Fat Shite, Meet Karma

For a blissful month, life was good for The Boyfriend and Yours Truly. Cali Gurrrl and Beanie Face were excellent housemates, readily available every weekend for saturating our tormented brains with alcohol. Jelly shots and sangria and punch were regulars on our pre-drinking list. I enjoyed myself immensely, or so I was kindly reminded by everyone during postmortems the morning-after. I became a bit of a maniacal fixture on the streets of Melbourne on Friday nights - I met and terrified The Kooks, I was refused from almost every upscale pub (wholly the fault of whoever invented high heels), I happily accepted offers of hot chips from the charitable souls who fed the homeless (wholly the fault of whoever made sidewalks so comfortable for drowsy drunks) and tearfully - and regularly - questioned The Boyfriend's intentions and sincerity regarding our relationship (wholly his fault for staying with me so long, if you think about it).

I was making a few nice friends in my workplace and The Boyfriend's work had gotten the sponsorship process underway. We had something to look forward to and that made all the difference.

Fat Shite updated his Facebook statuses with snide remarks abut how wonderful life was in Brisbane with his new job and his new friends. Little did he know, his wonderful life in Brisbane made mine in Melbourne a whole lot more bearable. However, I'm a spiteful thing not-so-deep-down and frequently hoped his balloon-sized head would be somewhat deflated some day.

Some day was sooner than I thought.

I'd remained friends with Sour Puss and her soccer star significant other for purely inquisitorial purposes. Though the jabbing statuses annoyed me, I couldn't help but check their pages to track their progress. It's an embarrassing admission, but I am a thorough-bred country bumpkin and as such, gossip is as necessary as oxygen. So when I randomly spotted that one of Sour Puss' friends had posted a welcome home message on her page, only for the same message to be deleted hours later, I almost shat.

I hollered for The Boyfriend, told him the news. Being the good person he is, he shrugged noncommittally, and returned to his perusal of the broken window latch in the kitchen. 

It was the first morning I was eager to get to work. I barreled past Boss and Sappy, barely acknowledging their yawned greetings and pulled a couple of girls from the deli into the coat room and basically spat out the revelation that Fat Shite had returned home, tail between his chafing thighs. if there is one thing that will unite girls on a global scale, it is someone Getting Their Comeuppance. I realise now how horrendous it was that I was garnering mirth from the failure of another human being, but I literally could not help myself. I couldn't think of a more deserving fate to a more deserving fellow. 

Australia isn't for everyone - I don't even know if it's for me. I understand completely how one could become overwhelmed and abandon this dusty continent for the familiarity of home, but Fat Shite's scary-tale-ending was too hilarious to jot down to homesickness. 

The Boyfriend heard the whole story from home. Fat Shite had lasted six days in total in Brisbane. What became of his dream job, I will probably never know. Apparently, their money ran out and his parents bought them rescue flights. The Boyfriend was painfully wise and silent about the whole thing - "What goes around, comes around", he astutely informed us that weekend, the table around which we gathered scattered with empty bottles of $2 wine bottles. 

I slurred something incomprehensible and slumped to the ground, reveling in what felt like a victory. 

Six months later, The Boyfriend and I were living in an almost derelict hotel for backpackers over an ex-Nazi hangout, clutching a rejection to our sponsorship request, potential doors to progression slamming in our faces, all hope obliterated, traitorous tears brimming. 

And that, my friends, was my own introduction to karma - and she's as much of a bitch as everyone has ever said. 

