The Things Nick Says To Me: Part 3

On his disgust at kids wasting their money on frivolous things.

Nick: I saved my money for ages until I could afford the things I wanted. Like my framed picture of Yakini. The print was $200 and I spent $300 framing it. That's a lot of money for a 16 year old.

Note: Yakini was a photograph of a monkey.

Don't Drink and Drive. But Also, Don't Get High and Dye.

I love making new friends. It’s great to expand your network, hear some new points of view, but MOSTLY because then I can tell them all my old stories and they will laugh at them like they are new. So I made a new friend recently, let’s call her J for sake of ease. Cue all my worn out anecdotes and pre-used puns. And then I remembered an extra reason why I like new friends - their hilarious anecdotes. So J arrived in Sydney (after living on the Gold Coast for her whole life) and immediately met up with some friends-of-friends to experience Sydney’s world-renowned nightlife (lol jokes). 

Not long into the outing one of her new friends enquired “Do you want to get a cab? I’ll need $40 if you do.” 

“Of course!” J responded. 

“How else would we get to the city?" She pondered. "And how expensive are taxis here?!”

Little did J know, what she’d actually been asked was “Do you want to get some caps?”

Caps, mum, (and everyone else who is as naive as little J), are a drug. I think they are like ecstasy. But I don’t know because I haven’t done them... No one has ever offered them to me - just another sad reminder that I’m getting older.

Upon arrival at the club J hopped out of the cab (undoubtedly, ironically, alongside friends who thought she was a tight ass for not putting money in to pay for the transportation) and once inside at the bar was handed the drugs she had agreed to buy. She feigned excitement, poured them into her drink and promptly visited the bathroom to flush them away. I know - what a waste of good money (and good drugs)!

Anyway, this all got me thinking about the time I was given some drugs by a friend. But was apparently not as savvy as J because I ingested them and consequently had a very weird day at university.

Rewind six years and you would find a very different version of Maz. I was 19, plagued by the requisite boy and family dramas that come with being teenager in their second year at uni. I would trudge into class every morning, sullen and dressed in oversized clothes. I felt this way I looked smaller and more vulnerable, therefore people would pity me more. What an attention seeker. Apparently I was successful though, because a good friend recognised I was going through a bit of a rough patch and brought me a gift. One juicy, plump brownie in a plastic takeaway container. 

He placed it on my desk and winked at me. Retrospectively, it was pretty damn obvious what was in it (marijuana, mum). At the time I apparently didn’t realise and promptly consumed it in its entirety. Five minutes later my friend swiveled in his chair and gasped 

“You didn’t eat that whole thing, did you?” 

“Um... yeah?” I replied.

Half an hour later, I was off my nut. I sat in my chair, knowing I had to go to the bathroom but completely unsure whether or not I was supposed to ask permission. Keep in mind that I was sitting in a lecture. That was completely full. I sat there debating whether or not to raise my hand and ask permission to pee. After about fifteen minutes I figured out that I was allowed to take myself off to the bathroom without approval (thank god), and left. 

A very long confused wander around the halls of university later, I decided it would probably be best to go home. I managed to locate my car and drove at about 30kms/hr back to Hornsby, where I parked at the shopping centre. But my adventure didn’t end there sober reader. How I wish it had.

For some reason I felt that a total makeover was in order. I purchased a new dress, after a very garbled conversation with a bewildered shop assistant, and decided that the next logical step would be to go to the hairdresser and get them to colour my hair. I opted for a very blonde blonde and settled in in the chair. Two hours later I was sober and had the most hideously brassy hair money could buy. I went home out of pocket $200, but having learnt an invaluable lesson - all my life I’d thought it was don’t take candy from strangers, turns out you’re not supposed to take candy from friends. No candy from friends. Got it.

Red Meat Is Good For Brain Development?

I’ll never forget it, the exact heart-racing, sigh-inducing, moment that I fell in love. I had butterflies. My senses were heightened. My eyes became misty… 

I’m not talking about when I met Mr. Maz – his first words to me were “I like your pants” and, to be honest, I thought he was a total creep. So my first words to him were “Um, my dad’s waiting for me outside.” No, Nick is not the topic of this anecdote, I’m talking about the first time I ate Nem Chua. It was a summer’s eve and we were at a friend’s house for dinner. Her Vietnamese heritage always means a phenomenal feed and the night I was introduced to these little slices of heaven was no different.

Nem Chua is this amazing Vietnamese meat dish, which is basically minced pork (or any meat for that matter) mixed with shredded pork skin, topped with sliced garlic and chili. You don’t cook it, but rather it is preserved and sort of ferments after you knead through a preservative powder (which i’m sure is full of MSG and other horrible things, but it’s delicious so I don’t care). Anyway, I was enamored with this savoury snack and would hang out for any occasion when my friend would deem it appropriate to whip it up.

