I walked out of the bedroom blowing kisses to Sam, which was kind of a reversal of what we have been used to. I straightened the doona and the quilt for him before patting it down before I left. He looked just like a head, in a sea of maroon and purple. He smiled, visually purred, one might say. It was 7am and it was dark and grey outside and the day wasn’t sparkling.
I walked to the corner of Gertrude and Brunswick streets, pulling my collar up around my neck. That way I can catch either tram into the city for my change at Swanston for St Kilda Road.
What the hell are they doing to Swanston Street, I think? If only I had an assignment away from the CBD I wouldn’t even notice all of this carry on. It would simply be changed the next time I saw it and I’d wonder how, if my passing thoughts were even that long.
Ah, not for profit. I was there at 8.30, but that is just my stupidity really and can hardly blame them for that. They all wander in sometime after 9am and I think that maybe I should consider not for profit as a career move. They spend the day giving me incomplete information.
“Just whatever is highlighted on the spread sheet.”
“Highlighted? On what spread sheet?” I hold up the spread sheet?
“Oh.” She smiles self consciously. “Didn’t I give you the coloured version?”
“Um, no.”
She returned a short time later with a spread sheet with a lot of highlighted lines and all of it makes more sense suddenly. I’m half way through the day and suddenly I have all this “other” work to do. Yay. I’s wave my flag in the air enthusiastically if I wasn’t wondering how much blame they will be putting onto me when all of this is discussed.
I get everything finished by the end of the day.
“So how far did you get?”
“Oh, I finished everything.”
The one staff member who is left, who hasn’t pissed off to pick up her kids or whatever seems impressed.
I’ve completed emails she may want to send as notification in the next few days. I have fixed the problems they have seemed content to live with.
Sam is heading back into the city from his place. “Where shall we meet?” I ask. “I’m leaving work now, I can meet you in the city.”
“I’m nearly in the city,” he replies. “I’ll meet you at home.”
The tram is packed heading up St Kilda Road. There are fat women with backpacks who practically push me out of the way to get into the packed tram. There are school kids with huge bags who I think should be well home by half past five. There are people shouting into mobile phones. And people with headphones. There is nobody reading novels like they are in the morning, to stuffed and run down by the day, I suspect.
It is bleak at the Bourke street tram stop, people are milling about in packs, hunting down the tram ride home. I wait for the tram to pull up, if it is packed and I have to stand I am going to walk. Fuck it, I should move my fat arse, if I can’t sit and relax. The tram slides to a halt in front of me and a green haired girl with a nose ring appears out of no where and pushes me sideways to manoeuvre her fat arse in from of the door. The widows pass, pass, pass, pass and all I can see is people standing holding the hand straps, even if I can see the odd vacant seat between them. More people jostle me from either side and I calculate my chance of getting a seat as being, oh, er, ah, zero. I pull away in the opposite direction to the rest of the crowd, pushing against the tide of determined faces. I break out the back of the crowd and start walking up Bourke Street. My feet seem to automatically turn me into the tattsLotto agent to purchase a ticket in the 70 million draw for tomorrow night.
I imagine what it would be like to win all that money as I walk up Little Bourke Street. It would mean not going to work, not having to head into the salt mines to earn a living. That’s all I think it would do. It wouldn’t make me happy, it would make my life amazing, but it would be a good starting point, hey?
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