Handling the Truth with Wine

Let me dispel several misconceptions about the big move to See The Wizard. Ireland is currently a land with a young and educated  albeit jobless populace. This is due to the infamous Recession. The Recession is not merely a period of economic decline in Ireland - it is an all-consuming, depressive cloud of misery that has infected the inhabitants of my beloved emerald isle, rendering most of them penniless and lacking in alternative conversation topics. To me, it was the perfect excuse to explain my lack of job. It's not that I didn't apply for jobs - I did. I just failed to apply for the jobs that pertained to my recently acquired degree, or jobs that were considered remotely reputable.
In short, I did nothing note-worthy after college and had to bail because bumping into the people who thought I'd be a success and repeatedly explaining that I couldn't be arsed becoming a success was getting increasingly tedious. Well, that and the fact that I wanted to see more of the world, or whatever nonsense us twenty-somethings spout these days.
Australia was the new land of opportunity. Everyone knew someone from down the road who'd hopped on a plane and become a millionaire overnight; someone who's homecoming was a spectacle of prosperity and triumph; someone with disposable income and a glorious tan. Naturally, I assumed I would return like all these other friends-of-a-friend - a fanfare announcing my arrival, my person newly bronzed and beautiful, astride a gleaming white unicorn, leaden down with chests of gold coins, backside visibly shrunken. Just the usual emigration-related dreams, I guess.
How life actually unfolded down under was rather different. I mentioned my pathetic phone interview in the cubicle at the Aquarium? Well, it seems this "consultation" was quiet the appropriate prerequisite to my career at Urban Deli. My boss was a bald Rastafarian wannabe, with a penchant for squeezing his female employees in inappropriate places and an unhealthy obsession with Bob Marley. He was running the cafe with his friend/manager/mistress Sappy, whose frequent emotional breakdowns were apparently par for the course according to the other workers. Boss and Sappy had a very peculiar relationship - though Boss had a long-term partner and two children, Sappy evidently had something else he needed and their habitual retreats to the coat room during the work day were long and strictly uninterrupted. One minute they were pawing at each other like hormonal teenagers, the next Sappy was screaming and sobbing, and Boss was turning up the volume on "No Woman, No Cry".
Every day, I waited tables and avoided Boss and Sappy's rip roaring rows. I tried my best to be the best waitress ever but I was incredibly bad at it, what with my natural clumsiness and utter hatred for the job. There one year in total, I witnessed an entire staff turnover before I left. Though the money was amazing by Irish standards, the Australian cost of living was exorbitant and I saved exactly nothing in all my full time employment there.
I applied for better jobs, but was rejected on the grounds of my visa. My non-residency seriously depleted my options - it was either cafe work or nothing. It seemed to me that the only people who could make a real killing were the tradesmen. Unfortunately, my laughable degree in English and philosophy didn't exactly qualify me in that category. And so hospitality it was, and still remains.
Though we wanted to travel, we also wanted to save some money. The Boyfriend was particularly intent on avoiding a return to Ireland in rags, and so we worked constantly and took no time off. As a working holiday visa holder, I was unable to work for more than six months in one job. To avoid this, one must go off the books and consequently lose all ones rights.
To get another years visa to stay in Australia we were required to complete 88 days of regional work. I tried to put a brave face on it, declaring the thoughts of picking fruits among snakes a delightful new experience, but inside I was dreading it.We spent our weekends and our money in pubs with Cali Gurrrl and Beanie Face. We lived in a mediocre house for extortionate rent and the dream that was supposedly Australia was growing more nightmarish by the day.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the constant rain. Melbourne is pretty beautiful and interesting and all that, but we arrived to eight months of constant and heavy rain, coming straight from an Irish winter into an annoyingly similar winter here.
The mythic splendour of life down under is just that - a myth. To make it here, you have to be willing to work hard and to do pretty much anything to get there. It's cut-throat for those who don't have a specific profession. And even at that, a lot of people have to go through refresher courses because their qualification is not recognised in that particular Australian state. Of course, these courses come attached to thousands of dollars worth of fees to us non-nationals. It's an arduous journey, and our venture to See The Wizard was slowly disillusioning our young minds. Thankfully, I've always been cynical and horrible, but The Boyfriend deserved more.
Then, The Boyfriend's company then gave us some unexpected good news. They were so impressed with his prowess and work ethic that they were willing to look into sponsoring him, thereby allowing us to stay in the country for a further four years, with potential for permanent residency if we got lucky. It meant we could avoid the regional work, and get a nice house by the beach some day just for the both of us. We agreed and the process began.
It was probably the hardest thing we ever had to do, and it only got worse.
But never fear - this all happened after the $2 bottles of wine discovery. So we don't even remember how bad it really was.

Introducing Beanie Face and Cali Gurrrl

The new housemates were strange and alien to The Boyfriend and I - they tried to engage us in conversation, for one. They were eager for employment, for another. It had been so long since The Boyfriend and Yours Truly had been around normal human beings that we were suspicious and shy around them at first. They were a couple in their mid-twenties; an Australian boy fond of head-wear who will be hereby known as Beanie Face, and his gorgeous American girlfriend, who will be hereby referred to as Cali Gurrrl. In Australia six months after a year-long 'round-the-world trip, they had decided to move to Melbourne for a change of scenery. They baffled me with their unplanned adventures, and their readiness to spend money on excursions. Years spent squeezing my few pennies throughout college and in the lead up to the big transition to See The Wizard had left me almost pained at the idea of voluntary expenditure on anything not absolutely necessary - that is, anything that wasn't alcohol or cigarettes. So, naturally, The Boyfriend and I befriended them the only way we knew how - through the irresponsible consumption of the Demon Drink.

