Lou Sanz

At a BBQ on the weekend, a friend of mine after checking I was single, over my slight thing for sexually ambiguous and in some cases ambitious men, wasn’t a little bit gay as was the current rumour of the day or celibate, declared to me that she had found me the perfect guy  – her son.

‘He’s good looking’

‘All mother’s say that.’

‘Yes, but I can appreciate his good looks not only as a mother, but also as a woman.’

‘This is how Norman Bates got started…’

‘No, you’re wrong there – maybe if Mrs Bates had appreciated her sons beauty then he wouldn’t have done the horrid things he did.’

‘I think you’re wrong. I think it was her ‘appreciation’ of her son that started all the ‘troubles’.

‘Well my son is not Norman Bates, Louise.’

‘I think someone doth protest too much…’

‘Anyway’…choosing to ignore me…’He’s not only good looking, but he’s also funny, smart, well read and likes strong woman.’

‘I just don’t think so…’ I mumbled back as I played with an ingrown hair on my leg.

‘So, he’s got a girlfriend – I’m sure a woman like you Lou can work around that.’

I watched as my piece of cheese fell into the make shift ashtray of a coffee cup – perhaps I could invoke the 10 second rule – it began to felt into the tar and ash – perhaps not.

‘I don’t do mistress very well – it’s got something to do with a level of self respect I’ve built up over the years – both a blessing and a curse, I know.’

My friend adjusted her skirt, so her undies were no longer visible.

‘No, no, you wouldn’t be his mistress, you’d be his girlfriend and then you’d get married and I’d become your mother-in-law – oh it’s almost too perfect Lou.’

As I reached for a handful of potato chips I was confronted with the sudden realisation that perhaps I’d forgotten to put deodorant on that morning…and then suddenly the penny dropped.

‘You want me to break them up?’

My friend grabbed for the wine bottle, but it was empty – a half drunk, slightly warmed crownie would have to do. She lit another cigarette.

‘Yes, yes – fundamentally your role would be to break them up, but you would have other activities to fill your days with.’

I now felt like a character in a Bronte novel, sent away to act as Governess to three wayward daughters, but always knowing that the true meaning behind my employment was to give the Lord of the house the heir he always wanted and the heir his now barren (after an episode of Typhoid), frigid wife could not give him.

‘He needs an older woman to show him the ways.’

‘Older?’

‘Yes, an older woman to take control of the situation so to speak.’

‘He’s got a girlfriend, I’m sure he’s coping just fine.’

‘To be honest, I’m not sure he’s ever bought her to orgasm, and that concerns me Lou, as a mother that concerns me.’

‘Drugs, as a mother drugs should be a concern – maybe he takes drugs?’

‘And if he did Lou I’d have no control of it – you know what teenagers are like these days.’

‘Teenagers?’

‘Well he’s almost 18, so I guess we can’t really call him a teenager anymore!’

She popped the cork on another bottle and offered me a glass – in a state of befuddlement I accepted.

‘I think you’ll find you can call him a teenager a lot longer– because he is one! – What the hell!’

‘Don’t be like that Lou, I’m totally cool with you dating my son, it’s not exactly illegal – I mean he’s 17!’

‘And I’m almost 30.’

‘Exactly – that’s why it will work.’

To be fair, with the exception of his age he sounded great and it wasn’t like I’d be scraping the barrel on this one, I mean the fact he didn’t have a drivers license had never been an obstacle before, the fact he didn’t have full time employment (fuck Lou! when did you start demanding the world!) and the fact he hadn’t finished high school …well you see where I’m going with this…

‘Come on Lou, you know you’d be perfect together.’

‘He’s a child – I don’t want children.’

‘It’s not like you gave birth to him.’ She spat out as she ashed her cigarette on my dissolving bit of cheese.

‘…Oh well when you put it like that, it doesn’t seem nearly as wrong as society would dictate.’

‘I’m just saying Lou, I understand now why some fathers send their sons to older prostitutes…like in France.’

I put my wine down and considered for a moment what she was saying…it didn’t take nearly as long as I’m making out.

‘I’m not a prostitute.’

‘And you’re not French either…don’t split hairs Lou.’

‘I don’t really see it as splitting hairs, more as a much needed clarification it would seem.’

‘Well if I were you Lou, I’d take it as a compliment – the French are a very sophisticated people.’

