Third time unlucky
12th November, 2007
Ever the caring son, I paused to help feed my mother's appetite for Scotch. It had been a four-hour flight and visions of a hot shower and fresh clothes danced in my mind, but I altered course to the duty-free shop and bought her a vat of Scotland's finest.
Around me, people half-walked and half-ran in their desperation to be the first in the immigration queue. Having trampled old ladies and small children underfoot in their indecent haste, they would then stand beside the luggage carousel and spend 15 minutes waiting for their bags to arrive, surrounded by all the people they had just elbowed out of the way. "Morons," I muttered and waited in line. My bag arrived eventually and after allowing the drug detector dog to give my crotch a dismissive sniff and wondering if people really hid drugs in their undies, I emerged into the Brisbane sunshine. Home, now, but first to the office where I had left my car. I had four bags - suitcase, computer bag, man-bag, duty-free bag - so when I arrived at work I piled them outside the entrance, paid the cab driver, then slung them over my shoulder as I began to trudge to the car. God, but I was tired. I took three steps and suddenly felt my load lighten. At the same time I heard something I had not heard for some time, this being the sound of a one-litre bottle of Scotch hitting the pavement. The last time I'd heard that wet-sounding "splot!" had been when I'd dropped a carton of stubbies. I looked down at the duty-free bag now sitting like a deflated balloon at my feet. I could have dropped the laptop or the man-bag or the suitcase but that was never to be. It was always going to be the Scotch. I turned and looked at the cab driver who looked back at me, waiting for me to react. I looked away, too depressed to even swear and recommenced walking to the car, leaving the plastic bag sitting outside the office entrance. I got to the car, threw the remaining bags in the boot and drove back to the office entrance, which now reeked of Scotch. When it smashed, the glass shards had pierced the plastic bag and a trail of alcohol was now dribbling across the entrance. Everyone knows that I drink a lot, I thought. So anyone getting a whiff of this will safely assume I've just finished drinking my breakfast on the office steps. So I picked up the bag, splashing Scotch over my shoes, tossed it in the bin and went home. If I was stopped by police, I'd tell them that while I was completely sober, my shoes were legless. By the time I arrived home I was feeling philosophical about my loss. It was, after all, only a bottle of Scotch, so I unpacked and pulled out two shirts I'd bought on the trip. I took one out of its plastic bag - it was blue and white striped, with white collar and cuffs - unbuttoned it and removed the plastic clips holding it in its folded shape. At least they don't use pins anymore, I thought just before I felt a sharp pain in my forefinger and a crimson stream of blood squirted from its tip and sprayed across the white collar of my new shirt. It seemed they did still use pins - only one - and it had been sitting in the collar waiting for me. My blue-and-white shirt was now a red, white and blue shirt and resembled the French flag. "Why me?" I sobbed. I needed sympathy, so I sidled over to my wife and related my travails.
"I thought we might have a bit of a...snuggle," I said.
I'm still waiting for the third disaster to strike and the tension is killing me. |
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