We all piled into Dallas and chugged our way to Woolworths, where I made the greatest discovery of my
short and dull life - two dollar bottles of 11% white wine. We each grabbed a box of six bottles, and after some tricky maneuvering on The Boyfriend's part, managed to haul Dallas out of the ramp-ridden parking lot, and headed back the house. 

To say we got inebriated is probably akin to a statement which implies I was moderately pleased Fat Shite had finally upped and left us.

Anyway, the next day, sore and hiding from daylight, we agreed we were a group who were talented at getting drunk together. And so it happened that the following weekend, Cali Gurrrl, Beanie Face, The Boyfriend and Yours Truly found ourselves heading on a wine tour. 

Now, this may be an unfathomable concept to my Irish comrades - I certainly was pretty disbelieving when Cali Gurrrl first brought up the notion of a wine tour. "A tour, where you are driven to different wineries, and can sample as many wines as you liked?" Cali Gurrl continued. "Where they have about twenty different blends stacked in bottles behind the bar and you just point and they pour?" Cali Gurrrl nodded, and went on. "AND IT'S FREE?!?!" I literally almost fainted.

But it turned out Cali Gurrrl was telling the truth, and after I'd gotten over the initial shell-shock, we were on our way. We went to the Yarra Valley, a picturesque place with rolling hills and sprawling vineyards, home to the about 80 winemakers and their wares, including the famous Domaine Chandon, the only Australian winery founded by Moët and Chandon. In short, it was all very prestigious and fanciful, and with The Boyfriend's sudden declaration that he regretted being the designated driver, I should have known then and there that the day wouldn't be quite the elegant and sophisticated gustatory experience I'd envisioned.

Two hours later, Cali Gurrrl and I were probably drunker than is humanly possible. Beanie Face and The Boyfriend stood, arms folded, clucking disapprovingly like two old hens. To be fair, they had reason. We were outside our third winery and I'd walked into the glass door that was the exit - an exit I'd been ushered toward kindly by some old, gentlemanly wine connoisseur who I'd strong-armed into a photo with me. I was trying to keep it together - I really was. Unfortunately, I was failing miserably. My smile was lopsided, my voice several octaves higher than usual, my head was fuzzy and I kept desperately slurring at the winery employees that I could work there for a while to snare my second year visa, if they would like. Cali Gurrrl was whining in the background about Beanie Face's refusal to partake in the tastings - he'd been struck down by hay-fever or some nonsense. My alcohol-addled mind fervently agreed with her postulations, so I joined in the tirade of abuse, openly insulting my new housemate whom I knew nothing about.

We moved on to Chandon - I don't know what The Boyfriend was thinking. Really, he should have had more sense. That visit lasted about ten minutes. Cali Gurrrl and I couldn't even make it out the door, and decided to roll around in the bushes at the entrance door - as you do. Beanie Face and The Boyfriend finally must have decided it was time to drag us home, where Cali Gurrrl and I locked ourselves in the bathroom for two hours, discussing our respective other halves' many failures and annoying habits. After that, I thankfully remember nothing.

I woke up the next morning, wrenching my twenty pound head off the pillow, ropes of spittle clinging to the sheets, a wave of nausea overwhelming my fully-clothed body. The hangover was immense, unbearable. I met Cali Gurrrl in the kitchen, bent over the sink. I sighed inwardly, resigning myself to the fact that I'd ruined it with another pair of housemates - and these ones hadn't even done anything remotely irritating. They had talked to us, they had agreed to venturing outside the house with us`- they seemed like genuinely nice, normal people. They had even bought toilet paper. My eyes actually filled with tears - damn emotional hangovers. Damn housemates. Damn drunken version of me. I waited for the inevitable cold silence.

Then something wonderful happened - Cali Gurrrl turned around. She saw me standing there, pathetic and undoubtedly disgusting. And she laughed. She bent over with laughter. She cried she was laughing so hard. And so we sat there, at eight in the morning, on the floor of the crustiest post-session kitchen in the world, giggling until our stomachs hurt, reminiscing about our horrific drunken behaviour the day before.

Somehow, The Boyfriend and I had made friends.

A Tearful Farewell. And By Tearful, I Mean Long-Awaited.