‘Ok  – so why not send your son to France, may be on a high school exchange program? – You know, under the guise of getting an education, but really what he’s getting is an education…but then he finds out he’s barren….’

‘What – my son isn’t barren.’

‘That’s not what he told me the other night when he couldn’t find a condom.’ I joked to lighten the mood, in retrospect it was ill timed.

‘That’s not funny Lou. Nothing to joke about.’

‘I know – I’m sorry.’

Grabbing her car keys I watched my friend as she busied herself to leave.

‘You know what Lou, on second thought I think you should stay away from my son – I thought an older woman would be good because of the maturity you’d bring to the situation, but once again you’ve proved me wrong.’

‘It was a joke.’

And then my friend Tom came over to introduce me to whom I could only guess was his new girlfriend and her 12-year-old son –

‘Hey Lou’ he yelled.

‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere – there’s some special people I’d like you to meet.’ He tussled the 12 year olds hair, as if they were about to toss a ball around.

And before I could respond my friend turned to me with a kindly reminder, just before she was to storm away from me…

‘Sex with teenage boys is nothing to laugh about Lou’

Suddenly everyone stopped and stared.

‘Stay away from my son – it would do you good to remember that.’

And with that she left.

I turned around to my friend Tom and his newfound family.

‘Who wants to play a bit of football?’ I asked Tom’s proxy son.

‘I don’t think so.’ Tom replied on his behalf.

‘Yeah…I thought as much…’ I replied.

It was time to leave the BBQ – the Mister Whippy van had arrived and I felt a lynching on the horizon.

For years my relationship with my self-esteem has been fraught with friction, none of it helped by my self-esteems amazing ability to fuck off when I quite obviously need it the most.  Such famous incidences include:

1.    The time that in the middle of sex a guy told me he fancied someone else and without the guidance of ‘self-esteem’ I thought what the hell ‘let’s finish what we started, I mean he had to like me to get this far.’

2.    The time I set my boyfriend up with my friend because she was blonde because as he told me ‘come on Lou, you know this isn’t going to work out, like I don’t even like you much, well not as much as I like your friend – come on help a fella out.’ And with my self-esteem nowhere in sight I did.

3.    The time I closed my eyes and let an old boyfriend of mine pretend I was a man, my self-esteem more then likely watched from a gallery seat.

4.    The time I got back together with an ex based on this conversation ‘so I was in San Fran trying to tap… well, let’s just call them someone, and… let’s just say their tits weren’t real and then I thought ‘you know what… Lou’s tits are real’ and so then I thought about it some more and thought ‘yeah, I quite like Lou’s tits’, so deep down in my subconscious that meant that some part of me was attracted to you, and is probably still attracted to you – so what do you say we give it another shot? – and I did.

Now I’m not sure what when my self-esteem decided to leave me, but if I had to guestimate I’d say it was around the time I needed to get my first bra. I was about 14 and after my mothers comments of ‘I can see your crumpets’ and ‘someone’s been invited to party at bolder mountain!’ I agreed to go and get fitted for a bra. As my mum grabbed the car keys and rounded up my father and younger brother for another Sanz family adventure I excused myself to the bathroom only to discover that to coincide with ‘Lou gets her first bra’ I also had been visited for the first time by ‘Aunt Flo’.

Now. I’m not sure how most of you purchase your feminine hygiene products, but on that day my mother decided we should stop into ‘Campbell’s Cash’n’Carry’ to stock up; but she didn’t come in with me, couldn’t find a car park – no she sent my dad and I in together and just before we stepped inside the building she wound the window down and shouted ‘get super  – I’ve run out of mattress protectors.’

The department store wasn’t much better, as mum had ordered my brother to walk behind me on ‘spot patrol’. A lovely woman named Irene approached us to help out – I think she saw the large jumper tied around my waste as a sign that perhaps this was the first time out of the house without my polio support unit. She offered my mother one of those bras that does up at the front – my mother was not impressed ‘gotta make the boys or girls work for their crumpet – hey Lou? Hey? Hi five!’ I watched in horror as my mother and Irene shared skin.

Finally I convinced my mum that the dignity of a changing room was much needed, especially after that cute Xavier boy walked past me as my mother fitted a bra on the outside of my Sportsgirl t-shirt and just as he was in ear shot spoke the irretrievable words ‘and smells like someone’s going need deodorant too – this is a big day for you Lou – if you’re lucky it’ll be boys next.’ Following that remark I knew I was going to be lucky to be fingered by a cousin in later years.

