Saturday, dogs and gays and a one star confrontation
I went to the pharmacy today get two boxes of anti-crazy. The woman there said “I think I’ve spoken to you on the phone”.
I said “I’ve spoken to lots of women on the phone, so it’s entirely possible.”
I didn’t say that but it turns out she was right. See, in addition to working in the pharmacy, she is also the practice manager at the doctor’s offices next door and the one that called me (several weeks ago) to discuss the one-star review I left Dr Idiot Face not so long ago. If you don’t know the story I’m confident that reading that sentence a second time will sort you out.
She said she feels bad for the owner of the practice that one doctor could attract several one-star reviews. “I mean, he doesn’t even work there very often, all all the other doctors are…”
“competent?” I finished her sentence. It was a nice moment.
I suggested that the same could be said for a restaurant where it would only take one waiter to set you on fire and it would probably result in a one-star review even though 90% of the staff did not set you on fire.
I just went for a walk around the block. Something you should know about my suburb: it is quite suburban, there are no pubs or shopping centres. We have a cafe and a quick-e-mart and 15 minutes walk away there’s a spattering of restaurants and a one-star doctor’s office. There is also a ferry stop.
I was going for a walk and two gentlemen stopped me and asked for directions to the nearest pub. The alpha, a man that looked like George Bluth, Sr from the Netflix hit Arrested Development did the talking. I hesitated before explaining that there were no pubs. He asked, with a little less cheer in his tone, if there was anywhere they could get a bite to eat and some booze (I translated this in my head to “drink red wine and flip a coin for a blowjob in the car park afterwards”).
I hesitated long enough for him to ask a follow up question, now in a downright snippy tone. “Exactly how far are we from civilisation here?” — how’s that for sass! Now the other one, who looked a lot like Oscar Bluth stepped in “now now Jeffery, be nice, the boy lives here”. Hey fuck you, second one, I don’t need you sticking up for me.
At this point I wondered how they came to be standing in the middle of a suburb that was not on the way to anywhere, apparently without an electrical device between them that says where pubs are, at 4:15pm on a Saturday afternoon.
“We caught the ferry” came the answer to my enquiry. What the fuck on earth? Why would you catch a ferry to a stop that you nothing about, get off, walk half a kilometre, ask a stranger where the nearest pub was, then get sassy when you don’t get the answer you want.
My one of my earliest jobs was as a call centre gimp doing customer satisfaction surveys over the phone. I was doing a survey for Qantas and rang a woman who had been on a flight recently to ask her how it made her feel.
She had taken a “mystery flight” — I believe back in the day it was $50 and whatever flight was next with empty seats. She lived in Canberra, and flights from Canberra don’t go to many places, so her foolish husband and her drove to Sydney, and took a mystery flight from there. I wonder if you can see the flaw in this woman’s plan. She certainly didn’t, and she was perfectly excited right up to the point where they purchased their mystery flights and were handed two tickets to Canberra.
What baffles me is that they took the flight. It would have “been a waste” not to. So they flew down to Canberra, went to Questacon because “we’ve always wanted to go” then flew back to Sydney. Then drove back to Canberra at the end of the day.
She emailed me this photo of her husband and I will always cherish it.
OK the Questacon part of that story is not true.
Returning home after providing dining advice to the Bluths, I got in the lift. Already in there was a chick with a dog.
Fool me once I thought, eyeing the dog with extreme suspicion. I gave it a little shove with my shoe and it moved. Not a vacuum cleaner. OK that’s not true, there was no shove.
It was a cute dog and I was down on the floor giving its hair a good ol’ ruffle before my back could say “you’re going to regret this”.
“She likes you” said the owner, clearly hitting on me.
“Do you hear someone talking?” I said to the dog.
“Bye, have a nice day” said the girl as she got out of the lift, clearly still hitting on me.
