A short history of carpentry Part 1

I'm just talking to ya...sigh...I'm just talking through ya...

It's Monday morning where I work. There's a Chinese lady at the end of the road with a colander on her head. She's gurgling like she's doing it to entertain a child, but I don't see any child. I briefly wonder if she really is Chinese - she may be Japanese, Korean, Nepalese...I don't like it when people call me English. I would apologize for my impertinence, but she has a colander on her head, so it's best not to get involved. A milling crowd has gathered around a girl in a school uniform who has just been assaulted. She lies in the middle of the street with the bewildered, stunned look of the ferociously attacked. It's hard to muster up much dignity when you are lying in the road, skirt hitched up, being tended to by a doctor who, having stepped through the crowd with the campest of "I'm a doctor!" flourishes, doesn't seem to be much help at all. He seems short in more than one way; short in height, short of medical supplies, short in wit...his medical technique seems to involve telling people to stand back a lot. The woman with the colander on her head isn't part of the milling crowd. She has wandered into the local hairdressers. With a colander on her head. Maybe they can cut around it...

My local hairdressers having proclaimed "Pink is back!" and try our free pink GHBs are now saying "appointments may not be necessary!" - this excites a woman with a black funereal coat and long stringy blonde hair that sticks out at weird angles. She says to her boyfriend "maybe I can get my hair done!" and he says "yeah maybe" and she beams as if he's proposed on an exotic foreign beach. They then walk off with hair resolutely undone as a car almost runs me over. That'll teach me to pay attention to other people. There's a gaggle of middle aged women smoking outside 1ne of the supermarkets. The most rambunctious of the women has a mullet that nestles gently on her neck, and a hooped ring around her wrist that could disable even the most determined of muggers. She also has a child on a leash that is inhaling a fearsome amount of 2nd hand smoke through its nostrils. The point of her story is lost on me since it contains several personal in jokes and references to the time Gavin cried, all of which seem to cast aspersions on the manliness or lack of inherent in poor Gavin. She then says as she slaps her own denim encased knees "Yer don't have to be crazy to be ma friend, but it helps!" and much hilarity ensues. The kid doesn't appreciate the hilarity or the craziness. It's about 1ne stretch of its legs away from picking up an empty packet of cigarettes and stuffing it in its mouth. You don't have to be crazy to be a parent...

"Where does it hurt!" says Doctor Quickfix, and then sort of winks at the crowd. She points to a cut. He looks at it. "Does it hurt!" he says. "YES!" I say, louder than I intended. He glares at me 1ne cack handed medical professional to another. Well, I have a First Aid Certificate...

He's re-assuring I guess if you are concussed. The girl’s eyes are black, but she still has the presence of mind to start txting people she knows. Some1ne with a colander on their head might make her laugh for a moment. Time constrains me from finding out her fate. I have to awkwardly step over her and go into work. I swipe my card to get in. If I don't have my card, I have to stand outside in impotent fury until some1ne else comes to assist me. This will not be an amusing camp doctor, but some1ne smug; swiping their card saying "lost your card!" - my work did a productivity study many years ago. I could have saved them a lot of man hours if we could just reduce the amount of time people tell each other obvious truths simply to pass the time of day. "You eating a biscuit?" "Nearly home time!" "It's cold today!"...

Actually, it is cold today, hence why Steve is here. "Hi Steve!" I should say. Instead I grunt "Nuh" at Steve. Steve doesn't even respond to my grunt. He simply turns and faces me name badge first. Then he turns around again, and resumes the pointless dance of the wrench and the little nut that never turns. Steve is here to fix the air conditioner so it will be warm where I work. A man with a splotchy face came last week when it broke down the first time and poked at it with splotchy fingers and said things like "There's your problem!" without actually fixing the problem or saying what the problem was. We had a security guard at the same time; because some1ne robbed something...no one tells us anything in detail. It's all vague short semi sentences. The concussed girl is taken away in ambulance to become a statistic of our frustrating legal system and our frustrating hospital system all the while watched from through a glass fish tank window by a victim of our frustrating air conditioning repair system...

And as I spit my dying wish, you're listening to something else...