Now it’s rather hard to hang yourself in a department store change room, but fuck I gave it a right go and if you look at the little stool they give you to rest your clothes on as your jumping off point then you’re well on your way to success, that is until your little brother crawls under the door but only enough to see you putting a bra around your neck and screams out ‘mum, dad! Lou’s doing that thing that Michael Hutchinson did to have an origami!’.

Suddenly the door burst open, my father hurtling towards me before I could jump off the stool and my mother sternly standing in front me taking the scene in – me in my undies and a bra around my neck, my brother still lying on the floor and all she could think to do was offer up more advice ‘now is not the time to start a life of self pleasure Lou – first things first let’s get you some supportive underwear and then what you do behind the privacy of closed doors is up to you.’ She then turned to my brother ‘now who wants milkshakes?’ and then to my father ‘I think your daughter might like your opinion on the whole front or back clasp debate Michael.’

I didn’t think it could get much worse but as the years went on my self-esteem became more of absence in my life rather than an active participant – such as last Friday night when I ended up at Billboard nightclub.

I could end this story on that above line alone but then I wouldn’t get to the bit where inside the nightclub and with my friend telling me I looked like a mother searching for her wayward daughter and almost being overwhelmed by the amount of pussy that one can glance based entirely on the knowledge that Friday nights at Billboard appear to be underwear free nights, I had a man approach me – ‘a man of the one eyebrow, I sweat a lot and probably chaff variety’- and what happened next was entirely my self-esteems fault – rather than think I was too good for him, what went through my mind was this ‘that guy looked around this nightclub spotted me and thought I can tap that – oh my god he thought I was achievable; I have become achievable for men who fit the profile of a sex offender – fuck me, does this mean I’ve finally decided on a type?

My friends laughed at me, pointing out that maybe tonight I could find if sex-offenders spooned after that act and so I escaped off into the bathroom hoping to just take a moment to find my confidence in the bottom of my handbag when I walked in on two girls helping each other adjust their g-strings and in the middle of a conversation entitled ‘if you don’t get Brazilian waxes you shouldn’t be allowed to have sex.’

It was then I realised I couldn’t hate my self-esteem – because unlike those two girls in that bathroom that night, well at least I knew what self-esteem was (well that’s what I told myself as I removed the toilet paper from the bottom of my shoe that both girls were kind enough to point out – they could probably tell I was one of those girls now banned from sex according to their new rules) – Score one for Lou! Hi-five….anyone?…anyone?…anyone at all….

Exiting the David Jones food court use to be one of my greatest thrills (understand, I spend most of my day typing words into an inanimate object that fails to engage me in any sort of conversation and no, it’s a not a boy – BAM!) and it was upon making this exit that I ran into a guy called Gareth (yep, let’s call him that cause it’s his real name )

He was a guy I’d met through friends about 18 months back when I relocated to Melbourne. We got on, he was cute, had brown hair and made me laugh and so we agreed to go and have a drink together. Nothing too formal, just a casual get to know you better inner city drink.

But as luck would have it I needed to fly to Sydney that weekend, so we rescheduled – he then had a sudden deadline, we rescheduled. He rang me for that drink; I was going to London for a week but would call when I got back. I did, but he was relocating to New York indefinitely. It was just one of those things…and yet, now here he was standing before me in his cords and tussled hair, maybe it was fate, him catching me just as I was in the middle of gorging on DJ’s fresh baked cookies.

‘Hello’ I smiled as we enviably crossed paths.

‘Oh hi’ he smiled back.

‘You’re back!’ I proclaimed.

‘I’m back’ he too proclaimed!

‘Wow’ I surmised.

‘You look great’ he observed.

‘So do you’ I offered back.

‘What have you been up to?’ he enquired.

‘Oh you know the usual…deadlines and stuff.’ I surrended.

‘Yep, don’t I know it’ he casually laughed back.

‘Yeah’ I nodded.

And then silence befell us both.

‘So maybe we should catch up for that drink?’ I coyishly asked.

Pause.

‘I don’t think so.’ He said.

(Note to self: this is why you don’t ask people out Lou, you see what happens! Sure, you might be a sure thing Lou, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is – BAD GIRL! BAD GIRL!)

‘Oh ok then…’ the words stumbled out of my mouth, as some random biscuit crumbs escaped down my cleavage; a once sexy calling card now functioning as a tragic catchment area.