 Fat Shite had mentioned in passing – to me, of all people – that some big soccer club in Brisbane had expressed interest in his apparent experience and skills. It was the first sentence he'd deigned to utter to me in weeks, so I didn't pay it much heed. I muttered something about how wonderful that was and retreated to my room, averting further discussion about his many talents, because that was always boring.

Anyway, more weeks passed, the barbecue debacle happened, and I arrived home after another days work to find the house suspiciously and uncharacteristically pristine. I peeped in at the sitting room – toenail clipping-free! I glanced at the sink – the towering Pisa of dirty dishes had disappeared, the counter tops glistened, the floor liberated from its top layer of unknown sticky substance. Warily, almost not daring to hope, I checked the bathroom. Lo and behold, there was a roll of toilet paper expertly threaded through the actual toilet paper roll holder!

For one glorious moment, I revelled in the cleanliness. Then I recalled by whose hand such work must have been done, considering everyone else was at work, and immediately my joy splintered into suspicion.

This continued for some days. I expressed, loudly, my apprehensions at regular intervals to The Boyfriend. Why was Fat Shite suddenly cleaning the house? He was also greeting us when we walked into the room. Something was wrong. The Boyfriend agreed, and began to notice things were being moved about during the day in our own room. He's always had more common sense than me, and I suspect he was beginning to piece things together at this point. I, however, remained perplexed and skeptical  refusing to acknowledge Fat Shite's abrupt friendliness or his unwarranted interest in sanitation. 

Then, as these things tend to do, it all came to a head, like the eventual eruption of a bulbous, pulsing pimple on a pubescent chin.

The Boyfriend called the real estate agent. She informed us that Fat Shite had contacted her, regarding his wish to back out of the house and asking how he could ensure he still got his deposit back. He'd lied and told her that The Boyfriend and Yours Truly were fully aware of his intentions. He'd been showing the house to interested parties, hence the unusual immaculate state of our heretofore grimy home.

No words can express the level of fury I felt that day. I knew Fat Shite deserved the nickname I had so subtly granted him, but that day I realised he had earned it - the only thing he has earned or will ever earn in his whole life, I predict.  As The Boyfriend regaled me with the tale, I stormed angrily around our room, my voice becoming more high pitched with every detail he shared, my face reddening to an alarming depth, my hands shaking, my fists balling – then I snapped.

Now, I have never been exceptionally good at keeping my emotions in check. I don't rant, I rampage. I don't shout, I shriek. I don't think, I just talk.

So, that being said, when I hollered for Fat Shite and Sour Puss to join me in the infuriatingly tidy sitting room, I wasn't looking for a calm and collected conversation.

Fat Shite finally shared his plans – he was moving to Brisbane to start a career coaching the best soccer team in all of Australia. He was going to find two people to replace him, thereby regaining his deposit. The flights were booked, the deed done. All that he was waiting for was two people willing to shack up with us. I responded by screaming that I hoped his plane crashed and killed them both. It wasn't my best moment, nor my wittiest rebuttal. The Boyfriend quietly informed them that they couldn't move anyone into the house without our consent – something I probably should have led with.

A week later, a new couple were living with The Boyfriend and I. And a day after that, we came home to Fat Shite and Sour Puss's empty room. They had sneaked away in the dead of night, without a word of goodbye, leaving only a lingering stench and Fat Shite's favourite beer mug as proof they had ever been there at all.

I smashed that beer mug. I smashed it good.