Unfortunately for me, I am not very good at the whole “moderation” thing. A little quirk I have is that if I like the taste of something I only want to eat THAT. I don’t love sandwiches because I just want the filling, not the bread, so I have been known to purchase roast beef from the deli and eat it out of the bag.  I may have, on occasion, eaten sour cream out of the container with a spoon (and a sprinkling of salt). Once I ingested an entire jar of tomato paste WITH A STRAW. So it stands to reason that I would eventually try and make Nem Chua myself. So I could eat not one or two slices, but basically a whole packet of pork mince in one sitting. 

A few failed trips to Vietnamese grocery stores later and with a subsequent, generous endowment from my friend of a packet of pork skin and a sachet of chemically MSG goodness, I was ready to go. I lit some candles. I put on some mood music. And I kneaded the shit out of that pork. As I was emptying the packet of Nem Chua powder into the pork however, the little anti-desiccant sachet fell in along with the contents. I hurriedly grabbed it and threw it into the bin “disaster averted” I thought, “I wonder if any suckers actually think that sachet is part of the seasoning?” I chuckled to myself. Because I am so wise and, obviously, a multi-cultural kitchen whiz. And before you could say “mono sodium glutamate” I had completed the dish. I placed it in the fridge, hoping the next twenty four hours would fly by.

Twenty four hours later, I was standing at my refrigerator scratching my head. The pork didn’t look like it should. I was a dull grey, not a vibrant pink. It was leaking some sort of bloody, jellied fluid. I put it back and waited another two weeks, after all, it was packed full of preservatives - what harm could it do?! Fourteen days later the Nem Chua still looked a little strange, but strangeness had never before been a barrier to me eating something, so I tucked in and ate half of it in one fell swoop. 

I’m sure you can see where this story is going but you know I have to tell you the ending anyway. It was after I had eaten nearly 300 grams of pork that I asked my friend what it was I had done incorrectly so that my pork was not pink and bouncy, but dull and lifeless. And of course, it turned out that the sachet which I had pegged as an anti-desiccant was, in fact, the preservative powder - the active ingredient which allowed mere mortals to eat raw meat without getting ill. The rest was just seasoning. So I had gone against my better judgement and eaten half a packet of raw, out of date pork. Of course. Because shit like that only happens to Maz.

People Who Wear Crocs Are Not Your Friends

Last week’s story about living with boys got me thinking about my one experience living alone, and how vastly different it was to the whimsy and delight of living with a bunch of hoodlums. During a particularly rocky time in my relationship I decided it was best that I move out of our home and live alone. Images of Carrie Bradshaw’s Upper East Side bachelorette pad danced through my mind. How incorrect these fantasies were…

I found a one bedroom apartment in Stanmore that was a mere $200 a week rent. It was actually very sweet, with a kitchen that overlooked the street and a bright, high-ceilinged bedroom. I even had a wacky neighbour who asked (and subsequently didn’t take) my opinion on her outfits. Once she spent twenty minutes gushing to me about these new Crocs high heels she’d bought, I didn’t even know that was a thing, and they were hideous. The only problem with my apartment was that the bathroom was separate. I didn’t have to share with anyone (thank god!) but the bathroom was out the door, down two flights of stairs, a short walk along a hallway and out in the backyard. Mmm… convenient.  There were four bathrooms in a row, one for each apartment in the block, consisting of a toilet and a shower. I set about furnishing mine, installing a pretty blue shower curtain and stocking up with a lifetime supply of toilet paper – because I was a classy, independent woman and no truly classy, independent woman should ever be forced to do a Mariah Carey and “Shake it Off” after a trip to the bathroom.

As time passed I found the most difficult part of living alone was the late night trips to the bathroom. They say people are most scared of public speaking, personally my two biggest fears are ghosts and monsters, so that pitch black trip down all the stairs and out into the dark backyard was a killer. I tried not drinking water for hours before bed, I tried holding it and waiting until it was light – but it was all in vain, I would eventually have to get up and run downstairs in my pyjamas. The way I saw it I had two options – I could move or I could be inventive. I am bone idle and DID NOT want to have to move again, so I bought a little step stool from Ikea and I peed in my sink. It was a blessing really. It meant that I always kept my dishes clean and put away, so my house was always neat and tidy.