As I started to schlep away my shoe decided to fall off (don’t look back Lou, keep walking, you don’t need that shoe, you’re a one shoe kinda gal, just keep walking…you’re almost out of site…) and then came a tap on my shoulder.

It was Gareth – I means how many times did I have to run into that guy today!!!!!!!!!

‘You? What do you want?’

‘I wanted to ask you a question?’ he asserted.

‘Yeah, sure whatever…’ I mumbled back.

‘Why would you want to have a drink with a guy that obviously can’t stand the site of?’

‘What?’

‘Well you kept cancelling, and I’m not great with hints but I get there…eventually.’

‘So did you! You cancelled all the time!’

‘I had things come up – you told me you understood Lou.’

‘I had things come up too.’

‘Writing a blog is not a ‘thing’.

‘Yeah, well writing for the…. what it is you wrote for?’

‘The New Yorker Louise.’

‘Yeah, well writing for the New Yorker is not a thing either.’

‘I’ll think you find it is Lou’

“I know you are, but what am I?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing – Belle Jour made money from her blog.’

‘The prostitute?’

‘Yeah, but she was high end.’

‘You’re not high end are you Lou, you have stumpy legs.’

‘Don’t you think I know that!’?

I turned to walk away…’Hey not so fast lady, you didn’t answer my question.’

‘I liked you – I wanted that drink and now I’m back in Melbourne, I can’t say much more than that.’ I spat out, now wishing I’d picked up my other shoe.

‘And you’re committed to Melbourne now?’

‘Yes’ I replied

Now as soon as I said that word I should’ve frozen time, stepped out and gone and got a tattoo in my forehead that read: ‘everything I say from this point in will sound desperate.’

‘I was only asking you out for a drink’ – translated as ‘I’d drink petrol to be with you.’

‘So, are you seeing anyone right now?’ – translated as  ‘I’m fertile, there’s an alley round back, lets go make babies – HI FIVE!’

‘I’m staying with my parents’ – translated as ‘It’s a been a while….’

So you can imagine it came as quite a shock to young Gareth after he leaned in and whispered in my ear ‘Ok, I’ll give you another chance’  -that my response might be ‘thanks, but no thanks.’

‘I knew it!’ he exclaimed! ‘You never liked me and you know how I know? You never even tried to track me down on Facebook!’

‘What? – I didn’t even know your surname!’

‘LIAR!’

‘What is your trauma?’

‘Oh I know all about you Ms Sanz – your comedy, your lesbian group for comics, you’re little blog…and yet you know nothing about me.’

‘Oh believe me Gareth I’m learning a lot right now.’

‘I kept waiting for your friendship request, but nothing…day after day, month after month…’

‘You’re kidding me…you could’ve requested me you know, Facebook is a two way street.’

‘You’d like that wouldn’t you Lou, some guy crawling to you. Back to you.’

‘Back to me? We were never together.’

‘Well that’s news to me Lou.’

(Note to self: buy that house in the country and begin a life of solitude, buy a pug, call him Ned – he will be the only companion you never need.)

‘Listen Gareth I was only suggesting we have a drink to be polite, I’m actually seeing someone right now…sure it’s new and every – ‘

‘LIAR!!!! LOU! LIAR!’

‘Ok, I’m going to go…’

‘What you fail to realise Lou is I read your blogs, your little stories. I know the truth.’

I walked away, his voice fading into the distance…so you read my blogs to you Gareth? Well I hoped you enjoyed this one!!!!

Last week I was off finishing up a contract when I noticed one of the girls in the office staring at me, the type of stare normally reserved for the blacks drinking from whites only water fountains in Mississippi during the 1960’s, gays attending an evangelical church conference, or a severe burns victim.

‘Is everything ok?’ I asked, putting my pen down.

‘You’re left handed’ she pointed out, almost accusingly. Obviously she’d never seen a ‘Southpaw’ up close before, perhaps her only exposure being a leftie idiot savant who ‘liked sling blades’ but accidentally beat children to death with rocks. I could see it in her eyes, the sort of eyes that said ‘being left is a choice so don’t flaunt it round these parts.’

‘And you’re ok with it?’ she continued.

‘Ok with what?’

‘You know, being all left?’

‘It’s not really something I can do anything about, I was born this way.’

‘My grandma says it’s a choice.’

‘You’re grandma isn’t the most educated of people is she?’