Steve is in the roof. Steve won't fix anything. I know Steve won't fix anything. Oh he'll climb in the roof, he'll hit things with a hammer, but eventually, he'll descend from his ladder, shake his head, and say he can't do anything. I know this because Steve has confided in me already that air conditioning repair is, quote, "all political"..."Mate this game, it's all political!" he said, before he'd even pushed a button.

I guess our air conditioner voted for the wrong party and now must pay. He says this with a conspiratorial wink. Sure enough, Steve descends from his Ivory tower not with a dead raccoon or good news. He leaps off the bottom rung of his ladder with simply the sweat stains of a man who killed a few moments idling in the dark with his own thoughts before descending to eat a biscuit and say "it's all political"...he does have a clipboard full of forms for me to sign. Pink forms, blue forms, cerise forms...he calls me chief a lot Steve. Chief and champion. "Sign here champion!" he says pointing the point of the form where the champion - I guess that's me - has to sign. I sign. I sign with an angry seagull like signature. Yes, take that Mr. repair man. You and your fancy forms shall feel the wrath of my signature. I hate that I'm petty enough to think if I puff my cheeks out and sign in an angry way it somehow expresses a shared frustration between me and repair man that he has done a poor job. To be honest, he couldn't care less. He's got a van and 2wo of our Anzac biscuits. He's not even looking at me, and he's certainly looking at my signature. But in my mind I do for a moment think, yeah, I got you. You know I'm annoyed with you and your forms...I am king of the puffed cheeks...you will fear my rolled eyes...

In this white wave, I am sinking, in this silence

Steve leaves. It's still cold. He takes his clipboard and walks off whistling "Buffalo Soldier". He gets into his van and drives away. Some1ne says "it's cold". I say "it's political"...they don't get it. So I sit at my desk as a parade of people with beseeching eyes and shivering hands and over exaggerated mimes to indicate how cold things are pass me by. I look around desk. I don't own it - I have a temporary residence of it. My ironic girlfriend has done her best to personalise my desk whenever she walks past. She's put things around there to try and cheer me up, little posters, little nots but on days when everyone is talking in whinging riddles and saying how cold things are, even the most loving note or amusing photograph can't make the day go any quicker. The rusted hands of the clock never seem to move, except backwards. It is as if the fabric from the chair I sit in, the Suzette gray fabric with the dotted pattern, has entered into my very soul by osmosis and destroyed my spirit some days. There's a cabal of cubicle bound workers down the far end who gather together to bitch and complain about everything. I ignore them as much as I can - best to just focus on the endless supply of pens my company supplies. I wonder if their manufacture has been all political.

"Col Elliott!"

A man has come in brandishing posters to put up in the kitchen. He comes in every so often. He smells of salmon and poverty. I'm not sure why he does that. 1ne of them was signed by Kasey Chambers. Personally signed. I don't know why we ended up with it. I drew a moustache on it and threw it in the bin. Bit disrespectful perhaps. He's brought in a Col Elliott poster. Col Elliott. I haven't heard that name for ages, not since his "you can't help laughing with Col!" phase - somehow I managed to avoid laughing quite easily, even at his impression of a nun. Interestingly, the characters for this new tour seem to be exactly the same. "He's a funny man!" says salmon poor poster man. Oh god, he thinks I'm interested. I shrug feebly. "Lots of great characters!" - what is this fish paste scented man doing, selling tickets? I don't know why I don't run. New girl at work has a stalker. She gets flowers. I get Col Elliott posters and scaly smelling waves sent in my direction. Hell even my ironic girlfriend only gives me posters out of the paper. I smile a wan, thin smile. The poster man rubs his hands together and says what I know he's been dying to say, longing to say. "Bit cold isn't it!" - he says this like it's an interesting new way of thinking of things. I hate conversation....

"Yeah it is cold, it's all political" I say, not even looking up from my doodle of Yuliya Dovhal that I've done on a pad, right down to the cornrows...

He backs away as if in the presence of a nutter...slow, backward steps, leaving Col Elliott behind in his haste to leave. And that was just Monday...it's been all downhill from there...