Anywhere But Here.....

"Those chips aren't cooked you idiot. You can't serve those up!," It was peak lunch hour. We all stood awkwardly in front of the glass counter as the manager of the Coles Deli on King Street gave the young Asian attendant her version of Gordon Ramsay. "How many times do I have to tell you? It has to be at least ten minutes." Her name badge read Manager: Cynthia. Such a name has always congaed up memories of pleasant string quartets, fields of flowers and girls in summer dresses. Cynthia was quite the opposite. She had a black hair net tied firmly over her faded auburn hair and a face that had served a thousand French fries. Her skincare was by Winfield's(Cigs) and her voice, damaged from years of screaming at "new Australians" was straight out of the cast of "Prisoner".

"I have a que a mile long and no bloody chips? What have you been doing?" Cynthia followed each word with a spittoon of saliva just in case her young assistant wasn't aware of her displeasure. He picked up the chips and put them back into the deep fry and stared blankly into the distance. "Sorry everyone but Andrew still hasn't finished cooking the chips. Does anyone not want chips?". There were 15 of us. We all remained silent looking sheepishly into the bay maree. We had all been caught out. Here we were smart young professionals in our Marcs suits and Burbury scarves being the epitome of a metropolitan vagabond about to partake in the most unhealthy and most uncool of passtimes; chips and gravy. $2.20 gets you a large tub of old fashioned crinkle cut chips covered in a gravy which contains a similar viscosity to that of bitumen. It's a heart-attack in Styrofoam and should come with a health warning similar to those on cigarette packs. "one more chip is making you sicker", "one more chip and you will have tuckshop arms"; "one more chip and you can shop at Lowes".

"See …all of these people want chips and now they have to wait because you've stuffed up!" Cynthia continued to spit resembling a lama in a hairnet. Andrew stood there with his screensaver face on contemplating I'm sure the most painful way he could possibly off-end dear Cynthia; like throwing her in the deep fry. This of course may have put customers off eating the chips but would have been deeply satisfying for Andrew and indeed his audience…us. We still would have cheered and pretended for Andrew's sake that Cynthia had slipped on her own hair net and landed herself in boiling oil. After all at times I think we've all lost ourselves in fantasies in which a bully senior heir apparent has met a particularly dire end. I used to daydream about hole punching my first boss to death then nail gunning him to his chair; or giving him a slice of my Rat Poison Pie or throwing a bucket of petrol over him and offering him my cigarette.

My first job out of uni was a graduate position in a very dead letter office of the Queensland Public Service. I wasn't over-run with job offers at the end of my degree so I took what I could get. I was placed in the section of this particular department, which dealt with deceased estates. The term was taken literally by the powers that be and my team was placed in the basement; perhaps to be closer to our clientele. Being the basement there were obviously no windows and being next to a one-story air cleaning system, there was no peace and quiet. It continually felt like 5 o'clock in the morning in the engine room of The Titanic. There were five of us on the team; myself and another graduate, Rebecca and Narelle and Noelene, two bookkeepers who'd been working for the Department since the First Fleet arrived.

Then there was Mark, our fearless manager. He was very efficient with his work. So efficient that he would arrive at ten and leave at two. Mark resembled a young Smithers from the Simpsons but had that uniquely bogan accent which has influenced an entire generation of Australian men to sound like Shane Warne. Words such as "time" become "toime", every present participle loses a g (going becomes goin') and everyone is refereed to as an Azza (Jozza, Dazza, Mazza). Conversations between these kind of men sound like the commentary of a one day cricket match. It is the quintessential Aussie accent; the sound of egalitarianism as long as you're white, straight and male. Mark championed this accent. If you weren't an Azza, you were at least a "mate". But that is where the utilitarian rhetoric stopped. Scratch the service and you soon realized that Mark was nothing but a Stalin dressed in office-wear from Kmart: short-sleaved white collar shirt with a tie; I'm sure you could buy them as a combo package back then. It was very Queensland. Technically Rebecca and I had been employed as legal graduates to prepare and advise in matters concerning deceased estates particularly those who had died intestate. We both soon found out that we were going to be nothing more than glorified clerks. My main daily task was to collect and tally the mail and order a cheque for payment. I had friends working as graduates in law firms who were doing mergers and acquisitions. I was doing mail collection. Strangely my graduate salary was more than theirs. It still didn't make it any less humiliating. I attended law school for five years to affix stamps. Were they serious? What was even more strange was that our tasks mainly involved accounting skills. I was in charge of balancing the books for our section whereas Rebecca had to data-entry and maintain any extra monies arriving for unclaimed deceased estates. We were law graduates…not accountancy majors. I could read but not add up. I thought a ledger was something made out of wood.

