Pooparder Anti-Clockwise

Yesterday I was on a ferry going from one seaside town south of Sydney to another even smaller seaside town south of Sydney.  On walks a young couple, a short guy by Australian standards, well any standards, but he has done well to find an equally little friend. Poor guy, she might look cute now, but have you had a good look, she is not going to age well? I suggest you meet the Mother ASAP. We have just started our trip when he sweeps in for a kiss.  Better watch out my Caucasian friend, with teeth that big your lips could be in serious danger of coming away injured. Wait I see some hand movement. They are all over the place.  He must be hunting for her breasts, has he forgotten there aren’t any? And there are children here, if you are not careful they will think it is a treasure hunt and start trying to help you.  Wouldn’t surprise me if his next fortune cookie said “You will be visiting a plastic surgeon before you are married.”  Maybe he is a surfer and he likes his women like his boards, flat and aerodynamic.

The receptionist here is very amusing, well to me and my small mind that is easily amused. She looks very young, but is engaged and is pretty tall, maybe 5’10”. She wears the same thing every day, a pin stripped suit skirt, a white blouse (this does appear to vary slightly), black tights and black high heel pumps. Not sure who she thinks she is kidding with the pin stripped skirt, all she seems to do is keep the kitchen and meeting rooms clean, and fill up the biscuit jars. And those pumps. She can hardly walk with them on and definitely struggles to stay upright in a Homo Erectus kind of way. She did surprise me Friday morning though, oh yes. It is casual Friday and she wore a denim skirt that very closely resembled the pin stripped suit and high heel boots. She couldn’t walk any better in the boots than in the pumps. She looks like a giraffe trying to cross the office savannah.

I’m currently in Sydney for work and it is interesting to see how work practices and work place culture varies from country to country. When I arrived the reception was literally a hole in the wall, with no one on the other side of the hole When she did turn up she was clueless. Standing at around 6ft tall and then another 4 inches for the high heels she was like the leaning tower of Pisa in a strong wind, swaying all over the place. She takes me to my contact and introduces me with the wrong name and from the wrong country. This confused the hell out of my contact who had shockingly bad skin. It looked like he had been repeatedly attacked by an angry wasp.

At my desk I have been given for the week is a little wooden statue of a man with a gigantic penis and my desk has three women working around me. Now in Europe or the US you would probably be fired, which might explain why my desk is empty. One of the first things you always ask in a new office is where the toilets/restrooms are and where is the kitchen. I sneak into the restroom unnoticed, find myself an empty toilet and quietly drop and lock. As I look up at the closed door I see a sign on the door, with a picture. The picture is of an empty road with burnt tyre marks. The caption “Keep the skid marks for the road – use the toilet brush”. After doing the dirty I proceed to wash my hands. On the back of the restroom door are detailed instructions on how to wash your hands including when to do it, what it prevents and cute little instructional pictures. Above each faucet is a notice that this tap contains hot water that can scold. Now this is not unusual, what I found unusual was the fact that the sign was true. I burnt the crap out of my hands, literally I guess you could say, damn leaky TP.

Friday night in Memphis and what you gonna do, but go in search of the famous Memphis BBQ.  A little tipsy birdie in the hotel tells us to scuttle down a dark alley to Rendezvous. Sounds good, just don’t follow me.  The pleasure starts with a greeting from the hostess so large her stomach is resting on the counter and so wide you’d have to tunnel through her to get your car down that street.

The wait for the delights of this enormous establishment is at least 40 minutes, but this offers up the opportunity to hang out outside in the dark alleyway with many of the other waiting patrons, the smokers and of course the mosquitoes. These are true southern mosquitoes as they are nearly as big as the locals.  It is now my favourite time, people watching time and boy is there some prime people watching to be done. 

If you are looking for Asians you are definitely looking in the wrong place, but there were two Indians who rolled in, almost literally and had to deflect with their force fields some serious stares.  They did their best to  blend in, they had very competitive guts and the one had a championship winning double chin, which combined with his short neck gave him the distinct appearance of a bull frog.  Attractive women were also in short supply, although there was one blonde of slightly above (Memphis) average appearance who was unfortunate to be wearing a dress that looked like  a skinned African antelope.  I wanted to walk up to it and stroke the fur.  Next up was a woman so large I think  she was wearing my two-man tent.

