I live with two boys. They can be quite offensive.

 

Him: I read your blog post about me.
Me: Did you like it?
Him: Yeah, it was kind of like an unfunny version of ilivewithcrazypeople. Like a poor man’s version of that.

 

Me: Wait, don’t look at those photos, they’re terrible.
Him: Annik, you don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff with me. I see you looking like shit all the time.

 

Him: Let’s plug in a red light globe in the lounge room and then our house will look really cool from the street!
Me: No it won’t, it will look like a brothel.
Him: Only if you’re standing at the window.
 

Richard was a member of a Contiki tour group my friend Keira and I belonged to during July 2007. When we caught a ferry from Athens to Mykonos, Richard bought a T-shirt with a giant penis on it that said “Give us a kiss!” and he waved to children. One night, he got really wasted and sang karaoke, emptying an entire bar of tourists in 4.5 seconds flat.

These are his stories:

Pop’s girlfriend: So, Annik, no boyfriend?

Me: Nah, no boyfriend.

PGF: Didn’t you have one last year?

Me: He turned out to be a lying fuck.

PGF: Oh.. my…

Me: Yeah.

PGF: Well, I’m sure you’ll find one this year anyway.

Me: Thanks.

PGF: Tick-tock!

Me: I’m just gonna go now.

Girl at campsite: Ah-CHOO!

Me: Bless you.

Girl: Thanks. My hayfever is sooo bad here.

Me: Would you care for an anti-histamine?

Girl: Oh yes please!

Me: I’ve got Telfast or Phenergan, take your pick.

Girl: Phernergan? You take Phernergan? That’s used to drug children, you know. It’s used to drug them, so that they can be kidnapped or something. It’s really dangerous.

Me: So’s your face.

I once lived with a guy who grew up in Kuwait and would talk about his childhood late at night when he was drunk.

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.

When I was younger I used to go to church with a family who had a son with autism. My memories of him are vague at best. He was obsessed with space ships, trains and video games, and would often sit alone repeating the same phrases over and over.

As he got older, he began exhibiting more unruly types of behaviour. They started out small enough – a tendency to break things or overeat. His parents locked all their cupboards and kept him away from the kitchen. Things obviously worsened, however, as he entered early adulthood, because the last thing I heard was that his family had put him into full-time professional care.

“Why did they do that?” I asked my physio, who was a reliable source of church gossip.

“Well, he was becoming a little difficult to handle,” she replied, digging her knuckles into my abdomen.

“But what did he do?” I pressed.

“Oh he would just get upset easily and then do inappropriate things,” she said.

“Can you give me an example?” I asked. I was dying from curiosity. What did this boy do when he got mad? I was imagining physical violence, tantrums, or perhaps even some public masturbation for shock value. The truth, however, was even more spectacular.

“Okay, here’s one,” the physio said. “Last month their whole family went to Perth for somebody’s birthday. When they were due to come home, their flight was delayed for four hours. The boy got upset, and when they tried to calm him down, he became angry. So he bit his own arm until it started bleeding, then he went around wiping the blood on other people and screaming into their faces.”

“That’s fucked up,” I marvelled.

“Please don’t swear in my house,” she replied. “Now, roll over.”

Mum: It’s so sad, what’s happening with Margaret’s family…

Dad: What happened?

Mum: Well her children from her previous marriage are always torn between spending Christmas day at Margaret’s house, or spending it with their dad and his new wife. This year, they’ve all been fighting about it, and now all this nastiness has come out of the woodwork and it looks like they might not have Christmas lunch at all.

Me: YAWN.

Dad: Can they really not reach an agreement this year?

Mum: I don’t think they will, no. The daughter-in-law is being extremely defensive and firing up at everything Margaret says. Every time they try to have a conversation, it descends into bickering.

Dad: It is a pity. But maybe these issues need to be dealt with before the family can move on? Maybe it’s a good thing?

Mum: Yeah, I guess even normal families have to compromise at Christmas time. I mean, we always have to drive up to Newcastle to see your dad, and he hasn’t come down here in more than five years because he simply refuses to make the drive. Then we have to meet him at some awful club because he won’t cook lunch for us.

Dad: What? Dad made lunch for us on Christmas Day three years ago!

Mum: Yeah but it was woeful. A barbequed chicken and some salads.

Dad: Well is Christmas about the food you eat or the people you eat it with?

Me: Guys, Christmas is about getting drunk and admitting how you really feel about people. It’s about starting fights over repressed grudges and having painfully awkward public arguments in front of all your other family members, who scramble like mad to get out of the firing line as you attempt to embroil everyone else in your petty disputes. I’m glad to see you two are already getting into the swing of things.

Mum: Oh shut up, Annik.

Me: That’s the spirit!

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.

Julia: Annik? Is that you in there?

Me: Yes.

Julia: I knew it!

Me: How did you know? Did you look at my shoes?

Julia: No, I just recognise the sound of the way you remove toilet paper from the dispenser.

Me: I think we should spend time with other people.

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.