Labour (Day) Pains

**Please note some names have been shortened to first letters to protect what little dignity these people have left**

I sit on the couch on Labour Day and wonder what an earth brought me to this moment. Why am I nursing groin pains, have my top on backwards and why did I wake up on the couch curled up in a little ball next to Buffy the dog, who is in the same sleeping position? Why is B wearing two different thongs, resembling death warmed up? And why is J, still fully clothed in bed, sausage stains on the back of her t-shirt and sporting a plastic fork in her hair?

I have just finished my labour day weekend holiday, having celebrated it with 6 other people and 3 dogs. What an adventure has just transpired.

I have now increased my vocabulary by words and terms such as: Nisbit, rusty trombone, cuntkerchief, horse friendly wink.

I began the adventures with a replacement bus ride (due to train track work) to Geelong, our driver Barry - pleasant fellow - dropped us off at Geelong train station. B was meant to collect us, however being the eternally late angel that she is, we were forced to endure air sharing with some of Geelong's finest - who were off to Melbourne to enjoy the frivolities promised by Moomba Festival - wearing nothing but a cuntkerchief (an extremely small garment leaving nothing to the imagination) and really I do take my hat off to a crazy bitch who can tolerate such temperature conditions as 10 degrees wearing basically nothing.

B finally arrives, wearing mustard coloured jodhpurs, riding boots, a striped deakin university nurses uniform shirt and a V necked sweater. You see her strange attire was because today we planned to go horse riding at Blazing Saddles (sounds like an STI doesn't it?) in Anglesea. Something we all hadn't done since we were teenagers and quite possibly the reason for my current groin pains. However the pains could also be a product of seeing a photograph of a ridiculous pose, a male ballerina was doing up a wall, in a copy of vanity fair J provided to me for the bus journey to which all 8 of us decided to attempt - when J boldly stated that "anyone could do that" - she was wrong.

The trail ride, for the most part, was mediocre to say the least. None of us can really attribute anything that our horses did to our own riding skills. The bloody animals have been doing the same trip 2 or 3 times a day for the past 10 years and generally just follow the leader and know when to do what. We did however get a small canter in which was exhilarating for about 100 meters - but for the most part it was mainly walking - due to the fact the an 8 year old, rang-er girl dreadfully named Hester, decided to be a big fat cry baby and refuse to do anything fun. We all realised - during our post ride debrief at the pub - that at some point during the ride, had all wished ill of her and had all muttered under our breath for her the harden the fuck up. The most exciting part probably was when my horse, who seemed to enjoy taking close up whiffs of the behinds of the other horses, whiffed her last when the recipient of the nose decided to kick back in turn causing my horse to rear up. Much to the astonishment of the trail leaders and my fellow riders I managed to stay on and react rather cooly about it all. The leaders in their very "I'm a proper rider, not some disgusting cowboy accents" said "well done, well done, my, you did sit in that well, very good". Really I think I was more stunned than anything and have never gripped my thighs so hard together (again back to the groin pains). The other interesting thing about the ride was that we established, from the wink we got at every swish of Y's horse's tail that she was quite the town bicycle and no doubt had been ridden by, not only humans (in a transport sense) but also by every male horse that called Blazing Saddles their home..... tart.

After all that excitement the troop needed food and beer - to the pub! We disgustingly consumed many a plate of nachos, fries and calamari and washed it down with jugs of beer. I perhaps made an error of judgement and decided to re-enact a u tube clip I had seen of the today show presenters playing the winter olympic sport - curling - on a playstation wii - which involved very suggestive movements. On top of this J decided to tell us a story of revenge which resulted with a man being shat on by his very angry wife. We also got a story of a rusty trombone reach around (google the term). You could tell by the looks of silent horror from the patrons around us that we weren't really well received.

The next part of our journey went slightly awry - the intention was to walk down to the river and partake in the joys of bobbing in the water with the assistance of a rubber inflatable device and sip on champagne. We were told all we had to do was cross the bridges and we would be there. Well many a bridge later and 1 and 1/2 hours into the walking trip we were beginning to doubt that we would find the place and then disaster struck.

We had been throwing the balls to the dogs and B had thrown the ball that sailed with slow motion and plopped into the river water. The 3 dogs all bounced in after it and after a little bit of time wondering what an earth Roxie (the dog) was doing to Bella (the dog), we realised she was drowning her. Panic set in, B (the boy), bless him in his soft and effeminate ways bravely signaled by unzipping the v neck part of his sweater that he might go in after them. However there was no need, K (owner of both the dogs) was a woman possessed and fully clothed (spectacles, thongs and all) hurled in after them in a an act that can only be described as sheer bravery. Once the dogs were rescued they continued to run around again as if nothing had happened - however K was not only water logged but bore the lashings of bella's claws across her chest and was also missing a thong.

