The Daisy Dukes

We’re still on the cusp of winter here in Australia.   Melbourne weather, in particular, is a fickle mistress.  Our summers are generally warm, but other than that the rest of the time is anyone’s guess.  I went out on my bike earlier and got completely drenched by a freak deluge.  Drenched. Throw in people opening car doors on you, taxis veering murderously across your path, and forty ton trams with no peripheral vision  bearing down on you and it’s ARMAGEDDON out there!

Regardless, I still really enjoy riding my bike in the city.   There’s a relaxing rhythm to it; you kind of feel like a blood cell floating through the arteries of a gigantic living organism.   An infirm old lady walks out in front of you, buses pull along either side of you leaving you nowhere to go, or a junky tries to rifle through your backpack at a set of lights, yet you remain unperturbed and you just keep on pedaling.

It definitely has the quality of one of those infinitely pointless undertakings (which are usually the best) – there is often no goal to pedaling if you are not riding for a specific destination.  You just peddle to peddle.

It’s an odd thing, and if you don’t ride much you might notice it, but when you get a bike, in a car dominated world, you’re declaring your allegiance to an underclass mode of transportation.  Some people really really don’t like bikes, especially if you slow their journey by a mere few seconds.   On the flip side of that, there’s a sense of camaraderie with other cyclists when you’re out there on the road.

If no time to stop and chat, I’ll often doff my cap or give a thumbs up to a fellow rider.  It’s a way of acknowledging you’re not alone.  To say: I might not be able to help you if you get sucked under that bus, but I’ve got a spare tube and some sports drink in my saddle bag if you need it.

I’ve thrown my clothes in the drier, but I don’t expect to wear them again today.   It was literally as if I had jumped into a pool fully clothed.   My cat is wedged in under my desk sitting on the heating vent.  I don’t think he’s ever been wet in his life.  If he’s outside and it starts to rain, he lets out a bird-like chirping noise and scrambles indoors.   Sometimes he completely covers the grate with his mass of cat-fur that the heating temporarily shuts down because no cold air is getting back which triggers some sort of safety mechanism, which is probably not good for the heating system.  However, I don’t have the heart to relocate him.   We call him raccoony, on account of his black and white fur and funny little squirrel/fox –like face.

Today he is scheduled for a trip to the vet.  Nothing serious, just a checkup.  It’s his most hated thing in the world, and he’s taken to weeing in his carry case every time he goes now.  You can only presume standing in a pool of your own urine only adds to tumult and anguish.

Sometimes I have to take cab (I don’t own a car) and there’s always that moment, which comes unannounced, when the air suddenly becomes pungently cloying. There’s no mistaking it.

I furtively wind down my window; perhaps maybe try to engage the cab driver in conversation – all of which is pointless, and the driver invariably become irate that we’ve stunk up their cab.  Let’s be honest though, it’s not like it usually smells that great to begin with, we’re just adding to the potpourri of disgustingness.    When I arrive at the Vet I take him to one of the nurses and quietly whisper “we’ve had a little accident on the way”.

Because of health problems I’m currently unemployed.  I’m just now tentatively looking for a job again, which I have to tell you is fairly slow going.   I look at the wanted ads and feel nauseas.   There are so many things I could simply never do.   Marketing assistant, credit manager, light vehicle assistant, midwife, boilermaker……  Who are the people that fill these jobs? There must be thousands of them.

It seems so foreign to me. What the hell is a boilermaker?

Every fortnight I’m required to check in with a case manager to discuss my job search, or they cut off my payments – it’s like having a parole officer.   Every time I go in, they make you wait at this round table with a fern on it before you go through a waist high swinging door into the consulting rooms.   There’s always a few beguiling characters awaiting you.  Last time I was there a bearded, bespectacled man was sitting alone, fiddling idly with the leaves of the fern.

“Welcome to the table!” he said,

“Thank you.”  I replied, “Good to be here.”

One time there was a younger guy in a leather vest was wearing a pair of those glasses with the eyes painted on the outside.   The novelty kind.  You have no idea how disconcerting it is to have someone in those glasses sitting directly across for you in complete silence.

I recently completed a week of work experience at a local library.  I really thought it would be more interesting,  I’ m not sure why.  I think I half expected them to let me read books or carry out my own research projects while intermittently attending to customer inquiries.  As it turns out, it’s much like any other menial job; you stack shelves until your forearms ache and then you scan returns until you’re hands buckle under the weight of large folio books.  I was shown around the library by an attractive girl who said she wanted to be a famous musician.

Half way through the week I realised she was involved in some sort of weird courtship with one other male librarians.  I can’t compete with anyone at the moment.  Because of the health issues I live an abstemious life which precludes me from lots of activates I might be thrown into if I were to enter into a showdown with another potential boyfriend.  I don’t drink, smoke, take drugs and I eat mostly healthy food.  I feel like Perry Como.  It’s awful.

Two months ago I worked for a party supplies and catering company run by a conservative middle aged guy.  He was incredibly enthusiastic about the work he did, and while on the way to each job as sat crammed into the front cab of his truck, he would run down in complete detail what we would be doing that job and how we would be doing it .  I would just sit there nodding mindlessly, knowing there was no way anyone human could remember even half of what he was saying.

“Ok, “he’d say,

“Where going to be using the blue tanks to fill the medium sized balloons with helium, and you’re going to want to turn the nozzle clockwise towards the filling attachment, which is red and then get the balloons from the cardboard box, which is stacked on the metal boxes.  Do you like sports? Who do you follow?”

He also sported, what I think is called a ‘male camel-toe’.    Tremendously tight jeans which left nothing to the imagination, with the seam splitting the ‘male’ part into the ‘camel toe’.

I generally don’t look in that area of a man if I don’t have to, but this was so conspicuous you couldn’t help but notice, nor could you look away.  It would capture your attention a solar eclipse.

Clothing is almost always embarrassing.  It’s really a matter of damage control.  My motto has always been to make sure you don’t look completely ridiculous and then go from there.   Temper a painfully mediocre outfit with something simply beguiling, like a garish belt or a jacket with oversized lapels.

I don’t know why it works, but it does, and it has saved me on many occasions.   Yesterday I went for an afternoon ride on my bike to get something to eat and I pulled up behind another cyclist.  He was wearing a regular riding jersey, but for shorts he had on a pair of daisy dukes cut so high it made anyone who happened to look clearly nervous something might spill out.

We pulled up together at the next set of lights and a car load of teenagers, who assumed were of the same party, made some ribald comments and then sped off laughing.   Mockery by association.

Which is fine, however my first thought was: I may as well be wearing daisy duke right now. Which begs the question, do I secretly want to wear daisy dukes?