For the first month Mark left us alone. He had the only office in the basement and the rest of the team was located in their faded pastel pink workstations with pine trim and potted palms in between; the result of an 80s refurbishment years before which made the office look like the set of the Golden Girls.

Mark barely uttered a word to Rebecca or myself. He would arrive late, take ten thousand cigarette breaks and then leave early. Narelle and Noelene trained us in the systems that we would have to use to complete our tasks. Rebecca and I exchanged glances of "what the?" as Narelle showed us the mail book and the 20 page instruction manual that came with it. Narelle was as dull as the faded blue twinsets she wore day in day out. She spoke in a monotone that would put armies to sleep. I used to think Super-powers didn't need nuclear weapons to defeat their enemies, all they needed was Narelle. She'd cast a coma over an entire country by reading the mail manual. The only thing that kept me awake whilst listening to her was her face. Narelle had so many wrinkles; she resembled a ball of string. Her face was devoid of all moisture; the one story air cleaning system had completely sucked it out I'm sure. The irony was that she had a bottle of Oil of Olay with her at all times. She never used it on her face though; she'd sit at her desk staring at spreadsheets moisturizing her hands over and over again. Every file, receipt or random piece of paper touched by Narelle had her indelible moisturised fingerprint.

Noeleen was the exact opposite to Narelle. Loud, verbose and immaculately groomed, she was not unlike a well dressed mountain range; a tall stocky woman in her 60s with broad shoulders and a bust that could hold the Atlantic ocean. Noelene arrived every morning to work with her hair in a French roll and a plumb in her voice. She appeared to be more like the principal of a well to do ladies college, not an accounts clerk in the public service; all except for the fact that she had the mouth of a sailor.

Noelene: That‘s a lovely fucking tie John.

Noelene: What a beautiful fucking day?

Noelene: I hope to get to the fucking shops this afternoon.

Noelene: I have to fucking pick up my lovely grandkids today.

Noelene: It is a little fucking hot outside.

Noelene: Narelle this fucking photocopier is broken.

There wasn’t a sentence or a phrase that Noelene would say without throwing in her two cents worth of fucks. It was like Quentin Tarintino had cast Deborah Carr in one of his movies. The Fucking King and I, From Here to Fucking Eternity, A Woman of Fucking Substance. Noelene dropped fucks into sentences like croutons into a salad. They came without warning and because her accent was more indicative of High Tea at Buckingham Palace, the respondent was like a verbal deer in the headlights caught completely unawares of the approaching lingual onslaught. Even the directors from the 7th floor would often be subjected to “How the fuck are you Tony?” “If I was any fucking better Frank I’d be dangerous”, “ Linda I love that blouse…it’s fucking gorgeous.” No one ever complained because they were so shocked that such language could come from a woman one year off retirement wearing pearls and a ruby broach.

At first I couldn't work out why Noelene worked. She was married to one of Brisbane’s top car dealers who was known in the 80s for a particularly bad set of television commercials for his dealership involving him and an elephant having a conversation. As her diamonds demonstrated, she certainly didn’t need the money. After a while though I realized she worked to have some peace and quiet from the continual demand of her two married daughters, Kathleen and Sarah. Not that she got much. Both daughters were married with children under the age of three and couldn’t seem to survive more than a half an hour without calling their mother for help, advice or money; particularly the later. Strangely she never swore at them. I would have.

Noelene: Kathleen I put the money in your account this morning.

Noelene: Sarah I will come around after work.

Noelene: Kathleen I've paid that phone bill

Noelene: Sarah I can't come round tonight, I've paid for a babysitter.

Noelene: You put what on your David Jones card?

Rebecca was the nearest person to normal out of the whole team and that was more to do with familiarity than normality. We both went to the same university together and from time to time had exchanged study notes for different subjects. Rebecca was a sensible Brisbane suburban girl who went out with a sensible Brisbane suburban guy called Scott who also studied law. Throughout uni they studied together, ate together, went out together, graduated together…..and once they started work…..they had lunch together, as well as walk to and from work together; although strangely they didn't live together. Rebecca was the daughter of Russian immigrants and any form of co-habitation was strictly forbidden until Rebecca was married. And that dilemma was to be remedied by the end of the year. I spent the entire six months I worked with Rebecca listening to her on the phone arguing with florists, caterers, dressmakers, wedding planners and most frequently her mother…..mostly in Russian. Normally I would have found someone like Rebecca extremely irritating but because we were the only aliens in a very foreign world, we were almost married ourselves. We communicated via glances and eyebrows; mere eye contact would convey "you've got to be jokings", "what the's" but most importantly "Mark's comings".

