God I miss farting. One of the uneasy transitions I’ve had to make in moving into this new office environment is not being able to let one go if the coffee was a bit too strong.
Sure, maybe if there was a bit of space between me and the person sitting behind me I might be able to get away with it, but when she’s a genteel blonde a bloke wants to be a little more delicate. To be honest, when I look directly at her I have trouble even mustering conversation, so letting rip with the ‘whaaarp’ would not be the smoothest manoeuvre.
Maybe I would be consoled if I was able manage a good nose-pick to distract myself, but the bloke sitting across the partition is hardly likely to want to experience to sight of me up to the cuticles in an industrial dig. At least back in the kitchen dropping one was a requirement, a right of passage even, if you’ll excuse the pun. Here though? Here people just aren’t the fart-joke types.
But then I think that maybe white-collar people have grown up at least a little, whereas kitchen types are more or less still primary schoolers. But with very sharp knives. And I am soooo glad I don’t cut or burn myself anymore in the workplace that having to suspend a breath of not-so-fresh air is a small price to pay. Plus, I get to reinvent myself as a ‘wit’, and not the dirtiest story-teller in the group.
Mind you, if I can’t speak to people on account of being a little stunned, then becoming known as a wit will not eventuate. Maybe an occasional whaarp would be an ice-breaker. Who knows.
The next great transition has been beer o’clock, that fine white-collar tradition of systematically destroying one’s liver on a Friday afternoon. Last Friday was a ripper, involving a four o’clock start, a midnight berating of some poor bloke who happened to work for Trevor Mallard (that’ll teach him for claiming to be indigenous), and a hangover so blistering I couldn’t muster legs till about 2 in the afternoon.
We shall not be repeating the performance. Apologies to the Mallard staffer. But not to Mallard.
Otherwise, there’s been this massive diversification in my flatting situation. Originally one of the flatmates wanted to get some barmy army types in the spare room, but I was forced to veto that decision. I have it on good authority that the English lads are probably a bunch of thieves. It’ll be ‘there’s only three of us’, and then there will be about fifteen drunk blokes all called James or Colin taking up couch space, complaining about the weather, and trying to sneak out with the silverwear when they loose to the ABs.
Instead, we’re going to get in a few extra flatmates around the place to add a bit of colour. I’m guessing that talking about them to you should stand in lieu of being able to make substantive or direct comment about the political to-ings and fro-ings of das Capital. After all, aren’t we all just a cross-section of the political world?
Sure, the flatmates will likely soon hate me for airing their dirty laundry to the world, but I’m hoping that the beer budget will soon be dramatically expanded to accommodate the lack of payrises expected to be contributing to the flat shopping account.
Plus it will make a welcome change to complaining about how damn crazy those Australians are. What is with these people? It’s almost as if the white trash annexed Bali and expect their influence to grow exponentially with the amount of faux-silver jewellery they buy.
Anyhow, I’ll let you know when the new characters move in. They’re likely to be a strange bunch, you might even be forgiven for thinking you’re reading about the cast of the Simpsons, but don’t worry, it will all make sense in the end.