The final drink of discontent
2nd February, 2008
Having caught a CityCat from the city to the Regatta terminal at Toowong, I was feeling quite pleased with myself. Given that I use public transport about once a year, the fact that I had managed to travel from A to B without ending up at C or falling overboard was a significant effort.
I then realised another advantage of travelling to this stop with the great unwashed - you could slip into the nearby pub for a quick drink on the way home, obviously not an option when driving. Feeling at peace with the world, I wandered into the Regatta Hotel and ordered a drink. I took the glass to a drink island and placed my shoulder bag and a parcel I had bought on the floor. "Lovely," I thought, as I took a sip and looked out across to the river glittering through the tree blossoms. Then I noticed that my parcel was beginning to list and I leant down to grab it. As I did this, my foot slid on a wet patch on the floor. To prevent myself from falling I stuck out my elbow, which hit the surface of the drink island and tilted it to one side. On the table, along with my glass, was an empty glass and an empty jug left by a previous patron. Slowly, the jug lifted off the table and did a somersault before smashing onto the floor. The glass followed a nanosecond behind. Smash! Bang! It was a double detonation, like the blast from a double-barrelled shotgun. The noise was so loud that a woman screamed. Then there was silence as every eye in the bar swivelled towards me. I looked at the bar attendant, picked up my drink, took another sip, put it back on the drink island, hoisted my bag onto my shoulder, picked up my parcel and walked slowly out of the bar and onto the street. "Nothing like a nice, quiet drink on the way home," I muttered to myself. That night I got into bed, snuggled with the Missus and then leaned across to the side table to put out the light. Somehow I managed to knock over a full glass of water. Not only that but I managed to tip the contents of the glass into the bed rather than onto the floor. I soaked up what I could with a towel, went to the kitchen, got a fresh glass of water and got back into the damp bed. I then reached across to turn out the light and knocked the glass of water over again, once more managing to tip the contents into the bed. I was a beaten man, too overwhelmed by the events of the day to even swear. The next day I was talking to my uncle, who told me that after decades of paying someone to do his lawn he had decided that henceforth he would do it himself. So he went out and bought a brush cutter. It took him a while to work out how to start it but eventually, after a lot of huffing and puffing, he coached it into life. It spluttered a few times and then roared, at which point the bottom bit of the weed whacker, from which the cord feeds, parted company with the rest of the machine and whirled into the heavens, still spinning at several thousand revolutions per minute. Apparently there was a nut that required tightening before use but no-one had told my uncle of this. He never found the bits that flew out of the bottom of the machine and presumes they landed somewhere in the next suburb. So far, his exercise in lawn self-management has cost him several hundred dollars and the grass still hasn't been cut.
"Impressive," I said.
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