Mum: How come there’s no “Level 5″ on that sign? Why does it go straight from “Level 4″ to “Level 6″?

Me: I don’t know.

Mum: Maybe it’s a secret?

Me: Maybe it’s the building manager’s office.

Mum: Maybe it’s like the train to Hogwarts, you know how it leaves from platform eight-and-three-quarters? Or was it nine-and-three-quarters? Do you remember which one it was?

Me: I don’t read shitty books.

Mum: That’s not helpful…

Apartheid was invented by a man named Nelson Mandela in 1935. It became popular in South Africa during the 50s and received international acclaim!

The Beatles wrote a hit pop song about it in 1967.

And McDonald’s made a burger in its honour.

There was even a catchy dance made for it, which was performed at parties all over the world!

Apartheid was misplaced in 1998 and nobody has seen it since.

*

*Image from Niki

**This post is dedicated to Karalee because I like blonde girls and she is clever.

The following audio and transcript comes courtesy of Jayphen. It was recorded on a Thursday afternoon express train to Hornsby. Just an average day for CityRail, really.

Warning: you may be disturbed by what you are about to hear.

[wpaudio url="http://annikskelton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/junkie.mp3"]

transit officer: there’s no need to talk like that

junkie: HOW DID I BRK ER 3 EGG? 3 EGG? EDGAR? IN A FUCKEN BAG? NOT IN DIS BAG. NOTHA BAG

transit officer: watch your language

junkie: TWO HANDGUNS AND A TASER GUN!!!

transit officer: we haven’t got anything

junkie: IN DEE OTHER BAG, YA CLOWN!

Pause

junkie: YOU WANNA BE CAREFUL WITH ME

transit officer: I’ll keep that in mind

junkie: OOOUHH! YOU’LL WANNA!

Pause

junkie: WITH PLEASHHAAA

transit officer: we’ll get off here for a second and we can work something out

As a child, I was taught that magic, spells, séances, witchcraft, and the supernatural all invited the devil to enter your body. The hilarious sexual connotations of this seemed to be lost on my parents, who forbade me from watching Buffy and enrolled me in a private Anglican highschool. Naturally, I spent the bulk of my teenage years drinking over a ouija board inside an abandoned orphanage near my house.

Here is a picture of said house:

It was built by the Masons in 1922 and inhabited by spooky parentless children until World War II, when it was converted to a hospital where many soldiers certainly died horrible deaths. Eventually, the Council purchased the site and the main building was partially burned down by arsonists. A high fence was put around it, and as the century came to a close, I poked a hole in this fence and crawled through with a bottle of vodka tucked under my arm. Then I got blind and talked to dead people.

You can make up your own mind about whether ouija is a reliable channel of communication with the dead, but things happened inside that house and I accepted all of them with fourteen-year-old dutch courage. I was aware that I was tapping into energies I didn’t consciously use, and that alone was enough to bring me back to the Masonics on a regular basis. I was quite blasé about the whole process and did not feel threatened at any time because deep down, I thought it was all bullshit. I continued to go there, because the glass kept moving underneath my hands and I have always been drawn to old buildings, but I slept soundly at night and never worried that I was doing anything dangerous.

Five years later, I watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose and nearly wet my pants. I watched it three more times and became obsessed with the idea of demonic possession. I felt completely vulnerable and was so afraid, I began praying for protection. I told my osteopath about my fear and he stopped massaging my skull and told me to sit up.

“I have a story,” he said, closing the door. I was intrigued, because he told me deeply personal stories about having sex with underage girls while the door was open and his staff were within hearing-range. We’d never had a closed-door conversation before.

“I’m listening,” I said, crossing my legs on the table and reaching for his coffee.

“Dammit, bitch, don’t drink my coffee,” he said, slapping my hand. “Now. You know me, I’m a pretty skeptical guy, right? I don’t even believe in gravity, I think it’s a fucking scam. Anyway, I had this patient a few months ago who had recently returned from Indonesia and needed a bunch of work done on his back. I was treating him one day when I felt a presence move through his body and start to enter mine. I couldn’t move my arm, so I freaked out and fought against this presence, then it disappeared and went back into the guy. My arm was in so much pain afterwards, like it was burning, and it took days to stop hurting completely. I asked him what the fuck had happened, and he said that he had been possessed by entities overseas and he didn’t know how to get rid of them. He called them “foreign energy”. Foreign energy! What a crock. But then it happened again, the next time I treated him. This time, I allowed it to enter me and explore my body. I saw a glow around myself, and then in my head, I said Leave me alone, and it exited through my belly button.”

