If I cared I would, anyway.

I’ve been trying to start a foundation to fight CBF* syndrome – but it isn’t easy, being as I’m a sufferer myself. It’s an insidious disease affecting, oh, probably heaps of people. I dunno. I mean sure, I could do some research and find out but... mehhh.

It’s not unlike me to think of others in this way. For instance those who know me well recently noticed that I’ve been growing my hair. (Many who don’t may well have made a similar observation, but said nothing. They know who they are.) There’s really quite a lot of it now. But the thing is, I’m not even really sure I like it that much. What it really comes down to is that I feel obligated to keep going with it, because I have an awful lot of bald friends.

To be honest though, I’m not really doing it so much for them, as TO them.

Another thing I like to do is give free advice to tourists. So many of them come here completely unprepared, it’s amazing. They set off to drive around the country with all of their water tanks and whatnot, you know, all the safety gear. And yet every year many of them never make it back. Sure, the Germans probably get eaten by crocs, but the Poms? Our reptiles have standards, you know.
No, what happens is they go missing, out there in the never never. (As in, ‘you’ll never never be found; and we never never really looked that hard’.) All because they are improperly equipped. The last we hear of them is a report on one of our finely principled, hard-hitting current affairs shows. Having set aside for the time being their perfume tests and explosive expose of cellulite creams, of course. A report no mindless lower middle class Bogan should miss.

Tell you what I’ll do – I’ll let you in on a secret. Just for you guys, I wouldn’t go to this trouble for just anyone. If you’re ever planning to travel in Australia, pack whatever you like; GPS, emergency beacon, extra water. Whatever. Just make sure you have on or about your person a nice, shiny new deck of cards. (I prefer the Bicycle brand, myself – but it’s a personal thing. It can be the hooter ones if you like, just so long as the suites can be made out.) Keep them to hand at all times.

Now, this is important. If you find yourself stranded in the middle of nowhere, out of range, nobody for miles, and all hope seems lost... Break out those cards, find a nice clear spot and start up a game of Solitaire.
I guarantee you that within two minutes there’ll be someone looking over your shoulder saying, “Nahhhh mate. Put the seven over there.”
Aaaaaand you’re saved. No, don’t thank me. It’s what I do.

My advice isn’t just for strangers with accents from which I can extract the wee, either. No, no - I also help those nearest and dearest to me.
For instance, just recently a friend was planning to have solar hot water heating installed. Can you imagine? As I explained, the sun is going to explode in just a couple of hundred billion years, and THEN what would she do for hot water, huh? Amazingly, not only had she not considered this prior, but it wasn’t deemed to be an issue.
Admittedly, when the Sun collapses we’ll be less concerned with bathing than we will with our change in circumstances; being as our entire solar system will be sucked through a hole the size of a grapefruit, and end up in the alternate universe to where all of our odd socks have gone. It’s just the wasted effort that upsets me most.

It’s not all high end stuff like that, of course. Why, barely a day goes by that I’m not enriching someone else’s life with some pearl of wisdom or other. Etiquette stuff, like: It doesn’t matter how cold it is outside the car, it is the fartee who decides when the window goes back up.
Or, when food shopping alone try to refrain from bursting aloud into the ‘Bacon, bacon, bacon’ song in the supermarket. Even if you are in the sliced meat aisle, you just look like a crazy person. Particularly, I might add, if you personalise the lyrics.
And, never (under any circumstances) allow your wife to wrest control of the clicker from you. You’ll end up having to sit through a reality show hosted by several queer folk, while on the other channel you’re missing reruns of the A-Team. And that just isn’t right. Don’t get me wrong though, I love my wife dearly. Really, really dearly – she’s cost me stacks so far.
Finally, languages can be tricky things, and you should take care when navigating them. You may have been aware that “Sacre Bleu” is indeed a French term, but as I’ve discovered it does not actually refer to the duration of your dry spell.

How does this relate, in any way whatsoever, to the foundation, you may ask. Well, the thing is that I expend so much energy helping others in day-to-day situations that, to be honest...

I just can’t be stuffed.

*Don’t know what it means, huh? I could tell you but... Nah.

First no roast beef, now THIS?!?

In other news, I stubbed a toe yesterday. Sure, that in itself isn’t unusual; the world is full of clumsy tools after all.
What is odd though, are the circumstances surrounding it. In fact, I just got off the ‘phone with the people at Ripley’s, and they didn’t believe it either.

You see, first of all this stubulation occurred on a flat, stable surface entirely free of protuberances. Not a table leg in sight. Further, it struck not at the big toe, or indeed the little guy on the outside who normally bears the brunt of such things – all damage was restricted exclusively to the site of an INBOARD toe. How can that happen? It’s just bizarre.

Indeed, when I related the surreal tale to The Boss, she was instantly moved to ask if the digit in question was perhaps in some way excessively droopy. Well, it is NOW!

I tell you, that pinkie toe is so smug right now, it’s disgusting. I‘ve half a mind to kick a good-sized house brick, to bring it back down a peg or two. That’ll teach it.