Rebecca's desk was located at the entrance to the basement and as a result she could see directly to the stairwell, which came down from the 1st floor. Yes we had no elevators….it was all very Dickensian. We would be on alert for Mark from around ten am onwards. He would rarely arrive before that hour and we were free to convalesce and breathe until then.

I can't recall whether I always disliked Mark. He was present in my interview and seemed pleasant enough although he didn't really say much. The Head of the Department did all the talking and to be quite honest, at the time, I thought I would have been working for him and not Mark. And so I didn't pay much attention to him. Mark was the accountant…..I wouldn't be working for an accountant right? How wrong I was. Still Mark hadn't made much of a negative impression on me, he hadn't made an impression at all! As the first month went by, it was more the absence of Mark; the absence of any form of communication from Mark and the absence of any comments from Noelene and Narelle about Mark, which started to worry me. The only warning Noelene gave me one day was over one of her cook's (yes she had one) home made scons : "Be careful with Mark; he has a temper." Considering I was yet to receive any form of "Good Morning", "How are you going?" or any type of vocal attempts at interaction from the man after a month of working there, I didn't know how more careful I could be. His silence was making both Rebecca and myself very uncomfortable. I couldn't work out whether he was a circling shark waiting for his moment to strike or a whale with a sore head.

I soon found out.

This particularly morning Rebecca was away sick so I had no warning. Mark swaggered into the basement and without making eye contact walking straight to his office he said, "John can I see you in my office paleeeease." Such a request is never a sign of good things to come. Managers don't request their team members to "see them" in their offices to break bread, discuss fashion trends or ask whether the pant they're wearing makes their ass look big. Worse still is when the request is made in monotone with the please being stretched out as if spoken by a rubberband. It usually means certain death. Back then, at the beginning of my work career, I wasn't as attuned to the nuances of workplace relations as I am now. I thought perhaps Mark was finally going to welcome me to the organisation and see how I was going.

Mark:Close the door.
As I closed the door I felt something hit my back.
Mark:What the fuck is this?

I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I've been assaulted in my life. Three of them were as a child. The first time was at pre-school when Andrew Brior pulled my hair and poked me in the eye. That was understandable as I had just jumped on his right arm and broken it, which I thought at the time was perfect reprimand for his stealing my muesli bar. In hindsight I can see I over-reacted a little. The second time was in Grade 1 at Primary School where the resident bully John Kerr called me a sissy and challenged me to a fight in front of the boy's toilets. I took offence to receiving any type of deportment criticism from someone who was missing his entire front row of teeth and possessed that 80s iconic piece of hairstyle; the rat's tail. I decided not to acknowledge Kerr or his request. I simply walked past his gap teeth and pretended he wasn't there. This was to my detriment of course and soon I felt the sharp piercing pain of a kick to my back. Bullies always attack from behind. The same situation occurred in my first year of high school. Michael Davies approached me for cigarette. He also possessed an 80s iconic hairstyle, the mullet and had a similarly violent disposition to Mr Kerr. Being 12 years of age at the time and being on school grounds, I didn't have any cigarettes on me and advised him of such. Davies didn't warm to my response and declared that he was going to "get me". I used the same "ignore them and they will go away" technique but unfortunately it had the same limited success resulting in ripped shirts and my mother visiting the principle. Davies was soon "asked to leave" my school and life for the next 12 years throughout my secondary and tertiary education remained free of all physical altercations. Yes there were many confrontations of the tongue but none involving fisticuffs. I did however maintain the expectation though that at some point I would be confronted again by a Kerr or Davies style character who simply wanted to pick on someone. My expectation was correct; however I always thought the confrontation would occur in a bar, club or pub………not a workplace.