‘Well at least she ain’t a leftie.’

…this was not a time for ‘touches’….

I picked up my pen, partly in an act of defiance, partly because there was work to be done ‘You can get it fixed right? – like there’s lots of mutations they can fix these days’.

“It’s not a mutation’

‘I’m just surprised with all the advancements in technology you haven’t done anything bout it.’

‘It’s not something you can fix’.

‘Oh, that’s a shame – I’m sure if you wanted to change you could, but I guess you minorities like your soap boxes. Personally couldn’t think of anything worse.’

‘Really? You couldn’t think of anything worse then being left handed?’

She spat out what was left of her chewing tobacco and sized me up one last time.

‘I had to hit a ball with my left hand once, looked like a spastic - now if you ask me that ain’t no way to live.’

And with that she went back to work, or posting anti abortion rhetoric on the web, I didn’t want to speculate.

This wasn’t the first time I’d faced the ‘idiot brigade’ (a group of like minded people generally set up to pontificate about subjects they know little to nothing about).

At a pub once playing pool a small man, who after inadvertently trying to touch my vagina 2-3 times while trying to reach his beer, noticed rather suddenly as I was about to take my shot that I was in face left handed – he called it out from the other side of the room ‘well fuck me till Tuesday she’s a leftie…shit hand jobs but gotta give em an A for effort’.

So now we were bad at manual labour, which further compounded what the lady at the supermarket check out once said to me as a signed for my purchase.

‘you think you guys be extinct by now, what with survival of the fittest and all, I mean statistically you’re more likely to be schizophrenic, more prone to alcoholism, dyslexia, Chron’s disease and mental disabilities…like you hear all them people going on about how getting rid of a kid when they have the downy gene, if it were me and my kid was a leftie, I’d have to say I ‘d give it some thought – I mean most of you can’t even cut paper.’

Ok –she was right there, most of us (lefties) remember primary school and being allocated the special green Crayola scissors sans blades! And it didn’t matter how many times you tried to tell the teacher that you didn’t have a learning disability you were never allowed on the swing like the other kids and, were supervised unlike the right handed kids in class whenever you required a toilet trip, or any other trip that involved being responsible for locking your own door.

Registering at a doctor’s surgery one day, my boyfriend noted that I had failed to put anything in the ‘suffer from any other condition we should know about’ section.

‘You should let them know you’re a left handed.’

‘Why?’

‘Cause what if they give you the wrong medication?’

‘Maybe you should put down you’re Jewish’.

‘That’s being stupid, it’s not an illness – it’s something you’re born with.’

‘But what if they give you medication for Christians?’

‘What a stupid thing to say Lou, for a smart girl you can be so ignorant sometimes, I mean you try being part of a minority.’

I was banned from writing on the board at school because I was a ‘smudger’, a devout Catholic wouldn’t sit next to me once because I was powered by the hand of the devil; this was a girl mind you who masturbated next to me 8 months later in church, but to her credit she used she used her right hand – the hand that Jesus would’ve used.

My mum even took me to a left-handed support group once (where you could buy the T-Shirt; ‘Once you’ve turned left you won’t want the rest’), where an expert on the affliction came along to talk to us (he was right handed). He told us that in his experience that being left handed was just one of life’s anomalies – sure we all had a predisposition to violent primitive crimes, but we also be geniuses in the making, basically that we made up the extremely gifted – we all smiled – but he continued – ‘but a majority will find that you make up the extremely compromised’, and we should be encouraged to get involved in wrestling and boxing – any sort of primitive sport that doesn’t involve thought or reason – we were after all left handed and according to Darwin’s theory of evolution should’ve been killed off years ago – and then he asked if there were any more chocolate biscuits left to go with his tea.

The mutants in the room all grunted, some even banged their chests…but chose not to attack…our time would come.

Not to long ago I went on a date with someone. Things looked promising that is until he asked me what my favourite colour was; when I responded ‘red’ rather then smile with the knowing that comes with sitting opposite me complete with red lipstick and nails, he merely got out a notepad and pen and said ‘you’ll have to pick another one, that’s already taken’.

‘Already taken?’ I asked quizzically ‘ are we playing a game?’

‘No, it’s just I like to colour code everyone in my life and red just happens to be taken’ He waited, pen poised for my next suggestion.

‘Ok, well I’ve always quite liked green’ and in an awkward attempt to flirt, as I leaned across the table and traced my red nails over his hand ‘I especially like green on dark haired boys.’

