my cynical approach to the "standard" resolutions for the new year? Am I somehow being sent a message that it is time to act on those rather than putting it off for another year?

Resolutions?

It's leading up to the end of the year. That precious time where you think of all the resolutions you can make for the coming year. Where you plan to instigate changes, usually radical, and hope they make your life swiftly better.

Reality usually reduces that to one simple sentence.

"I'm never going to drink again."

However, I face another New Year's Eve of not drinking and instead falling asleep on the lounge in front of the television. In previous years I have played in front of drunken mobs of idiots, wishing I could join the throng in order to not witness the tragedy from under the bright lights of sobriety. This time around I've got to work a nasty long shift New Year's Eve, and a 4am start isn't particularly condusive to partying after work.

So what will be the focus of my lounge-bound life-altering resolutions?



Up Yours, All Right

That's it. Whatever way I can find to say Fuck You, This is ME I want to embrace and try it out.

Hey, something's gotta work. This past year I've been run down by the people I trusted, I've given myself more the enough knocks of my own doing, chance has given me some dodgey turns and frankly I didn't want to come out of it alive.

Why? I think I got so caught up in wanting to be wanted that I lost sight of the real me. The sometimes funny, intelligent musician who had a genuine love of seeing new things and finding wonder in the world. I want it back. Fuck you, this is ME.

And if you can't hack it...

Don't bother sticking around.

Do You Ever?

Do you ever:

Wish you could play music all day and never stop?

Want to work with friends and not losers?

Hope that the chick you just saw a picture of and thought she was gorgeous would realise that Mr. Wonderful was actually you, the person who doesn't actually have a penis?

No???

Maybe it's just me then.

SuperSucker

I bought a vacuum. Two thousand watts of cheaply made supersucking household domesticy. Ahhh. I love it almost as much as my kitchen.

The vacuum is good for everything. I give them hell. These things don’t only do floors. They do window sills. Blinds. Skirting boards. Upholstery. This thing will suck up all the dead flies out of the light fittings. Hell, why bother with swiping a spiderweb down with a cobweb brush? Don’t you get sick of the fucking spiders crawling down the handle, or falling off on to the floor? Suck them out of existence and the spider that came with it will disappear in a whirlwind of cyclonic beauty.

Deeply engrossed in my domestic supersucking bliss I decided to clean the bathroom. I did the edges of the mirror, the top of the lightswitch, in beside and behind the toilet. All was going well, beautifully even. And then I spotted a bunch of offensive dust specks on top of the toilet roll holder. Well we’ll just suck those out of existence too then!

Note to Self: In future DO NOT place the nozzle of the supersucking awesome vacuum cleaner (on maximum suckage setting) anywhere near a toilet roll.

Before I knew it, the entire roll was gone. Unravelled all the way down the tube and spinning madly in the cyclonic catcher. Holy shit that was quick! I thought as I started to laugh, standing alone in my own bathroom holding a vacuum nozzle and looking at the empty roll on the holder.

So from now on I think I’ll stick to vacuum cleaning everything except the roll holder.

Without Music!!!

Note to anybody moving a CD player with a carousel:

MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO CDs IN THE CAROUSEL WHEN YOU LAY THE THING ON IT’S SIDE

I went to open it up the other day and there was a sickening crunch. The tray stopped in its tracks, halfway out. I tipped it on the side and hit the button. No matter what way I moved the whole setup, there was no I was getting that to go anywhere with the press of a button. So I grabbed it and pulled.

CRUNCH

followed by

tink tink!

and now a tray all the way out with no discs in sight. More button pressing and the thing wouldn’t retract either. Time for surgery.

[Bear in mind that I had consumed most of a very cheap bottle of white wine in all its horror. Every step I describe here seemed like a good idea at the time.]

Safety first, I unplugged the whole setup and set to work busting into it with a screwdriver. Fifty screws and a sore wrist later, I popped the case off and found the three offending discs. They’d slipped over the back of the tray and jammed it.

Now is where I turn the thing on and hope that removing the blockage has magically fixed the operation of the tray. No dice. Bastardfuckingbastard. Dammit.I spot the gear that runs it in and out. I poke it gingerly, as if it might wake up and suddenly spring into normal operation. I poke it more roughly. I try to spin it, in order to remind it what it should be doing of it’s own accord. I try a bit more forcefully to spin it.

CLUNK

At this point I realise that I’ve probably stuffed it for life now.

Well stuff you, thinks Vic. I’ll beat you another way then. I’m drunk and I require music.

I plug my wireless router into the stereo games input. I normally have this setup and it works fine. Brilliant. I’ll use my computer to listen to the backlog on my hard drive and rip my CDs to it when I want to.

I fish out the trusty laptop, fire it up and hunt down iTunes.

”iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.”

Sorry for the inconvenience???. Sorry? Needs to close??? You didn’t even fire up in the first place, fuckwit. Not happy, Jan.

Vic’s ”YOU’LL LEARN” list

Chorizos go in Chimichangas. DUH
(at least they do in my version)

Measuring cups are required for measuring things.

There will come a time when you will, undoubtedly, require salami.

Every roast potato “fuck-I’ll-chuck-it-in-it-can’t-be-that-hard” experiment has been utter failure. Look up trustworthy advice and follow it.

