• one dead goldfish
• four towels covered in blood
• fingerless gloves
• a broken stair banister
• a toothpaste penis on the bathroom wall
• vomit splashes on the cupboard doors
• the garage door no longer opens
• someone drank half my vodka
• my birthday book got stolen
• somebody pooped in our bin

Opportunities
Anytime anybody’s parents went anywhere ever, we had a house party. However, the best kids to host house parties were those with single mothers who were in the middle of messy divorces and/or distracted by alcoholism. They were too depressed to give a shit about what we did in their backyards, as long as nobody died or got pregnant.

Preparations
We spent every lunch break during grades 9-12 figuring out how we were going to get blasted on the weekend. We’d pool our money and then fight over what we wanted and who could buy it for us.

“Can we get a bottle of Midori?”
“No. Fuck the Midori.”
“We need cigarettes too.”
“Do we have enough for Cruisers?”
“Just steal a bottle of wine from your nanna. She won’t notice. She’s like a hundred and fifty.”

Then we’d organise for somebody’s older brother/sister/cousin/boyfriend or someone with a fake ID to do a bottle shop run for us. If that didn’t work, we simply hung out around the front of Liquor Land and smiled at every guy who walked past until one of them agreed to buy us booze. Sometimes they’d give us a lift to the party too. We were street-smart.

Deceptions
Usually you would tell your mum and dad that you were staying at a girlfriend’s house for a “movie night” or similar. They’d drop you off and you’d walk gingerly up the driveway, trying not to let your Country Road overnight bag full of Stoli’s and Woodstocks rattle. Then they’d collect you the following morning and you would lie on the backseat of the car in the fetal position, reeking of cigarettes and alcohol, complaining that you ate some bad party pies and might have gotten food poisoning and could you please wind down the windows, it’s like a goddamn oven in here and where the hell are my sunglasses?

If the house party occurred at your place while your parents were away, you had to get up early, ignore your raging hangover and attempt to restore everything to its former condition as much as possible. You febreezed the shit out of the couch, stashed garbage bags full of empty liquor bottles under your bed and hoped your dad wouldn’t notice the garden hose had gotten shorter when you tried to make a bong.

Consequences
My highschool friends are now teachers, psychologists, lawyers, nurses, and some do jobs I don’t even really understand. All are functional, well-balanced, tax-paying members of society, and one has even reproduced and is now responsible for the wellbeing of another human being who is still successfully alive at the time of writing. I guess the point is that even if your kid seems like a complete fuck-up, it will probably turn out fine. So just chill out and do your own thing while they binge-drink their way through their interminable adolescence. It’s the Australian way.



The second time I met him…
Rosh: Hey, babe. *moves in to kiss*
Me: What are you doing?
Rosh: I thought you wanted to make out?
Me: Do you even remember my name?
Rosh: No…
Me: It’s Annik.
Rosh: Well that’s just stupid.

One night at the pub…
Rosh: Do you want to make out later tonight?
Me: No.
Rosh: Okay, just checking.

Optimistic Rosh
Me: What was the best night of your life?
Rosh: I dunno. It could be tonight!

Another night at the pub…
Rosh: Hey, how are you?
Me: Good, yeah.
Rosh: *moves in to kiss*
Me: Wtf are you doing?
Rosh: Shit, sorry, I thought that was a green light.

As we are getting ready to go out, approx 7pm on a Sunday night…
Ryan: Why are you bringing sunnies, man?
Rosh: Just in case I end up in a day club.

Romantic Rosh
Me: How exactly does your brain work?
Rosh: I don’t know. I just fuck chicks.

As we are walking to the Columbian…
Rosh: If any gay guys hit on me tonight, you have to make out with me.
Me: No, I don’t.
Rosh: Okay, just checking.

When I sent him this blog post for proof-reading…
Rosh: Does this mean you have a crush on me?
Me: No.
Rosh: Okay, just checking.

Dad: The Chandon?

Mum: No, the Veuve. I told you to bring the Veuve!

Dad: Well I just grabbed whatever was in the fridge.

Mum: The fridge in the kitchen?

Dad: No, the fridge in the garage.

Mum: Why would you do that?

Dad: You just said ‘get the champagne from the fridge’. If you meant a specific champagne from a particular fridge, you should have said so.

Me: Yeah, Mum. The guy’s a GP, not an oracle.