The thong never surfaced and it was assumed that it was indeed stuck in the mud. We made a slight attempt to feel around for it will the dog ball throwing plastic stick thingy, and whilst we were doing so - some dude in a weird leg peddled kayak, came past enquiring what we were looking for - when we told him he stated that he hadn't come across a thong, but had come across something. He produced a pink lip smacker lip balm, which indeed, did belong to K - so there was at least one win (although I would say chances are she wont ever use a river soaked lip balm again), sadly however, we never recovered the thong and poor K had to limp back home minus one shoe.

By the time we reached home - we almost had to turn on the spot and head out again for the main attraction of the weekend the "holly go lightly, Y's house warming party" which we also like to now call - a ridiculously debaucherous night to which we have photo evidence. On the way to the party, stopping in at the alcho shop, E calmly stated to the shop server that he had a massive huntsman spider crawling across his chest - to which the rest of us responded in hideous shrieks and screams and holding onto each other for safety, which I'm sure didn't help the situation one bit - I am happy to say the disaster was averted with a quick brush of a hand.

I won't go into too much detail of the warming because what happened at the party really should stay at the party, however I can mention that much liquid of the alcoholic variety was consumed, sausages were eaten, voices were lost from the amount of singing that was done on sing star, A parrot pinyata was bashed to death and then worn as a hat, a the movie goonies was played at the end of the night. This was where the night got somewhat blurry for me, due to the fact that I was found curled up asleep in a corner when everything was said and done. B had gone home and forgotten me and left me (I believe she had many other adventures involving mismatched thongs, cigarettes and bar fights but we can't be sure), It was just lucky that E found me when things were being packed up, she woke me up to tell me it was time to go - I obediently followed in a daze. Don't really remember the walk home - only that it involved strawberries. Once back at the fort I believe my efforts were much the same - falling alseep in a ball with the dogs in the lounge which I was left until the morning.

Bless her little heart Y did try and coax us all out of the house for a spot of surfing, but we were having nothing of it and decided to wallow in our hung over states and eat scrambled eggs with tomato and goats fetta, pancakes, bread and jam, popcorn and chocolate. J, still wearing her sausage stained top from the night before and branding a plastic fork that she got from the fudge shop, declared that she believed a cat had shat in her mouth - she also went on to tell us a story she had also once related to axel rose about a nisbitt (again google the term). We all sat in the dark, watching the movie vanity fair (a hideously awful movie, that we negatively commented on, every second of the way). Eating and sitting took up a fair amount of the day - and in the afternoon we all agreed that it was time to head back to reality and a hail damaged Melbourne.

We did our best to have a great labour day long weekend, and I can safely say that we did our best deliciously.

xx

The Man

He was late. His irresolution had got the better of him. When one usually has the opportunity to set sail to sober-land, being wholly satisfied with their third and, what should be, final drink on a Friday night at the fine establishment twenty yards from one's place of work - this man missed this boat, utterly and completely. A colleague defiantly sat a fourth in front of him. This fourth, being the gateway that led him to this very moment now. Pointlessly trying to grasp onto blank moments which, more than likely, would have been full to the brim of inappropriateness and his undulating dance with the door and house keys, that at any moment, could cause him to abruptly exonerate, the essentially consumed kebab - a gift for the front door mat.

He finally reunited door with keys, thankfully with no evidence of lamb betraying him. He painstakingly crept in, in attempt to make as little noise as possible, however the paralysis of his motor cortex, left his movements with the immaturity of a toddler learning to walk and he managed to hit every item in range of his two meter journey into the house.

There she was, poised silhouette - a dark shadow in a doorway. She gave him a look of dry disdain, subtle and forced, as if it in-dignified her to have to give any reaction at all. The expression one gives when they smack their faces into a glass door having mistaken it for an opening and are forced to acknowledge that the stupidity, indeed, had happened at all.

She added a slow drawn out blink, why was he wasting her time? He opened his mouth, one imagines to begin some sort of an explanation, however what came out resembled more like the agonising sound of a heifer in labour and before he had even had the chance to finish off that foul and disgusting noise, she had already turned swiftly, aloofly walking off, her shadow becoming a mere blend of the surrounding darkness.

Bitch.

Tonight he would probably have to sleep on the couch. He silently mocked himself. The hatred pinned to that thought was really intended for no one but himself. He knew in a couple of moments he would be begging for forgiveness. He mused with a fond curiosity of how she always managed to invoke such self hating thoughts, to immediately paint him with the colour of guilt. How could she drive him into such desperation, night after night, his ultimate aim to please her knowing she would always be so disappointed at any efforts. She was, after all, just his cat.