As time goes by

Last Tuesday my back went. That now familiar biennial affliction at the base of the spine, pinched nerve, strained muscle, sipped disk whatever that makes bending beyond forty degrees painful, beyond ninety impossible. Aided by pain killers and a bottle of red I dismissed suicide as an option but gave it second thought the next day, the first of my work week, to which it seemed I would have to go barefoot and ask a colleague to assist with socks and laces. Pain killers have had to suffice without red since then but now able to indulge in bed rest, osteopathy and red once more I've been able to put pain killers to paper, no! on hold, it's pen to paper.

I know there's nothing newsworthy abou this but I use it to set a stage upon which to display other afflictions of the aged. Farewell now to you youngsters. Pay no attention to the blathering Keef when he muses that had he known life was so long he would have taken greater care. Go now and live young as so far as I see, you are only once.

On a toilet break this week I had this odd shareable experience. Because of my bracers (suspenders if your of an American literary bent) it's necessary for me, in the event of a serious deposit, to remove my uniform apron. In this particular event I was also wearing a back/ kidney brace, a cummerbund like elasticised pressure bandage with shoulder straps like bracers (um' suspenders) as added support for my afore mentioned affliction. Post movement I adjusted bracers re secured fly, tightened back brace with Velcro fasteners and then inexplicably threw the uniform apron cape like around my shoulders. In front of the large mirror in the disabled/parents room where owing to my membership in both categories I had chosen to perform this function this immediately struck me as odd.

I don't wear capes. I've never worn capes. Maybe in youthful flamboyance I threw a girlfriends cape or sheet around my shoulders as I occupied the essence of some Casanova like three Musketeers persona but hardly enough to have created a habit. Was it a pre pubescent memory of the adventures of Zorro come sixty odd years later to haunt or would I take off to jump the tallest buildings, fly faster than a speeding locomotive (ah! bullet) like my all time favourite comic strip character Superman? Regretfully, it seems not, for after correcting this malfunction I returned to the drudgery of servicing customers and product in the stifling heat of aisles one to six.

We had our monthly department meeting this week, the third in five years. It might have been most informative had I had understood the language. Is there a dictionary of modern cooperate language or do I need a degree? I should update you on recent developments at Mascot. After the final turn of the knife my ex boss Paul was sent to Coventry (Rockdale apparently). Complex manager Brutus, his nemesis, whose muscle started at his crown and tumbled in rolls that looked remarkably like fat deposits through to his toes, (chiropody could be worse than retail) was dispatched along with Anthony who learnt too late that charm would not kill the fleas of those you lay down with and Clytemnestra who could have saved Shakespeare much money by performing the roles of all three witches at once. It's odd for one who always expects the worst to accede to see instead three of that ilk go down simultaneously. Maybe there is a god. Apparently they all sinned against the important thirteenth commandment, "thou shall not fuck with O,H & S"

Their successors are all female. Diane and Emily are now one and two, equal in mass to Danny and Brutus who came before them. Is there really a scale, maybe left over from Westfarmers wool broking past, that measures the mass of prospective managers? Perhaps their bulk is seen in the light of that Queensland farmer's cows who floated forty kilometres downstream in recent floods, all sixty surviving fit and in calf. I certainly see no error in this judgement. Mass is might I always say. Ask any Sumo.

There is a decided turn toward female management at Mascot, my new boss is a dolly. No I'm not being sexist, her real name is Dollindah but she's known to us as dolly, probably with an i instead of y but who can tell without print. She terrorises youth, is competitive with her own sex but has, I suspect, an innate middle eastern (Lebanese) respect for gentlemen as old as her father that grows with their age. We get on well.

At least half of the co-ordinators, the next line of management below the two at the top, are now female. Nothing wrong with that unless your an old time hardware man who expects to be understood when he speaks of aggregate or set screws. No worries though because his kind are almost all dead or out to pasture on compo. Their new Irish ex computer nerd replacements don't know what anything is called and have limited creative imagination beyond 'can I get you a pint' which suits this demographic almost perfectly.

Ah the brave new world of hardware and we're about to open another bigger store in Alexandria. We won't shut down Mascot though because we all know that Woolworths/Lowes would jump on this site. Lucky there's coal out there for you Westfarmers shareholders to be able to indulge these Bunny toys.

Oh yes 'Aunty'


Sorry , had some pics but bugger blogger so slow:
1; Grey and Puffy fly blown looking inflatable Santa, hanging by neck I suspect more than a month after the twelfth day. I'm no fan but is this too much?

Yes I know you don't need more do you