I picked the black leather embossed book off the ground. Had Mark really just thrown this at my back I thought. It was the mail-out book where I had been recording all mail in and out of the entire department for the last month. I hated that book. It represented the most boring and demeaning of all the responsibilities of my job. Again I thought…..did Mark just throw this object at my back? I finally answered myself and sat down. Mark kept his eye contact firmly on the corner of his desk. He slouched in his armchair sucking on a pen in the corner of his mouth like it was a piece of grass. He moved his head side to side as if it was attached to strings. I kept looking at my shaking knees, which seemed to have developed some sort of motor neuron disorder in a matter of seconds. I could not stop shaking. Violence was for kids I thought; violence was for playgrounds and lost muesli bars, bullies and their problems with sissies and under-age thugs and their unreasonable demands for cigarettes. Violence was not for relaying one's problem with a mail-out book.

I gathered my neurons along with my composure and finally asked "What seems to be the problem?"

Mark: If you can't tell me, there is a problem

He continued to chew his pen. I imagined him choking on it. Him screaming out for help and me just sitting there with the mail-out book watching him spit and gasp for air. I imagined my opening the mail book and reading it to him as he struggled for his last few breaths of life. Received 24th of September 1999, Letter from Australian Insurance addressed to Mark Fullerton…..is there a problem Mark? What problem Mark? I can't see a problem. There must be no problem. Bye bye Mark.

Me: I don't know what you're talking about.

Mark: Open the fucking book.

This was intolerable. Why was he being so rude to me? How dare he I thought. I imagined pulling the pen out of his loose-fitting mouth and shoving it down his throat, my fist breaking his jaw and my other hand strangling his neck. That or simply smashing his face with a hole puncher and walking out. These random thoughts of violence were strangely calming and were enabling me to get my nerve back.

Me: I won't be opening anything until you start talking to me in a professional manner.

He finally looked me in the eye and swung around in his armchair to face me. Mark was not an attractive man. At the time he would have only been 31/32 at the max but resembled a man 45 years or more ….although anyone more than 25 to my then 23 years was positively ancient. Mark was round shouldered and gauntly thin with sunken eyes covered by those climate-controlled glasses that changed shade pending on the amount of light available. Due to his continual chain smoking which required him to be outside half the time he was at the office, his eyes were continually covered in shade like storm clouds around a mountain. As a result you never quite knew whether he was maintaining eye contact or not.

Mark: Your data entry is wrong. The book is wrong; the electronic spreadsheets are wrong. Pretty much everything you have touched for the last six weeks is completely wrong.


My cheeks became flushed with embarrassment. This was my first full-time job and I'd stuffed it up. All my old demons waltzed out in front of my eyes. You're a loser; you're dumb; you're no good. My body commenced its own global warming turning my mouth into the Sahara and my eyes into melting icebergs. What the hell am I doing? I'm supposed to movie star by now I thought; I'm supposed to have my own variety show and be complaining about my maid's friends always hounding me for autographs; why am I in a basement getting a lecture on data entry from a loser who looks like he's been dressed by Ronald McDonald.

Mark: I don't know what's going on mate but you clearly don't want to be here. Narelle came to see me about your work and she feels that you think you are above the work.

I was shocked. I didn't know whether to be more upset that I was accused of being a snob or the fact that Narelle had gone and blabbed such an unfair criticism to Mark behind my back. I was always nice to Narelle. I greeted her every morning with a smile and complimented her on her poor use of faded pastels. I had the decency to feel sorry for Narelle, the least she could have done was come and see me about any issues she had with my performance.

Mark: Do you want to work here or do you think you're above it?


Well yes of course I wanted to work there. I loved working in the basement where it continually felt like dawn where I got to do such exciting tasks as order cheques for the post office and count the number of intestate estates we had referred to the Supreme Court in one week. I loved it……..not; but it was a job and my first full time one where I received a salary that was more than the equivalent of two cans of baked beans. So I wanted to stay at least until I found something else.

Mark: From now on you will be reporting to me. We will meet every afternoon to review your work.

Mark nodded to himself as if he just stumbled across what a manager actually does. I left his office; walked straight to my desk and sat down gazing at the wretched mailout book. I felt completely remedial. Five years of tertiary study and I couldn't even fill out a form. I felt a large firm hand on my back, " Are you alright luv?" It was Noelene looming in her mountainous beaded glory her eyes warm and concerned. She was like having your own grandmother at work except for the obvious expletives; "He's just a fucking bully. Don't take any notice of him and don't let him push you around. You are doing well. Fuck him darling ". I wanted to burst into teas and give her a big hug instead I hit my inner enter button and brought up my "I'm fine" screen saver. I got back to my data entry and mail. I really needed to get drunk.

