Back on your bike

I’m sure that you will all be pleased to see here that I’m once more riding my bike and thus getting excellent exercise especially my teeth.

Mr. Computer had a medical crisis recently but after a couple of days in traction he’s up and about good as gold. He hadn’t been well for a month or so really, had some terrible blackouts and seizures during which I wasn’t very patient or sympathetic. Once or twice I even fell into a Heffernen like rage accusing him of being a Ms. Computer and a red head too boot. I regretted these rages when he finally completely collapsed and I realized how much I missed him and made outlandish financial commitments to the Computer Benevolent Society which will surely bankrupt me if they are ever called in.

Back on line this afternoon after a leisurely luncheon with Hugh and Alice at the salubrious Crystal Palace Hotel, on the throbbing intersection of Central and China Town, where we were treated to the finest wines served up by Gladys with the complexion and attitude of the toughest shoe leather in town, while Serge prepared for us some of the finest Aussie Italian food you can get for under ten dollars. Now, much more inclined to an afternoon nap, I blog for you my loyal fans who are always my foremost consideration.

I’m wondering whether Chris and Sue made it over to Goulburn this weekend to pay their respects to the Big Merino who underwent bypass surgery last week. I’ve not heard the results so I’m hoping no news is good news.

My week was typical, out of the darkness and despair of back to work Wednesday, over the hump of Thursday through the plotting of Friday to the sunrise of Saturday - or sunset really because that starts the weekend. Saturdays highlights included saving the life of the big Maori – smaller than the Big Merino though formidable and in need of care none the less. He came swaying and staggering toward me at my gate post and had he fallen, with his scale, he would surely have killed himself, unless he had fallen on me in which case I would have been post at my post. I sat him in my chair and administered all of my first aid skills, that is nothing, as no brandy is kept at the gate house. He was sweating though quite cold. He gave off no smell of alcohol at 9.00AM. I knew I should hold his eye lid and shine a light but I had no light and am unsure as to whether this is a diagnostic tool or a cure in itself. After a few minutes sit he returned to staggering around the yard appearing to be trying to get his bearings by the stars at 9.00AM. He staggered in the direction of my coordinator (see superior) and I alerted him to his condition. Once more he was sat for some minutes and although all coordinators have first aid training I saw no lights being shone into eyes. Once more on his feet and in full stagger he was on his way back to me. What to do other than try to sit him and reduce potential damage to one of us. Got it, call someone, “Mate is there anyone I can call”. Like a magic spell out comes a mobile phone. His fingers are so big they can only press all keys at once and all he can concentrate on is deleting messages so I snatch it, find his address book and start asking him can I call: Al, Alsco, BMG, Ben, etc. till I get to Chris, “that’s mi daughter”. Beauty I’ll ring her, if I was in your shape I’d want someone to ring my daughter. “She’s in New Zealand” Oh! What about Col, Dennis, Din. Maybe we should ring your daughter in NZ, She might know someone local. He’s coming around to this reasoning when he says “where’s Alsco” and I remember the linen laundry service across the road and at the same time notice that the corporate shirt he’s wearing has Alsco written on it and remember Alsco in his address book. Bingo! I call and explain to Coll who I am and that I have his sick employee. No sign of surprise from Coll just a matter of fact “I’ll come and get him, which he does in a matter of minutes. Staggerer, I never did find out his name, wants to take me to the pub to reward my first aid skills but I decline.

Now it’s only natural to want loose ends tied, or to see t’s crossed and i’s dotted so to speak and in this vein it’s interesting to conjecture, what was with this bloke, the staggerer. Was he pissed? The first and most common response to my story. Well I think I’ve had a fair experience of alcohol and would expect anyone so out of control of his balance and memory – he had no idea where he was – would have had to consume a large amount of very strong alcohol very recently. I know of many claims by folk that some spirits, Vodka for instance, can go undetected in the olfactory zone but I’ve seen, no smelt this many times disproved. People who have consumed large amounts of alcohol, any alcohol, reek don’t they? Drugs is the next most popular conclusion and maybe so but what I want to know is what’s wrong with stroke – whatever stroke is when not accompanied with – the cat. Maybe he’d been shot or stabbed, believe me this guy was big enough that the bullet could have been still struggling its way to his brain. Crazy things happen, Look at Rasputin.
Now as a conspiracy theorist I like to think that over there at Alsco Linen Services where they remove as my Laundromat man does with just a few extra chemicals, all those stains from the sheets and towels of our hotels, hospitals and jails, that the work environment could be a little less than the healthy lavender filled one portrayed by their apologists – er - publicists. This would help to explain the nonchalance with which Coll handled my distressed call and subsequent pick up of the Staggerer.

Otherwise it was a normal Saturday except for the seventeen year old from Castle Hill who was escorted from the premises by security and banned for a week. Yes lads it’s not only the Epping Hotel that engages in such practices. Try to imagine the humiliation of this lippy young lad not to mention the ongoing stress of not being able to return for a week. I was the only one from the other side, perched as I am at the coalface, that he could approach to solve the problem of how to remake contact with his Father who was inside and unaware his sons dilemma. Accommodatingly I paged his dad a couple of times to meet his son at the car to which dad paid scant heed leaving him in my company for the best part of an hour during which as a gatekeeper and starved of contact I found him amiable company. Of Yugoslav origin – his dad and he conversed in a foreign tongue – and privileged background – he could not remember whether his Castle Hill home had four or five bedrooms – I found it most remarkable that he did not have a mobile phone. He’d successfully returned a bag of Concrete Mix, $4.50, and was attempting to return alleged faulty drill bits for which he had no receipt when he had an altercation with the coordinator who had him evicted. I have no evidence but strongly suspect that there was an argument in which ethnic slanders were bandied about. This lad was I suspect very much his fathers son displaying as he did firm beliefs that global warming was fiction and that Work Choices was written in the Bible in Jesus own handwriting. I suspect that the concrete and drill bit returns were some right of passage leading to some form of conformation.

Think that’s all I want to harangue you with for now. Delightful to see all the recent activity in the blogosphere. I’m not worried about new fangled Facebook baloney. The’ll never replace the blog. Not.

Robert Not