“Oh my god,” I said, “What were you on and do you have any left? I’m going to this festival next week and my dealer is dry-”

“Nothing,” the osteo interrupted. “I was sober as a judge. On detox. And now there are all these fucking energies floating around and I have no idea whether there might be a goddamn zombie waiting for me when I get home. Everything is possible.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“I attended a three-day meditation course in the Blue Mountains,” he replied. “Now I can see the future in my dreams.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed my osteo, because he liked to party a lot, despite his recent stint of sobriety. But I was beginning to realise that maybe I didn’t have everything figured out.

Over the next few months, I tried to avoid anything vaguely spiritual. “IS THAT INCENSE?” I shouted, throwing a glass of water over my housemate’s bedside table. “Get that shit out of my house!”

I stayed away from fortune tellers, gypsies, astrology and pornography. I took care not to say the lord’s name in vain. I put a pot plant in my bedroom and slept with my mouth closed.

Then I went to my brother’s 21st, and sat next to an old church friend who had recently moved away very suddenly.

“Hi Warwick,” I said, “Where have you been?”

“I moved to Penrith and joined a Wicca clan,” he replied. “I can cast all kinds of spells.”

“Bullshit!” I declared. “If you’re so fucking powerful, do something impossible, like make me interested in you sexually.”

“Maye I will…” he replied, and took a sip from a flask concealed inside his jacket.

That night, I woke up at 3am (the Witching Hour) with a bloody nose and a pounding head. My sheets were drenched and my room was freezing. For the next month, I woke up exactly on each witching hour every morning (12:00am, 1am, 2am then 3am) covered in sweat. Eventually I drove to my osteo’s office, distressed, and burst into his treatment room.

“Do you have an appointment?” he asked, surprised.

“It’s happening!” I yelled. “I’m fucking possessed!”

“Good god,” he said, ushering me into the staff kitchen. “Wait here until I finish up with my rational patients.”

I made myself some tea and ate a sandwich I found in the fridge while I waited. When the osteo came back, I explained everything that had happened to me over the last month.

“Wow,” he marvelled quietly at the end of my story. “This is quite amazing…”

“I know, right?” I said. “Somebody is going to make a movie about this.”

“No,” the osteo replied, “I mean you are amazing.”

“Thank you.”

“Not amazing in a good way. Here, let me break it down for you: there is no demon. But you are actually so impressionable and neurotic that by pure anxiety alone, you have given yourself night sweats, nose bleeds, and the body clock of a soldier. That’s incredible. I want to experiment with you.”

“You mean, I’m not possessed?” I asked, frowning.

“No, you’re just a loose unit,” he replied. “Imagine if you could use all that mind-power for something useful, rather than annoying me with your inane bitching. That would be cool. Hey, have you seen my sandwich?”

I once shared a house with an older guy who had gross friends. At least four nights every week, our backyard was full of drunk tradies telling boring stories. However, the following one did interest me.

Damo’s tale:

For my twenty-first birthday, my old man gave me a small box wrapped in blue paper. I unwrapped it and found an old pair of stubbies inside. I was a bit pissed off at getting such a shit birthday present, but then Dad said “Son, these are the shorts I was wearing when you were conceived. I was pretty drunk at the time, but I’ve remembered ever since, and I want you to have these.”

So now I wear them whenever I’m feeling sad, and the Conception Shorts remind me that I’m loved.

I also write down whatever I’m wearing after I shag a chick, just in case I ever have a son, so I can give him his own pair of Conception Shorts.

My brother recently ripped out his shower while he was drunk and as a result, I now have to share my bathroom with him and everyone he has sex with. I complained about this to my mother and she told me that I needed to learn how to share.

Me: Like the Aborigines?

Mum: What?

Me: Collective ownership of property. Plus hardships. Everybody knows that, read a fucking book.

Mum: Why are you even still living here?