*********************************************************************

"He what? Are you serious?"

Me: Shushhh….I don't want him to hear.

Panic invaded Rebecca's face. Her continual catastrophic wedding plans had turned her into a complete nervous nelly yo yo; if she wasn't bursting into tears in Russian at her mother over table arrangements, she was screaming at the Italian wedding planner in broken English. She really was a bridezillar before the term ever reached the world of reality television. My telling of the previous day's events involving Mark only added further pressure to a cooker that already had far too much steam. I may as well have told her that I found her name on the death row list just next to Noelene's delicious scons.

Rebecca: He hit you?

Me: No not exactly, he threw the mail book at me.

Rebecca: He can't do that. That's outrageous.

Me: Well he did.

Rebecca: What did you do?

Me: I didn't do anything….I was too shocked to react.

Rebecca: That is abuse.

Me: I know

Rebecca: You should report him to the union.

Me: I don't want him to shoot me.

Rebecca: Oh my god does he have a gun?

Me: I'm joking.

"Rebecca can I see you in my office palease." Like the previous day there was no eye contact, or temporal tones; Mark simply walked straight into his office. Rebecca looked at me as if I was a priest about to award last rites.

*********************************************************************

Narelle had avoided me like cancer since my meeting with Mark. She sat in the corner moisturising with her spreadsheets. I found it difficult to be in the same room as her. I was tempted to lash out and give her a strong Alexis Carrington slap. This was my first taste of workplace betrayal and old string face had strung me too far.

Me: Narelle

She continued to moisturise and gaze at her lotus notes. There was no response.

Me: Narelle

Narelle: Mmmmm

Me: I was wondering if you had a moment.

Narelle: Mmmmm

Was she laying an egg? Her eyes remained locked with the computer screen. I remained at her desk.

Me: I had a meeting with Mark yesterday and he informs me that my work has been unsatisfactory.

Narelle: Mmmmm

Me: And you complained to him that you think that I feel the work is beneath me.

She paused. Looked to the side of her pc, picked up a tissue and blew her nose.

Narelle: The mailbook was incorrect and your data-entry at times was inaccurate.

Me: I would have appreciated if you had seen me first about it. Yesterday's meeting with Mark wasn't the most pleasant event of my life.

She finally looked at me, her heshin eyes locking onto my gaze.

Narelle: I didn't say that I thought you were beneath the work. I said that I thought the work wasn't challenging enough for you.

Me: Well Mark seemed to think that you thought I had an attitude problem.

Narelle: No …that's what Mark thinks.

Mark's door opened and out walked Rebecca ashened faced. She walked straight to her desk and Mark made his usual exit for his cigarette break.

Narelle: My advice to you is to get out of here as fast as you can. There is nothing to learn in this place.

********************************************************************

Mark had two ex-wives, which was pretty impressive considering he was only 32. Even more impressive was the fact that both of them worked for the same department and still did. Kathy was in finance and Tippy was in Human Resources. They looked identical both channelling Melanie Griffiths in Working Girl. Even though it was 1999, for Kathy and Tippy it was still 1988 wearing big hair, bigger should pads and even bigger earrings. According to Noelene, Mark at the work Christmas party one year got so drunk that he mistook Tippy for Kathy and snogged her on the dance floor. Mark's marriage to Kathy soon ended and he moved in with Tippy both of them eloping to Las Vegas the following year. Only one year later Tippy showed again her talent for dance-floor-pashes with married department managers at another work Christmas party. Unfortunately she didn't display such a talent with her own husband. Mark left the Christmas party and never attended a departmental party again let alone his marriage. He lived on his own with his two German shepherds and numerous white short sleaved collared shirts in the western outreaches of the never-ending landscape that is Brisbane suburbia. I said to Noelene perhaps this was why he was such an arse hole. He felt abandoned.

Noelene: No darling…..he has always been a fucking arse hole…once an arse…always a hole. Don't forget it luv.

Such words of wisdom were always dispensed by Noelene during morning tea over one of the scons baked by "our nina" (Noelene's cook I mentioned earlier). These pearls were delivered with typical Noelene darling flare but made absolutely no sense.

To Rebecca over her frustrations with her wedding: Darling you're not bitter, you're just sensible.

To her daughter Sarah who would delight us all by visiting with her three psychotic screaming children: Darling one slap on the bott is worth fifty in the air.

