“Across the Border” is a great song, by the way, despite what you may have inferred if you only know the Tom Joad album through Gorjus’ one-man impression of it — an impression which sounds like kittens dying, slowly, of loneliness.
Poor little kittens.
Poor little Gorjus.
I just realised that I will never be a world-weary, over-the-hill cop, three days from retirement, partnered with a zany and wise-cracking young hotshot, on the trail of a conspiracy led by a cold-blooded European paramilitary force that has put the safety of my family and the whole Eastern seaboard into jeopardy… and I got little sad.
Am I over-reacting?
So, on top of the exam that kept me out of your hair last week, my revered father was staying with us for the week as well.
My Dad loves telling stories.
This is a good thing.
My Dad especially loves telling stories that end with everyone chuckling at my misfortune/gullibility/innocence.
This is not as good a thing.
And this weekend, my Dad loved telling one story. Over. And. Over. And. Over. Again.
And this was a bad thing.
When I was in first year university, we lived in an apartment on Keating Road. On the particular day in question, I was having a shower. My father and my sister were in the kitchen.
Suddenly, my father had an insidious and malevolent lightbulb flip on biliously over his head. He stepped over to the kitchen sink. He gestured to my sister to approach the sink. She did so. He pointed at the faucet. She acknowledged the faucet. Then he pointed at the bathroom. Then my sister, equally bilious lightbulb popping into existence above her poo-eating head, nodded in agreement.
My father then grasped the hot water tap and turned it on full blast. Waited. Turned it off. Waited.
And then… they were treated to the plaintive and heart-shredding tones of my testicle-retreating shriek.
Funny, eh?
No.
Not especially.
Not after you have heard the same story repeated for the BLIMPTEENTH FRICKIN’ TIME IN THE COURSE OF TWO DAYS! Have I done nothing else to embarrass myself in my 34 years on this planet that they are reduced to repeating this single story over and over and over again and over and over again? Nothing?!
Really, people. I have done much more to embarrass myself.
“Note from Batman says you’re the perp, then you’re the perp.”
