Break It Down Now

Ben’s Day, featuring: a 12 pack of toilet paper for $2.99; a Clint Eastwood movie; a train; a $5 shake; a $9 salad; a sexy bitch; and a pantomime.

So I started the day just like any other; woke up set on doing uni work and then found a whole bunch of new and ingenious ways of wasting time and procrastinating.

At some point in the afternoon I thought it would be a good idea to do a shop, on account of there being no toilet paper, and no god damn food. I went up to Lutwyche, and popped into the op-shop briefly, thinking they might have something I could use for my Halloween costume.They didn’t, but before I left I saw a 12 pack of toilet paper for $2.99. A mighty good deal.
I did the shopping at Coles, and you know how it is; you go in there needing toilet paper, a loaf of bread, and a can opener and you come out with bloody cordial, biscuits, cheese, mayonnaise, and half the bloody time you forget the things you went in for!
So instead of the small $20 shop I had planned, I came out with five bags (plastic bags, yes I felt terrible for the fuckin’ environment, but you know what, I also felt terrible for my fuckin’ hands; plastic bags are bitches to carry) and it cost me $67. So here I am, making my way to the bus stop, trying to carry these five heavy, awkward bags and realising I still need the damn toilet paper. So I hobble across the road, buy it (of course they don’t have bags) and try and fit it in my already over-crowded bags. Anyway, the moral of the story is: CARRY MY FUCKING SHOPPING WENCH!

I got home, watched Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood) and had some delightful and hard earned snacks, including chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.

I caught the 7.19 train into the city and made my way to JoJo’s in the Queen Street Mall (it was a friend’s birthday dinner).
Turns out I’m there before the actually birthday crew (lame, or totally awesome?), so I grab a seat and whip out the book i’m reading, Tarantino and Philosophy: How to philosophize with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Fucking good read, I recommend it.

The peeps rock up, we get our table, and we gets to perusing the over-priced menus. The meal that caught my eye was the Sirloin steak, with chips - $18, which isn’t too bad considering, but I looked one row down to find Sirloin steak, with chips and a salad - $27. That’s a fuckin’ $9 salad. Outrageous!
After I got over that I also found a $15 sandwich, but hey it’s gourmet right? And $20 Tortellini! You can buy that shit (i’d like to say it’s not actually shit, it’s my favourite meal) for $6 at the supermarket, add $4 for sauce, and that would feed 4. God damn.

The highlight of the evening, however, came when I started getting thirsty. I felt like a milkshake, so I went to the bar and saw the milkshake flavours, so I thought cool, no dramas. But what actually unfolded was a strange re-enactment of the milkshake scene in Pulp Fiction (which coincidently i’ve been reading a lot about).
I ask the guy, “Hey, do you guys do milkshakes?”
To which he replies, in a very whingey, non professional tone, “Ahhhh nnnnn, yeah we do. I just don’t like making them.”
Astounded I said, “Well how much would it be?”
He ummed and ahhed for a moment and then said, “Well…$5.”
To which I replied, “$5 shake? That’s milk and ice cream?”
”Yeah.”
So he trudged off and started making it (Mark said he saw him pretending to spit in it), during which he asked, “you don’t want bourbon in it or nothin’?” (Those weren’t his exact words, but I can’t remember which alcohol he was referring to; regardless, the point remains the same.) I said no, to which he replied, “Weak.”
To which I said, “my [fucking] choice [you fucking douche bag].
He came back a couple of minutes later with the big metal mixing cup. I thought, sweet as, this guy has been a douche, but I paid $5 and I’m getting what I paid for.
However what actually happened was he got out two glasses, a big milkshake glass and a girly wine glass, he pours it into the wine glass and says, “one for you,” then pours the rest into the milkshake glass, “one for me.”
The audacity!

All said and done though, it was a good meal, and the shake was alright too. Certainly no top 10 material; certainly not going to make my milkshake review show. Despite everything I thought the restaurant was quite cool, but if I go there again and that guy acts up again I’m gettin’ his ass fired [out of a cannon, into the sun].

Next we hit the valley. Now it was never my intention to go out that night, especially because I was wearing a jumper and carrying a bag and my head was messed up. But I got into The Beat so we went and danced for a bit. Mark had assigned me a mission and claimed that if I did it, I would be “a legend”. My mission, if I chose to accept it (which I did), was to go to the valley, wait for our friend Steve to arrive, call him a pussy, and then leave. I did all of those things, except instead of really leaving, I just pretended to leave. But it was still funny as hell (had to be there).
I hadn’t danced yet, but when my song came on (Sexy Bitch) I got up on that dance floor with Mark, and we ripped that mofo right up. Good fun. What a great song to dance to.
About 15 minutes later I was sitting down at the table and this guy came up and eyed me, then proceeded to grab at the air in time to the music, after each time he shook his head, and sometimes he would flip the sunglasses over his eyes and start again. Steve came to sit down and was like, WTF, and I was like ZOMFGROFLMAO.

And that’s my story. Now, back to uni work =]

It.Was.You

I’ve been struggling with things to write about for weeks, but this morning the floodgates opened.

So this morning I came in and sat down in my Corporate Writing and Editing lecture. About 5 minutes afterwards this girl comes in and sits down a row in front of me. A couple of minutes after that she gets up and turns around.

“It was you.”

“Huh?” I said.

“It was you last week that was coughing all lecture.”

“Um, sorry about that…I was sick.” A hint of sarcasm.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a packet of butter menthols and passes them to me.

Perplexed, I laughed and said, “No i’m okay now thanks.”

Rather abrasively she says, “No, i bought these especially for you.”

I take them from her, awkwardly. Then she proceeds to pull out a packet of tissues. And a bottle of water.
She leaves them on my table and goes to sit back down.

“I’m sorry for my random act of, getting sick.” Medium sarcasm.

“Well, i just did it so that we could all have a pleasant lecture.”

“Well, i’m sorry if i offended you. You know it was actually intentional. I went to the Ekka and made out with a lot of sick people. But i didn’t expect to get sick.” Sarcasm in overdrive.

Even our lecturer, Glen Thomas, entered the conversation.“You didn’t make out with any sick pigs did you?”

Beside me, Ethan was beside himself. lol, epic win.

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Obviously i told everyone I knew about this bizarre occurrence. Man we had a field day; laughed till the cows came home. And then some.

A few questions, however, still plague me;

1. Did she rehearse what she was going to say?

The general consensus amongst my friends was yes. And i have to agree; one does not rationally spend five dollars on a stranger and then not plan what they are going to say. But then again, one does not rationally confront someone about the involuntary act of coughing whilst sick. Which leads me to the next question.

2. Is it the same as walking up to an Asian person and saying, how dare you be Asian?

My friends insist that i shouldn’t compare being sick to being Asian -and they make a good point – however, my intentions are good. It’s the same principle; being berated for something which you have no control over. Some would argue that i could control whether I went to the lecture or not, but I would call them useless fuckwits, and then proceed to berate them about being so stupid.

3. How much does she fucking love Corporate Writing and Editing?

Okay so let me just say that this 2 hour lecture entails Grammar, Punctuation, How to write reports and so on. I would perhaps understand if it was a god damn film subject and Quentin Tarantino was giving a guest lecture, but it’s fucking Corporate Writing motherfucker, get the fuck over it!

4. Does she now feel like the biggest douche ever/is she mentally retarded?

Now i’m well aware that sometimes confrontation needs to occur, and when I am the instigator I often feel guilty, whether I believe what i’ve said is true or not. But in this case, I really do wonder how you could not feel like the biggest douche bag ever, unless you were actually retarded in some way.