Sarah always nodded knowingly; Rebecca and I always exchanged glances of confusion agreeing: "we must get Nina's scon recipe….these are absolutely delicious."

Still regardless of all the bizarre fonts of advice, I did like Noelene. Her eccentricity and warmth was always a beacon of relief for life in the basement. In the five months since Mark's initial dressing down, his tantrums toward both Rebecca and myself had escalated. Regardless of whether we had done anything wrong or not, he would never miss an opportunity to reprimand, abuse and humiliate us.

Who do you think you are?
Your work is pathetic.
I'm tired of repeating myself
You don't listen!
Get the fuck out of my office.
Do as I fucking say
I don't give a fuck about your stupid wedding.

Such reprimands always resulted in Rebecca bursting into tears. Considering she cried every time she got off the phone from her betrothed, the wedding planner or her mother, Mark's reprimands meant that she permanently had a box of Kleenex attached to her face.

Noelene: That poor girl…more nerves than fucking sense.

Mark did not make me cry once. I was always the same. I never argued. I never smiled. I never reacted. I was the human equivalent of teflon ……..every attack slipped off my surface like a well fried egg. My morbid passivity drove Mark nuts. He was just another schoolyard bully; a Michael Davies, a John Kerr dressed in Kmart corporate couture. I took delight in completely repelling him. Not that I found my time there enjoyable. The six months I spent working for Mark was by far the most miserable period of my life. Every morning I would throw up before I got to work. It was great for my figure. It was one of the few times in my life that I dropped below 90kgs. But the patches of hair that fell from my scalp; not such a hot look.


Like all bullies, Mark eventually went too far. The jabs got nastier, the demands more incoherent and the performance reviews more bizarre.

Mark: I want you to re-write the last month's mail-book entry in green biro.
Mark: You need to learn to write in English
Mark: From now on I want you to answer my mail.



It all ended when he found out I'd filed a formal grievance against him with Human Resources. Instead of writing a formal response to the grievance, he decided to throw the mail book at me hitting my back yet again. He was obsessed with that mail-book.

Mark: If you expect me to waist my time and write a response to your pathetic complaint, at least use writing I can understand….do this week's entries again.

Noelene shook her head. Narelle moisturised and Rebecca reached for her last Kleenex. I picked up the mail-book. I imagined going over to Mark and belting him across the head with it; better still I imagined picking up my jacket grabbing my bag and walking straight out of the joint never to come back again. I shrugged, smiled, put on my jacket and walked out the door.

Mark: Where the fuck are you going?

Me: Anywhere but here.

*********************************************************************

The French claim to have invented the French Fry or the "pomme frit" as it was then known. However the Belgians claim that the term "French" was introduced when British and American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War 1, and consequently tasted Belgian fries. They supposedly called them "French", as it was the official language of the Belgian Army at that time. The first "chip" recipes began appearing in the English speaking world long before that. In mid-19th Century London, hot chips started to be sold at Tommyfield Market and the first fish and chips shops started opening in the 1860s. Wikipedia didn't say who invented the crinkle cut…perhaps it's a uniquely antipodean delicacy.

Our chips were almost ready.

Cynthia pulled the crate out of the deep fry and threw it into the bay-maree steam flooding her chooky neck. Everyone except me nudged their way closer to the goods glistening canola gold. I like my chips to be a little less fresh and not so piping.

Cynthia: Andrew??!!!

Cynthia: Andrew can you come and help please?

Cynthia struggled to fill the Styrofoam cups. Andrew remained noticeably absent.

Cynthia: Andrew?!!!

Some wanted chicken salt; some wanted tomato sauce and most considering the unseasonable October freeze wanted soothing gravy. I was the last to be served. Cynthia covered in more oil than a chippendale reject gave me a super-sized Styrofoam container's worth. Gravy induced chips in hand, I handed Cynthia my 4 bucks 20.

Cynthia: I'm sorry about the wait.

Me: No worries…..it's gonna be worth it.

Cynthia smiled with teeth the colour of hepatitis and quickly made her way out the back screaming Andrew's name, her abused right hand slave still amiss.

I made my way up the Coles escalators resisting the urge to start eating. Chips and gravy are best enjoyed whilst seated reading a tabloid. I made it to street level and had the abnormal October south westerly slap me across the face. I looked across the street and saw the elusive Andrew, backpack in hand and cigarette lit. We caught each other's glances, smirked and continued our separate ways.

C