Saucepan does not equal Frypan.
You don’t own a frypan.

The big fuckoff burner at the front of your stove won’t simmer. It knows only hard boil and flat out.

Five gladware containers is NEVER enough.
Buy two packets.
Or start eating chinese takeaway more.

White corn tortillas SUCK!!!
addition from Dot the EspressoHead:
so does instant coffee. Buy a plunger.

The Death of Myrtle [Part III]

Where we left off...

I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.

If you've missed the rest of the saga, you might want to go have a look at Part I and Part II before continuing here.

I'd done a walk to some local farms and scored some oil along the away. At one of the farms I walked into, there was nobody home. I was so damned frustrated at that point I rifled through their shed anyway. I figured if I found what I needed there I'd take it and leave whatever cash I had laying there for them in order to make some sort of attempt to apologise for breaking in and taking their oil. But no avail anyway.

Finally I got back on my way, with a mixture of lawnmower oil and a little of the right stuff slurping around in my stressed-out engine. I nursed this poor clapped-out beast of a car with shot brakes toward my destination. Sometime during the previous night (before passing out) I had organised for the kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick, the friends I was to meet up with, to start making their way toward me to meet up. I planned to leave Myrtle somewhere out of sight and mind until my fun, relaxing weekend with my friends was over and only then think about what to do with her.

Oh boy, Myrtle wasn't well. Not well at all. She rattled and clattered another hundred kilometres or so, getting worse and worse as she went. Myrtle and I got ourselves to the town that joins the wiggly little back route that I'd taken to one of the most well-used highways in the country - the Pacific Highway. Home of idiots in cars, trucks, caravans, and a hell of a lot more idiots. But I digress. The lead-up to getting on this nightmare highway consists of two roundabouts. They are hemmed in on either side by guard rails. There's traffic going every which way and everybody is in a hurry to get on the highway and out of there.

Myrtle got me through the first one, just. Something in her went clunk as I negotiated my way around. The second one was where she spoke for the last time. You're Fucked she said, as she died mid-roundabout and left me with enough forward momentum to get onto the verge on the other side of the exit. There she was, past the roundabout, but half off the road and nudged up against the guardrail on a section that nowhere to pull completely off. Great.

I was pissed. I couldn't even quietly dump her now. She was the equivalent of a big neon sign flashing ABANDONED on a very busy section of road.

Luckily kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick were only minutes away from catching up with me. We ripped everything off the car of any worth to me, including the plates. I was having a hell of a time trying to get everything out of the centre console, so IcePick sorted that one out for me. Giggling the whole time, he grabbed the entire console and ripped it out for me.

With that, I said goodbye to Myrtle. We drove off toward our concert, with the prospect of drinking wine in the sun and cheering on Ani Difranco being far more appealing than dwelling on the crime I had just committed and my new-found lack of transport.

Quote of the Day

.... goes to Erin the massage chicky at Chiropractic Plus, who attempted to put right the weirdness in my shoulder. It has caused massive pain for the past few days, after tweaking it the wrong way trying to be a mechanical hero.

"Your neck is ludicrous, just quietly."

One of the best math jokes

Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

The Death of Myrtle [Part II]

Where we left off...

Next morning I tried to start the beast and it had a bit of life in it. Holy shit! She's still kicking!

I'd had a night camped on the side of the road next to my car. It was shitty tent-pitching ground, so all I had was a swag with the canvas pulled up over my head to keep out the elements and anything else that might wish to intrude while I'm in drunken slumber.

Pretty early that night I'd managed to scare myself half to death when something plopped onto the canvas relatively close to my head. There was a bit of weight in it, and I lay there frozen trying to figure out what danger I had just encountered and how to deal with it. Since it had actually plopped onto my makeshift bed, I reasoned that it wasn't a snake. Good news there! So I psyched myself up to fling the canvas aside and found my assailant. Laying there, innocent and not threatening at all, was the empty beer bottle I had stashed next to the bed.

I woke at another point and realised the flaw in my plan to get a good night's sleep. When getting drunk, liquid consumed has to go somewhere. Ahhh. Nothing like squatting in the dark for a bush pee when you're completely unsure of your surroundings. After my earlier freakout experience, my overactive imagination was supplying me with images of myself pissing directly onto a snake and consequently having a snake bite me on the arse. Or worse.

When I emerged in the morning it was already light. The rest of the night had passed without incident and I had slept soundly until after eight. Fuck. What do I do now? I thought. So I tried the car just in case. And as we already know, she started. I checked the dipstick and it barely had anything on it after the litre I dropped into it. I went off in search of more.

There's got to be farms somewhere around here and where there's farms there's usually oil. A couple of kilometres, three unoccupied houses and one complete arsehat later, I came across a father-son combo who gave me four litres of lawnmower oil. I offered to pay but they wouldn't take it at all, which was sweet. Things were looking up! To top it off, I thumbed a lift almost immediately on the preety much deserted road that I'd been walking along.

The guy who gave me a lift had a travelling companion - a small dog who had his own little bowl set up on the passenger side floor. They were a great pair. The dog ran around and had an explore while old mate kindly waited with me at my car to see if it would still go.

She fired, and we waved our goodbyes. I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.