Say what you will about Michael Jackson, he is the only person in recorded history to have pronounced the word ‘mirror’ correctly.
Americans say either ‘meerrr’ or ‘miyerr’.
Australians say ‘mirra’.
MJ had it right. And whatever we selectively forget about him, we should remember that.
Old friends reunion A sudden urge to update The apps on my phone
Adrian reached for his Mum’s hand.
‘Mummy, I think I can totally handle wasabi now. Like... it’s not too spicy or anything.’
Adrian’s mother offered an encouraging smile.
‘Of course you can darling. I knew you’d do it.’
And you’re 42 years old, she thought.
And she knew she’d never tell him the full story. He couldn’t know.
That she had always bought him medium sized underpants and sewn an XL tag into the waistband to reassure him he was a big boy.
That she’d cleared the children’s hill on a family ski trip and assured him this was a black diamond run.
That the wasabi industrial complex had gradually diluted the version of its green condiment that was manufactured for Anglophone markets with mushed up peas and broccoli stems.
The day after I bought a whipper snipper, (My first ever whipper snipper), My neighbour whipper snipped my tiny grass patch. Mine was still in the box. Would it have been worse if he took up with my wife or parented my children? No. This is worse. Tomorrow I’m going to whip and snip someone else’s tiny grass patch, And if the benefactor of my whipping and snipping feels emasculated, I will feel slightly better.
‘If’, uttered Glen, ‘it is acceptable to carry a small bag of faecal matter while walking next to a dog...‘
A pause, while Glen awaited interjections. None arrived. He continued.
‘Then why do we frown upon the man cupping blood near a park bench? Or anyone gently swinging a bucket of semen at a bus stop?’
Point made, Glen was poised to receive any retort.
But the train carriage was empty, so victory was Glen’s.
Neil was the first carpenter on the building site. But Neale wasn’t far behind. Always early to a new job. Always. Scope the place out. Wow the client.
‘G’day’, said Neil. ‘Name’s Neil.’
‘Neil’, accepted Neale, ‘I go by Neale.’
Neil leaned against a fence post. Neale backed awkwardly into the tray of his ute. Or it could have been Neil’s. Same make, model, year.
Wendy emerged from the house, weatherboards rotting, verandah sagging. Bloody knockdown, thought Neil. As did Neale. Both poker faced.
‘You must be Noel’, Wendy said to at least one of the two carpenters in front of her house.
‘Neil’, said Neil. ‘Neale’, said Neale. Simultaneously.
‘Common mistake’, said Neil and Neale. Also simultaneously.
There was some confusion, and Wendy remarked upon it. She’d get to the bottom of it, but she needed a job done. Soon as.
Neil was happy to oblige. As was Neale. Neither was too aggressive, but neither could lose the work.
‘Would you go halvies? Do it as a team?’, said Wendy, sniffing a better outcome for the same price.
Neil looked at Neale. Neale looked down. First at his own steel capped toes. Then at Neil’s. Then at Neil’s knees, calloused from a life of kneeling.
Neale’s gaze rose gradually. To Neil’s tradie shorts, stubby little pencil sharpened. Measuring tape securely spooled.
To Neil’s sturdy chest. Wiry, powerful arms. His thin lips, yellowed teeth. Once broken nose. Sunglasses tan line. Neale remembered to breathe.
Neil returned Neale’s gaze, and for a moment Wendy wasn’t there. The twin utes were fluffy cloud, and Neil was floating high above the knockdown weatherboard cottage. Neale circling him in the sky.
‘Righto’, said Neale. ‘Righto’, said Neil. Simultaneously.
And they got to work.
You can enter the bathroom while I’m showering.
You can leave the door wide open.
You can screech for no apparent reason to attract attention to the bathroom with the door open where I’m showering.
Even when my Mum is visiting.
You can do all of this. I can take it.
But when you scrunch the bath mat up a little bit so it’s not nice and flat and lovely and dry for when I get out of the shower... that’s when you devalue me. As a human.
This is me. I am human.
Oh – hi Mum.
“I’m looking for a picnic rug”, said Mark with a smile. The department store lady offered no empathetic reaction whatsoever.
“For you?”, she blurted, not having seen a male person in the homewares section in her eight years of service.
“Yes.”
Mark had not planned for this conversation. Were certain picnic furnishings aimed at certain types of people?
“We’ve only got pink ones left”, said the lady with an air of termination.
“OK”, said Mark, defeated and already backing away.
It was months before Mark would leave the house again, and when he did, it was with his picnic rug. Having had to plumb the depths of the dark web to find it, Mark’s rug was befitting of his gender. It bore a repeating pattern depicting penises snaking around beer cans, and he only loved it because he had been radicalised by incels and no longer loved himself.
‘I’ll pack’, said Glen, his voice intentionally imbued with masculine energy.
At the checkout, Jeremy looked up, shocked. His eyes darted downward from Glen’s close cropped hair to Glen’s groceries, parading like infantry on the conveyer.
Cashews and lean mince. V8 juice and rat bait.
‘OK’, said Jeremy fearfully, as he scanned the barcode of a bag of unwashed potatoes.
Jeremy hoped like heck that Glen knew what he was doing.
It’s a truth self evident that people treat other people better when the other people are wearing bandaids on their faces.