A Decisive Barbecue

The Boyfriend has some family out here in Australia - an aunt and uncle-in-law who moved here years ago when they first got married. They are the ultimate success story and somewhat of an inspiration to The Boyfriend and I - the young Irish couple who made it, so to speak. Upon hearing of our arrival, the aunt invited us out to theirs for a barbecue  where The Boyfriend was to meet with cousins he had heretofore never met and catch up with extended relatives. The Boyfriend, might I add, has a big heart and a painfully endearing ability to see the good in all individuals he comes across. And it was this very quality that resulted in my being stuck in the back of Dallas with Sour Puss, matching her dour expression with an impressive effort myself, due to Fat Shite's overwhelming presence in the passenger seat - MY seat - immediately in front of me.
The long, awkward journey was punctuated with heartless attempts at conversation from The Boyfriend, many a grunt from Fat Shite - who had insisted on relegation to the front of the car because of his bad knee - and endless scowls and fist-clenching from Yours Truly. We made a minor stop at a 7/11, to fuel up and stretch the legs. I bought a bottle of water, only to be flatly informed by Sour Puss that drinking water from plastic bottles resulted in cancer. Rich advice coming from the girl who lay out in the garden to burn herself red and raw because she couldn't  be bothered to wait to tan and fit in with the bronzed Aussies.
The Boyfriend returned with snacks, for which I was eternally grateful. Fat Shite questioned our purchases, insisting it was stupid to eat now as The Boyfriend's aunt would be providing us with a generous spread. Of course, he couldn't comprehend that that was exactly why we were eating before arriving, lest we make pigs of ourselves. Unfortunately, this was a consideration Fat Shite failed to take in to account.
We arrived at The Boyfriend's aunts, were welcomed warmly and retreated quietly to a corner at Fat Shite's request - the knee, remember. He quickly accepted any beers offered, and only relaxed when the food was brought out. The Boyfriend and I looked on, appalled, as Fat Shite hobbled over to the roast meat, piling his plate high with everything, tackling the younger cousins like he was on a rugby field for the potatoes, shouldering his way past to grab a few extra chicken skewers.
The Boyfriend and I grew silent as we watched him clean the plate of its contents, refusing to swallow as he regaled the table with tales of his success as a football coach. I don't know how he managed to eat at all, considering how full of bullshit he was. Once he'd had his fill, he looked to The Boyfriend and asked every ten minutes, to the second, when we were heading back home. He didn't even deign to thank the members of the Boyfriend's family whose pantry had likely been emptied on his account.
The drive home was in uncomfortable silence - I was positioned smugly in the passenger seat. The Boyfriend looked angrier than I'd ever seen him. This was worse than toenail clippings, or a withheld debt; this surpassed the refusals to buy household essentials or boasts about salary- this made the stolen chicken pale in comparison. This was a display of bad manners witnessed by The Boyfriend's family - he seethed at the downright rudeness of it all. Fat Shite moaned once about his knee, and The Boyfriend immediately sped up to bounce through a pot hole. I was ready to give these housemates of mine hell - I was already plotting to hide the toothpaste and shampoo, chuckling to myself at the thoughts of Sour Puss going without one of her twice-daily showers.
Then the unthinkable happened. The war was cancelled, the preparations fruitless.
Fat Shite and Sour Puss had left our lives forever within the fortnight.
Bit of an anti-climax, eh?

The Life and Lies of Fat Shite

It was painfully obvious from very early on in our travels that Fat Shite and I were never going to be the greatest of friends. Having spent all of his life at home on his doting mother's sofa, funding his pointless existence of Playstation games, meals at TGI Fridays and the odd venture as far as the cinema with his social welfare cheque, this relocation to Australia was his first sole escapade. Sour Puss was in similar circumstances, so was equally unprepared. It wasn't their lack of ability to function in the real world that bothered me (I myself still don't fully comprehend the various machinations of a tumble dryer), but their utter lack of desire to learn anything about it.

Sour Puss landed a job as a sandwich hand in a cafe the same week I started my own job. She was fired within two weeks, her manager citing her “bad attitude” as the basis for this termination. It seemed her very namesake was proving her unpopular with the customers, so Sour Puss tried her hand at hairdressing. Unfortunately, she was hired as an apprentice and since the company was too small to offer her a more long term visa, she had to pack that in as well. Finally, she was confined to a kitchen over a restaurant, where she chopped carrots and baked pre-mixed muffins for a paltry 10 dollars an hour. We were all glad that she'd finally settled somewhere, though, because Fat Shite was having no luck.

He coached aspiring teenagers in the art of soccer Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at weekends, he himself showed off his “skills” in an effort to prove himself worthy of the clubs first team. One memorable evening he regaled us all with a flowery tale about how the team's manager and owner had been driving along the highway, stopped the car suddenly mid-traffic-flow, turned to Fat Shite and apparently said, and I quote; “I know how good you are, YOU know how good you are. Don't doubt it, mate. You're just what the club needs.” Despite these rousing assurances, four weeks in, Fat Shite still hadn't made the first team. And inevitably, he feigned an ankle injury and blamed its ongoing healing process for his lack of progression through the ranks. Jobless, and now apparently out of health, I was greeted every evening by the ghastly sight of his sizeable greatness sprawled all over the couch, beer in hand, toenail clippings littering the floor at his propped-up feet.

It seemed there was a direct correlation between his periods of doing nothing and the enormity of his lies.