Pulling his hand away to flick through his notepad he let out a gentle sigh ‘nup, sorry – gone’.

I slumped back into my seat and closed my legs. ‘Ok fine, why don’t you tell me what’s available and I’ll be that’.

As he took the last piece of bread in the basket, he chewed silently for a moment and then with his mouth still full remarked ‘well, there’s lilac or mahogany brown’.

Now, I don’t know about any other ladies out there but the idea of being assigned a colour usually relegated to the 1990’s or a Harvey Norman catalogue wasn’t really what I had in mind, surely I was good enough to claim a primary colour? I mean we were on a date, he could’ve just lied, but as was the case with most men I’d been meeting of late, this one had a flare for the truth.

‘I don’t want to be a catalogue colour’ I mumbled, tearing at my drink coaster.

‘I don’t really think you’re in a position to choose Lou – I mean did you honestly think you’d risen to the ranks of being allocated a primary colour?’

I said nothing, as my eyes scoured the restaurant for a bar tender.

He smiled to himself as he shut his notepad ‘oh, you did – you thought you were better then mahogany brown – oh how cute. That’s why I like you Lou you always dream big but end up getting woken right before the end.’

I contemplated emptying the ash tray of beer liquid that had somehow found a home there when he placed his hand over mine.

‘If it makes you feel any better, most of the woman I date get  a little upset about the colour code thing.’

‘Most of the woman?’

Like an impending sex offender he grabbed my hand harder and looked into my eyes.

‘That’s kinda what got this whole colour coded thing started’.

I pulled away and began fingering my pasta.

‘So this whole colour coding thing is a new thing?’

‘Yep, it’s the only way I know to tell all you girls apart’.

Ok – so it’s now at this point that most people ask ‘where the fuck do you meet these guys Lou?’ And it is at this point in my life that I say ‘I choose not to answer that, just leave me alone – life is a journey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

‘Tell us apart!?!’ I yelled – the whole restaurant turned.

‘Hey, lower your voice Lou’

‘Sorry’…I mumbled…

‘That’s ok, apology accepted’ He looked around the restaurant, most people had returned to their meals.

‘Tell us apart?’ I whispered harshly ‘have you ever thought of just looking at our faces, it’s generally how people tell people apart.’

‘Conventionally yes, but when you’re seeing more then one girl at once it can get confusing’

‘you’re seeing someone else?’

‘I’m a player Lou, you know that.’

‘No I didn’t – you failed to mention it between the whole – I’ve never met anyone like you bullshit you were peddling’

‘Ok Lou, now you’re just being petulant’

I drained the last of my wine.

‘So, who is she? This ‘other’ girl?’

‘It wouldn’t be ethical of me to name names’

‘This isn’t a war crimes tribunal’ I spat out.

‘Fine, but if I tell you we’re splitting cheesecake for desert – deal?’

I pondered it a moment – the cheese cake did look good….very good….

‘Deal.’

‘The other girl is the colour red’

I was quiet for a moment. The funny thing is I would of been fine had she been beige or bisque – but red – my colour!

‘That’s funny’ I said ‘Cause you’re about to see red’

And with that I poked him in the eye with my desert fork. No cheesecake for me.

Hi

I’m producing the highly impressionable Celia Pacquola in her debut solo show – Celia Pacquola in Am I Strange for this years Melbourne Fringe Festival 2008.

It’s on from 7-9 October at 7.30pm, 30 Getrude St Fitzroy. Bookings at www.melbournefringe.com.au or you can grab tickets at the door.

I wear eyeliner.

I make no apologies for that, but when it results in me getting forcibly removed from a stationary train…I start to get a little pissy. 



For some reason I often get mistaken for a hair dresser, even the girls that have been doing my nails for the past few months still think that, even though I have corrected them on many an occasion. Comments about how my eyes are tired from staring at a computer screen all day, how I adore their hand massages because as a ‘writer’ my wrists feel constantly strained (and this is not due to being a chronic self pleasure as some might allude to…). I’ve even bought in published articles I’ve written from reputable magazines and asked if I could leave them in the waiting room for their other clients to enjoy (to this day they have denied my constant requests). 



One might be wondering at this point what this has to do with another tale of my woe? I’m on my way there. I bought my train ticket at the window (I like to think that somehow this small gesture keeps someone employed – and gives me brownie points in hell). The transaction apparently went smoothly, that is until the ticket man told me how much I reminded him of his wife. She was a bitch and she was also dead. (I’m now a big advocate of ticket machines at train stations). 