After I had solved this little dilemma I started noticing other strange bathroom happenings. It seemed that my aforementioned “lifetime supply” of toilet paper was being used up at an alarming rate. No sooner would I buy a sixteen pack of sorbent, than it would be gone. Other things started to go astray too. My deodorant, my razor one day. I began to wonder if it was some strange retribution from the building, unhappy about my unsavoury nocturnal sink habits, perhaps it had started to eat my possessions as penance. The Case of the Missing Bathroom Items came to a climax one day when I trekked down to the bathroom for my morning shower to find my shower curtain was gone. I don’t think I’ve ever been so confused in my life. The fact that I’d been living alone didn’t help either, I hadn’t mentioned my little bathroom mystery to anyone, simply because there was no one around to talk to. I was beginning to wonder if these things were actually happening or if I’d gone mad and was just moving my own shit and not noticing. I exited the bathroom, the floor soaking wet, the clean dry clothes I’d brought down to change into still clean but not so dry.

And that’s when I noticed my neighbour’s bathroom door, ever so slightly ajar. I nudged it as I walked past and lo and behold it was a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of MY stuff. She had been sneaking into my bathroom and stealing my furnishings.  The crazy bitch had been shaving with my razor and soaping herself up with my bar of soap (while wearing her crocs heels no doubt). So I high-tailed it out of there before I was caught and made into a loofa; because let’s be honest, someone who will steal your shower curtain and then barely try to hide it would probably have no qualms about killing you and washing themselves with your skin.

I never said anything and moved pretty soon after. I didn’t take anything from my bathroom, but left it all there as a parting gift, as well as an unworn pair of high heel shoes in her size.  I received a note from the estate agent, along with my bond, complimenting me on how neat and tidy the apartment and bathroom were. I guess it gave a whole new meaning to the expression “getting cleaned out”.

The Things Nick Says To Me: Part 2

On taking his Christmas present "The Hits of 89" on record away on holidays.

Nick: we didn't have a record player so I would just take it to bed and look at it.

Home Is Where The Broccoli Art Is

A little while ago I ventured into Bed, Bath and Table to buy three mugs for some friends who were moving out of home for the first time. I don’t know why I decided a mug would be the most appropriate present, I can only count on one hand the amount of times I made a cup of tea of coffee for myself in my first apartment, but one of the girls is Swedish so I guess I assumed they’re different in regard to hot beverages. It’s cold over there. I think. Anyway, it got me thinking about when I moved out of home for the first time.

At 19 I decided I wanted to be independent. Despite the fact that I only worked two days a week and studied full time, I couldn’t wait to get away from the place where food was free and someone hugged me and washed my clothes. It seemed like such an awesome idea at the time. So a friend and I found a place in Hornsby and some idiot of an estate agent approved the lease. “We’re onto a winner!” we thought. During my time in this place I did the following things:

·         Locked myself out of the apartment on at least four separate occasions and had to sleep on the stairs

·         Ran out of money practically every week

·         Spent very little time in the apartment I was spending so much money on

·         Don’t read this one if you’re my mum. Would occasionally shoplift food if I was entirely out of money. It’s ok though. I only took BBQ chickens from the supermarket AFTER they had been marked down to $6 at the end of the day. I would wear a really big hoody and just put the chook under my jumper and walk out. I would smell and be oily, but it was totally worth it.

Basically, living out of home was not as fun as it had seemed. But the point I am trying (and failing) to get to is this: the one thing about living out of home that I didn’t anticipate to be quite as amazing as it was, was boy housemates. My one original boy housemate was part of a tribe of three boys who were omnipresent in flat number 6. Eventually all four of us moved into an actual house in West Pymble and sometimes on sad days I look back on the shit they did there and I laugh until I cry.

Here is my Top 5 List of Hilarious Things My Boy Housemates Did:

1.       In our first apartment there was a minuscule, rectangular hallway between the two bedroom doors, bathroom and living room. When all these doors were shut it became a miniature room about one by one and a half metres. The boys put a black light in overhead and covered the walls in fluro posters. They would then tie pillows to themselves and spin around frantically smashing into the walls in an attempt to become disoriented.

2.       One day I heard an explosion downstairs. Not a “bang”, but a “boom”. I sprinted downstairs to the back room, to find that the boys were pissing themselves with laughter. I enquired as to what the noise had been and was told the back door had slammed shut in the wind. I returned to my room. Not even a minute later another BOOM ensued. I returned and the boys were practically rolling on the floor in fits of giggles. It turns out that they had made an orange cannon. This is a length of PVC pipe, with one covered end, into which you force an orange. Deodorant is sprayed into the end of the pipe and when lit, acts as a propellant and launches the orange at (surely) hundreds of kilometres an hour from the end of the cannon. The boys had been cannoning oranges at the sandstone wall in the backyard, not three meters away. The yard was covered in fragmented oranges and the citrus smell was overpowering. As a girl, I can’t comprehend why this was fun, but their mirth was entertainment enough for me.