Once finally seated I had time to peruse the local customers.  I came to the conclusion that the chairs must be made extra strength as they were having to support some serious weight.  Weight so wide more hung off the chair than was supported by it. Then the single Asian walked through into our section of the restaurant. I think they keep him at the back and then pay him to walk through every now and then as he looked a bit lost.  A guy walked past wearing sandals I can only assume were hand me downs from his much larger brother as I couldn’t think of any other reason for him to be wearing sandals three sizes too big.

At least we get to leave these parts, cholesterol a little higher, but otherwise none the worse. Departing from Little Rock National Airport, yes national not international, but that doesn’t stop them making announcements in English, Spanish and French. You heard right, French for that large French population living in the area. ???

Waiting for a promotion at a Big 4 accounting firm (i.e. Deloitte,PwC, KPMG, E&Y) is like waiting for a tsunami, you can’t wait to see it as it will look so awesome, but then when it finally does arrive it completely overwhelms you and you nearly drown, but you can say you survived it and everyone will forever look up at you in awe.

For the breakfast of Champions in the South you have to go to a Waffle House. Stomach lining, grease smacking, linoleum floored, plastic covered chair experience of a life time. We frequented the wondrous dining establishment in Conway, Arkansas. The entire interior, including the chairs were covered in the University of Arizona Razorback football team logos. This is after all Razorback country and they live for college football season and the Razorbacks. What makes a fine dining establishment such as the Waffle House is not the food, but the patrons.

I will admit we were slightly over dressed as we had trousers and collared shirts on. One guy pulled up outside in an enormous truck with a huge front bull bar and the entire front bumper was steel. He walks in wearing jeans that had been ironed with a crease running down the front and back of the jeans. He must have had a serious business meeting in that Waffle House. He was closely followed by his grandmother who was wearing combat boots and camouflage army pants; maybe she was hoping to blend into the furniture only to be foiled by all the Razorback designs. She should have worn her Razorback sweats. Then there was the waitress. She was in deep conversation with her friend about her fancy new shoes that had only cost $6 at the Dollar Store. Well dear the tip I left you should go some way to paying off your store credit for those shoes. And finally there was the guy sitting behind me. I have no idea why he was so excited, maybe a breakfast date with the guy he was with, but his leg was bouncing up and down faster than a rabbit being chased by a Razorback. But as my bench was attached to his I was shaking like a wet dog after a bath.

I was at a client with one of my colleagues and we were waiting in reception for our other colleague to arrive. Now this colleague is not a small woman weighing in at a life threatening 250+lbs. Well life threatening if you were to get stuck under her. We see her park her little car and somehow emerge out of it like a large blob of silicone being squeezed out of a breast implant. I say to my colleague “I think she has something stuck to her back.” He looks and says it does look like it. She comes inside the building and goes over to the reception desk to sign in. I take a closer look from across reception at what is stuck to her lower back and realise that hanging on like a velcro strip is a sanitary pad. My colleague looks in horror and rushes across and tells her she has something stuck to her back. She grabs it, goes red in the face and trots off. She must have gone into Starbucks like that.

No one has dared to ask how it got stuck to her back. Perhaps she rolled around on the bathroom floor. Or maybe it escaped from where it should have been in order to come up to breathe. Or perhaps she put it there to add extra padding while driving her car. Don’t think we will ever know.

Breaking up with a loved well, well I guess a former loved one, or one you never loved, but were too scared to break up with in case she removed your knee caps and keyed you car, so here is the first in my series of tips to assist in doing the dirty, opening the flood gates, bursting the dam walls.

Hey honey! Did you hear about how all those bee things, you know, the fury little flying critters with a painful ass, well they say they are dying off. And you know what that means, no more bees equals no more honey.

If your misses is bright enough she should have received the subtle hint, remember it is all in the delivery.