My Headphones, My Headphones

I head into town and pay my car rego, club plates I have to do it in person.

I come home and renegotiate my car insurance, on which I got a better deal. If you just keep paying it now a days you get screwed over for being loyal to the insurance company, that's how those things work now a days.

I head to the post office in the afternoon. It was a nice day. I pull out my phone to listen to music, on the way, but I had forgotten my headphones. I am holding my phone in my hand just looking at it as I continue to walk. Grrr. The definition of regret that I was more than halfway to the shops. I laugh to myself, seriously, no, not that person. Am I that person, I think? It is warm day, and I think what the hell.

I see Tony Armstrong is standing outside the bar on the corner of  Smith Street amongst a group of drinkers outside the bar.

Not long after, I am standing in the long post office queue. There must be 10 or 15 people in front of me. What do I expect a Friday afternoon, I have to accept, just before Xmas, again, I ask myself? I start to regret forgetting my headphones. People, people, people, as David would say. My headphones are like my shield of steel.

On the way back, I’m having a good look at Tony Armstrong holding court in the middle of the group of people, you know to see if he is as good looking as I think he is, in the flesh, and just as I’m thinking, oh yes, I’d suck your dick, I mean, that’s the measure, isn’t it, of attractiveness? The moustache would have to go, of course, but… he looks across at me, holds my gaze and smiles and does a thumbs up, right as I had that thought. Was I looking at him too intently? I guessed I must have been? Is he a fucking mind reader, I asked myself? I mean I was just some random walking past, just a nobody in the passing parade, nothing to do with him. WTH?

I come home and take Bruno and Otto for their walk.

A couple pass me with a baby in a pusher, just as we get going. The wife has a mohawk’ish style hair, not strictly a mohawk, all pink and white, which was more her jumper than her hair, when I take a second look. The husband had on blue shorts with a big, beefy arse, and a T-shirt that says, best slice in the world, or words to that effect, and I think to myself I can certainly see that

Bruno takes off across the commission flats as I try to write it in my journal, suddenly jerking me sideways, it’s as if he knows when my attention is elsewhere on my journal, for instance. And Otto shits and Mark calls at the same time as I am pulling the green bag open to pick up Otto’s shit. “Ah!”

Mark calls back and I chat to him as we walk down Brunswick Street. We cross the road to the shady side of the street > Johnson Street, I wave to our puppy trainer as we pass by > Bruno picks up a tennis ball at the beginning of our street and then Otto is after the tennis ball from Bruno all the way home, so that keeps the two of them moving.

And then we’re home.

I write a story called, I Slept With The Captain of the Footy Team for the rest of the afternoon, in a sparsely punctuated, stream of consciousness, kind of style.