What follows is a list of direct quotes from somebody who will be known as Mark, because that is his name. I have not edited these in any way, I simply sit next to him at the pub and write down everything he says.

• “That hill was so fucking steep. It was like Columbine, but instead of murders, it was geography.”
• “I put it on Facebook, a.k.a. internet.”
• “Damn right, I’m awesome as shit. Do you want to see a stunt?” *inserts whole schooner inside his mouth*
• “Hi, I’m Mark. I’m a mad cunt.”
• “It is completely normal and natural for a woman to secrete approximately one teaspoon of fluid from her vagina per day. What? Yeah, get me a beer.”
• “You know what? If I’ve got shoes on, and I’m inside, I’ll walk outside to piss in the garden. It’s not like I’m saving water or being lazy or some shit, I just like pissing in the garden. It just feels natural.”
• “I don’t do drugs, drugs do me.”
• “You know when you take shit drugs and you’re like, Last night was awesome as shit… but last night is also today?”
• “I took acid once. I got lost in this fucking underground carpark for four hours.”
• “I took acid once at Fred Caterson Reserve. I ate heaps of chili because I thought I was hungry, then my mouth was burning, so I went for a walk. Then I was staring at the moon, yelling COME AND GET ME, FREDDO PEDDO. But nothing happened.“
• “Fuck, we’re awesome. I just ate raw chicken and then I tried to purge behind the Mobil service station. I tried hard, fingers down my windpipe. Here, I’ll show you.”
• “I would give head like a motherfucker, trust me. I’m not gay. I don’t want to suck cock, but fuck I’d be good at it.”
• “When I sue you, I’m gonna make some money. Write that down. Damn right, I’m gonna make some money.”
• “The bartender can suck my dick for all I care. Full gag on it.”
• “Men only want three things from a woman. You want someone who does the sexy times, someone who cooks, and someone who cleans. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m pretty sure all you’re going to do is the sexy times. Now that’s important, but it’s not everything.”
• “I just hate it when people talk about dead people. It makes me feel awkward. Is this going on your blog?”

STOP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING.

It has just come to my attention that cats can be trained to defecate in a human toilet. Some even wipe and flush after the deed. I have not done anything since discovering this except watched videos of cats pooping in toilet bowls over and over. Here are some of my favourites.

This little fella gets a bit of stage fright to begin with, but once he gets past the mental barrier, it’s all over. He is very tidy and cleans up after himself too.

This is Chemo. I like the way he maintains eye contact with the audience while he is performing. It’s important to connect with people.

Here we have a rare savannah cat pooping into the can. She doesn’t flush, but her family probably has a butler to do that for her.

Please meet Stanley. He is still learning about appropriate paper-to-poop ratio, but you have to give him credit for effort.

Mum: You’re going to love Lior’s show. He is an amazing performer.

Me: Shhh I haven’t seen it yet. Don’t tell me what happens!

Mum: It’s a concert, you already know what happens. He plays guitar and sings.

Me: I said, don’t tell me.

Mum: Oh but you should make sure you cheer for the encore. He does something really cool, you’ll never guess what.

Me: He removes all his clothing and fellates himself on stage, then proposes to the sound guy.

Mum: No..

Me: He tells us all to look under our seats, and we each get a midget to take home, then they have fireworks and ice cream.

Mum: No, stop guessing, that was rhetorical. God, you’re so weird sometimes.

When I was fifteen, I worked in the créche at my parents’ church. This meant I had to look after other people’s whining children and sometimes take them to the toilet and wipe their bums, but at least I didn’t have to listen to the sermon.

One Sunday, there was a new kid in the créche who seemed to take a liking to me. We played for half an hour and read some books together, then she said she wanted to draw a picture of me. I was flattered and sat on a beanbag in front of her, posing for my portrait.

“Now you have blue eyes…” she said, selecting a sky-coloured crayon. “And then brown hair… and a yellow t-shirt… and a BIIIIIG belly!”

“Church is finished,” I told her, holding in a scowl. “I’ll mind your picture until your parents are leaving. You can come back and collect it then.”

After she left to find her mum and dad, I scrunched her picture into a ball and threw it in the bin. Then I walked down to the takeaway shop and bought a large tub of hot chips. I decided I would not have children if they all turned out to be such nasty little shits.