3.       With four people in the house it was hard to find some alone time. There was however, one morning a week when I knew everyone was at work or university. I made the most of these mornings, wandering around naked and singing. As you do. One morning, while halfway through a particularly stirring rendition of “Stars” from Les Mis, I wandered into the kitchen to find some strange girl in there. She was a guest of one of the boys who I had never even been introduced to (let alone informed that she would be left unattended in my house), I mumbled hello and beat a hasty retreat, furious that she had ruined my crescendo (partly mad that she had seen me naked before she knew my name, but it was mostly about the crescendo).

4.       The boys OFTEN came home with rubbish. I don’t know where it came from, but I’m pretty sure that they found things beside the road and just brought them home. Like small children bringing home stray animals. The entire time I lived in that house there was a framed picture of broccoli on the wall near the kitchen, we also had a plastic drink dispenser in the shape of Bob Hawke’s head and once the boys brought home a rusty metal drum, painted four letter words all around the outside and tried to light a fire in it. As though they were hobos.

5.       All three boys lived on one side of the house with doors linking each of their rooms, while two of the rooms shared a balcony; which was well and truly their Man Zone. They attached a length of pipe to the exterior wall of the house that ran from their rooms at the back, directly into the recycling bin at the front so they didn’t have to carry beer bottles through the house. It also made for lots of whooshing and crashing (which I think was secretly their favourite part). They also cleared a patch of space in front of their balcony and amassed a large collection of gnomes, I think some of the gnomes even spoke when you got near them – at least I hope to god they did, because I heard some weird noises coming from that gnomey little haven.

One day the owner decided to sell. So the boys refused to clean their rooms or leave the house to make inspections extra awkward, bless them. But as the adage goes “all good things come to an end” and the house sold. When I moved out, Nick helped me pack my couch into the moving truck and on the back of it I found a little leaf tailed gecko. I tried to move him and, I swear to god, he opened his mouth and screamed at me “EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee”.

“I agree little gecko” I thought “I don’t want to leave either”.

Listen More. Mumble Less.

I often mishear people. Mostly, this is not my fault. It is the fault of people who mumble. But through some annoying quirk of society, somehow the onus is on ME to understand these people who don’t know how to enunciate. When I don’t hear what someone says I will generally respond with “I beg your pardon?” When they repeat themselves and again, and again I haven’t been able to understand them I will ask “sorry, could you tell me once more?” and if, on the third attempt, I don’t hear them I give up and chuckle and nod. Sometimes I repeat key words I did understand and chuckle and nod. For twenty four years of my life this was a pretty harmless solution to this fairly common problem. Until a little while ago when this solution stopped working and just made me look like a bitch.

I was delivering coffee to a lady up the road from where I worked. I arrived, coffee in hand, and made some small talk – you know, the weekend bla bla bla, the weather bla bla bla, business bla bla bla bla. And then it all went to shit.

“My back hurts mumble mumble” she told me.

“That’s no good!” I replied. “What did you do to it?”

“I was mumble mumble lifting mumble mumble weighs one hundred kilos” she said.

“I beg your pardon?” came my response.

“I mumble mumble doing so much work mumble mumble lifting mumble one hundred mumble kilos!” she lamented (I assumed).

Forever the people pleaser that I am, I tried to sympathise with her. Despite the fact I wasn’t entirely sure what I was sympathising with – but I figured she’d hurt her back lifting something heavy.

“One hundred kilos?!” I exclaimed “That is heavy. No wonder your poor back is sore. Wow! Isn’t one hundred kilos, like, a ton?”

She gave me an odd look and I smiled broadly and sincerely, wished her a nice afternoon and left.

You know how you only think of fantastic comebacks after you’ve finished an argument with someone? Or when someone asks you the name of that character from Family Ties and you can’t think of it until a few hours later when you’re not with them anymore? And sometimes after you leave a conversation you realise retrospectively what someone was saying to you, when earlier you had misheard them. Well, this was one of those times. So of course, it was only after I had walked back to work that I realised what this lady had told me.  In my mind the “mumbles” left her sentences and it became very apparent that she’d just told me that it was difficult to lift things because she had put on weight and weighed one hundred kilos. She had hurt her back because it is harder lifting things when you WEIGH one hundred kilos.

So in real life our conversation had gone something like:

Her: “I weigh one hundred kilos”

Me: “Wow! That’s so heavy! Isn’t that like a ton? Geez your back must be sore!”

Moral of the story? Start. Using. Correct. Pronunciation. And. Diction. In. Your. Sentences. Or I will be accidentally cruel to you.