Mum: I just don’t understand why you never listen to me properly. If you were unsure, you should have asked.

Me: Yeah, Dad. You went to medical school for six years but you can’t even figure out what champagne to bring to Christmas lunch?

Dad: I have worked my arse off so that you people can have champagne in the first place, and then this is how you treat me?

Me: Yeah, Mum!

Mum: Oh, right, because birthing your children and raising them into semi-respectable adults was just one big goddamn holiday for me.

Me: Yeah, Dad! Wait…what do you mean by semi?

Dad: Annik, please tell your mother that if anybody needs me, I’ll be in my study.

One evening, a few of us gathered as he described a horrifying incident in which his father had beaten him severely for leaving a smudge on his black Mercedes.

“I don’t understand, why did he hit you?” I asked, shocked by the scale of such a beating.

“Well I had to clean his cars every week, and if they weren’t spotless by dinner, I got into big trouble,” he replied.

“That’s awful,” I commented.

“It’s okay, I got him back,” he said with a smile.

“What did you do?” my friend asked, “Did you scratch his car or something?”

“No,” he said, glancing around the room mischievously. “I killed his dog.”

Roughly eight seconds of complete silence passed, before I cleared my throat and asked, “How?”

“Well,” my housemate continued, “I waited until he went to work, and then I locked his dog inside the Merc. By the time my dad finished his shift, that dog was swollen up like a motherfucking beach ball!!”

Then he roared with laughter. My friend, an avid lover of animals, picked up her bag and left immediately, while I busied myself clearing away our empty glasses.

Julia: Why?

Me: I need to get four beers.

Julia: No.

Me: Just a couple of roadies.

Julia: Absolutely not.

Me: I think there’s a bottle shop before the bridge. Just pull over and I’ll run inside.

Julia: I’m not stopping.

Me: Come on, I just need four more beers. That’s all. In the scheme of your life, this is probably the smallest request you will ever receive.

Julia: No.

Me: Fuck, why do you always have to be such an uptight bitch? It must be so depressing to be you. I’m depressed just by being in the same car as you. I’m depressed by proxy, like osmosis.

Julia: You’re going to fall asleep before we get to the Hills anyway.

Me: No I won’t, you goddamn fun-wrecker.

Julia: Whatever.

Me: I can’t believe you’re not stopping.

Julia: Uh huh.

Me: Can you turn the music down? I’m tired.

Sometimes when I’m having trouble expressing something, I write a song. This means that often when I have something I want to tell somebody, rather than simply talking to them, I’ll wait until they’re drunk and perform an impromptu acoustic gig for them. It’s not the most direct approach, but it usually works after seven beers.

I recently wrote a song about my friend Julia who, for some reason, continues to help me clean up every time I make a mess of my life. I waited until I felt confident/drunk enough, and then I played the song for her at a BBQ, while some mutual friends sat and listened quietly.

When I finished, there was a moment of silence and a few of the girls looked misty-eyed.

“What did you think?” I finally asked Julia.

“Can you play My Friends by the Chili Peppers?” she replied.

Me: Excuse me?

Cabbie: You just look like you’ve been partying pretty hard.

Me: Right.. Can you take me to the Hills?

Cabbie: Sure. But just so you know, there’s a $60 fine if you vomit in a taxi.

Me: I’m not going to vomit in the taxi.

Cabbie: Okay, but just so you know–

Me: I’m fine.

Cabbie: You just look a little tired, that’s all. My mate rang me only half an hour ago cause some girl hurled in his cab. It’s a massive pain because you have to take the car to get cleaned, then you miss out on fares… So $60 doesn’t even really cover you.

Me: Take the motorway, please.

Cabbie: You know what the worst thing is? When people pay by credit. Man, I hate people who use credit cards. The driver doesn’t get the payment for at least two weeks.

Me: I’m sure it doesn’t take that long.

Cabbie: It does. Sometimes it takes months.

Me: I have cash.

Cabbie: Okay, but keep in mind it’s an extra $60 if you throw up.

Me: I’m not going to throw up.

Cabbie: Alright. Maybe we should stop talking and you can just concentrate on not throwing up.

Me: Sure, great.

Half an hour later.

Cabbie: Okay, so including tolls and the surcharge, that’ll be…$113.50

Me: Oh.. Do you take Mastercard? Put it through quickly, I’m feeling kind of nauseous.