He told us he had gone for job interviews, gotten said job right there and then, but had to turn the potential employer down flat because the money wasn't to his standards. Sour Puss was working from 4 in the morning and returning home at 4 in the afternoon to his requests for dinner and many a dramatic intake of breath every time he heaved himself up from his well-worn couch groove. His manager at the club offered him some paltry paint job on his own house, which he did and then hobbled back to our house with a six pack under his arm, declaring that his boss had offered him a beer on the job so he figured it would be acceptable to take half a dozen from the fridge and bring it home for his evening of slothfulness. The Boyfriend got a work vehicle and a fuel card. Suddenly, Fat Shite was claiming he was entitled to similar benefits and that the club was looking to buy him a new car and a work phone. He had no job, but he was pulling in a grand a week. I bought a washing machine and said they could pay me back when they could. He went and bought an internet package so he and Sour Puss could Skype home every couple of hours that weekend for 80 dollars, but couldn't pay me back the 100 dollars until I'd asked for it the third time, the following fortnight.

The lies were unending, and getting more and more far-fetched. He told us how he was going to bring his entire family out here and how they were all going to live here forever off Fat Shite's generous but non-existent income. I was getting angrier by the day, unable to hide my disgust.

And then, he took our chicken.

The chicken had been in the freezer a couple of weeks. The Boyfriend and I had never got around to defrosting it. Fat Shite and Sour Puss had enjoyed a full roast chicken dinner a couple of nights before I discovered our own chicken was missing.

That was the turning point. It set the tone for everything that was to follow. To this day, I think it would have ended in a more civilised fashion, had he not been so greedy and deceitful. ChickenGate cemented our relationship.

This. Was. War.

What's Great about this Ocean Road?

The Boyfriend and I were going to give up cigarettes. It was going to be wonderful - we'd have lots of money all the time, we'd have fine smelling clothes and breath, we'd exercise more, we'd have glowing skin, we'd be inspiring figures and return to Ireland to parades and confetti and general applause and awe. An admirable plan, but with one major Fat Shite-sized flaw.
After several incidents - sizable unclaimed cloggers and floaters in the toilet, remote-control hogging, stolen food, refusal to buy toilet roll - it was becoming clear to me that Fat Shite and his lemon-sucking girlfriend were going to make conquering my addiction difficult.
So after we got Day One over and done with, and I subsequently woke up the next morning with pillow in my mouth, we decided to get out of the house and drive down the infamous Great Ocean Road. It seemed like the perfect distraction - a leisurely day taking in the picturesque coast that was Victorias glory, relaxing and avoiding all stressful situations or people that would make us want to eat a bag of tobacco.
The first test came when Dallas started steaming at the bonnet, clouds billowing out from under the hood and almost blocking our vision. We'd been on the road a full thirty minutes out of the expected four to five hours that the brochures proclaimed the drive to take - and that wasn't counting the return journey. We pulled over, where The Boyfriend discovered that he'd forgotten to replace the oil cap when he checked the levels the previous afternoon. There was oil everywhere, pooling out under the car alarmingly. We trekked to a hardware store we spotted nearby, filled Dallas up and cautiously continued towards Geelong, the first town on the Great Ocean Road.
Outside Geelong, we stopped at a quaint little Tourist Office with a great expanse of nothing on either side. The portly woman who worked there clearly didn't receive many visitors and the enthusiasm with which she met us at the door was kin to that of a slightly mentally challenged Labrador. Another half hour dragged past as she babbled, and we had to physically disengage ourselves from her arm-draping friendliness to get back to the car before sundown. Leaden down with leaflets and brochures, we grumpily carried on.
Suddenly, the weather turned. Fat black clouds filled the sky and the wind picked up drastically. The speed limits were erratic and precise to a point -  it was 35kmph at one bend, yet around that corner it jumped up to 50kmph. It was hard to maneuver and the going was slow. There was also an inordinate amount of cyclists clogging up the road, because, of course, the day we decided to do the trip coincided with some sort of biking festival.
We stopped in a town that boasted a veritable overpopulation of koalas and found empty trees on our arrival. The day was not going according to plan, and when the first droplets of rain ran down the windscreen , our moods dampened reflectively.
 On a rare stretch of straight road, The Boyfriend and I decided it was time to head back to Fat Shite and Sour Puss. The day was almost over and it hadn't gone as perfectly as we'd hoped, but it had gone without either one of us smoking a cigarette.
The return journey loomed ominously, but we were both smiling, proud of ourselves. And then we saw the flashing blue lights.
The Boyfriend rolled down the window.
The police officer had his book out already.
"82 in a 70 zone, sir?" he said, pointing to the "70" sign that was a metre behind us.
He handed The Boyfriend his ticket.
"$244" I read.
We stopped in at the next newsagents and bought 40 cigarettes. Each.