I ventured to platform 12, as directed, purchased a newspaper, tossed the sports section, and hopped in what I failed to notice was a stationary train. After about 10 minutes of being stared at by a small blonde man who blessed me under his breath every time I tried to avoid eye-contact with him, I got up to find out what was going on and dreaming of the day I’d have my own personal driver, who with the slap of a glove I could fire for such insubordinance…when suddenly I was confronted by a woman who bore a striking resemblance to a brick wall – the kind kids bounce tennis balls against, or as a high school kid you pashed behind. 

Her name was Sarah, though when we were at high school together, she was referred to as ‘the terror’.

Rumour had it, that upon graduation she had tried to flee to New Zealand to shack up with some guy she’d met on the Internet. She’d run into strife when, while going through the metal detector she got a little worked up and was aggressively subjected to a cavity searched to make sure she wasn’t carrying a bomb. She would later recall the incident as the only time she’d ever needed help cuming. I was a little scared of her, and to top it all up she was a certified ticket inspector. 


‘Well, well – if it isn’t Louie Da Fly’ she rumbled.

‘Barely recognised you for a minute, but then I watched you for a while through that window and then it was just like I knew it was you, cos I had this dream about you once and you were in it and your hair was really short – so that’s how I recognised you cos you looked like that girl in my dream, but she was proper tall and you’re not that tall are you?’



Supposing it was a rhetorical question I chose not to answer. Instead I smiled politely, and tried to get off the train –’Look it’s really nice to see you again Sarah – do you know what’s happening with the trains?’



The storm came suddenly, without warning – ‘What? Aren’t you even going to ask me how I’ve been? What I’ve been up to? Is this what happens when you get famous all of a sudden?’ (So sudden – I was caught completely unawares…)


‘You heard me! Someone told me you’d become one of those celebrity hairdressers, so I Googled you and there you were and I found your blog…ooh, so now you’re published…but I read it, not my cup of tea if I’m honest, but I thought I’d at least be in there somewhere – but it’s like you’ve forgotten me – why? Are you too busy with all your famous friends and their famous people parties? (I’m going to point out at this point that I was running late for a meeting at an employment agency…)


Trying to ease the tension, I went for humour ‘I’m more of a stay at home with a DVD type gal.’

‘You’re not funny,’ spat back Sarah.

I hung my head ‘I know.’


A few seconds passed with neither of us saying a word.

‘You wear eyeliner’, she stated. 


‘Yes, yes I do.’


‘I’m rubbish at it. Eyeliner that is.’

The door was only inches away….

‘It’s pretty easy, practice really.’


‘Teach me’ she asked,

‘Um, I really have to go.’ I responded, like a coward. 


‘No, I’ve got a break coming up, we could go to the girls bathroom and –’she was insistent.


My discomfort was growing.
’I really must go Sarah, if you’ll just let me-’
’-oh now you’re in a hurry – you were sitting on a stationary train a few minutes ago and didn’t seem in a hurry.’ (damn Connex!)

‘Listen Sarah, I’m getting the impression and correct me if I’m wrong – that you think we have some sort of friendship that I’m obligated to rekindle – well my recollection is of a girl who smeared dog faeces on my locker – in short Sarah from what I recall you are no friend of mine!’



She said nothing for a moment. I imaged for a second that she might step back, nod her head and let me get on with my life – I was wrong.


‘Can I see your ticket?’ flipping out her official ID.

‘My ticket?’

‘Is there a problem? – If you can’t produce a ticket madam I’m going to have to escort you off the train.’

Ok – so she wasn’t taking my little outburst as well as I’d hoped. 
 Searching my handbag, I began to panic, when suddenly I spotted the ticket at my feet. 
 As I bent down to pick it up, I felt a clammy hand take my arm and start to forcibly remove me from the train. 


‘I’m sorry, but failure to produce a ticket when asked is an immediate on the spot fine of $180.00′ – I swear she was grinning. 


I looked at the little blonde man with pleading eyes, needing his help, to look within himself – to acknowledge that while he’d been mentally undressing me he’d remember seeing my ticket drop from my bag to the ground. Both myself and Sarah stopped for a moment as he cocked his head, opened his mouth and proclaimed – ‘Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?…Don’t yah!’