Friday, 1 November 1991  8:14pm

Dear Jewel of My Universe,

Howe bee youe?  You’re letter was fulle of ye olde Englishe slange so I assume ye transition to the land of Pomp and Splendour is complete, ande yae verily have I adjusted my texte soe ye wille bee ablee to reade ite.

Haaah! funny eh?  How are you?  I just had a letter telling me how you are.  See how I am journalistically honing my questioning skills to a razor sharp standard.  I got a promotion actually, I’m working on one of the guides as of Monday.  They’ve turned me into a Jack-of-all-trades actually.  I’ve even become a “switch-bitch!”  Yes!!  I’m on the switchboard – what a hoot!  I sit in reception chewing gum in a low cut blouse (to expose my mind-blowing cleavage and entrance the customers) and file my nails while discussing my herpes with Joycie on extension 219.  Not really.  Truthfully, I bring a new standard of professionalism to the craft.  I only discuss my thrush in person with Joycie.

Oh God, I must tell you!  Mum and Dad found some dope plants in my room, what a blast!  Mum huffed and puffed till I thought a lung would pop out of her nose.  She sucked her lips in so hard I thought they might’ve replaced her mouth with a cat’s anus when she got her hip done.   Dad came in while I was watching tv and said “Got a minute?” in that “I’m being very stern” voice of his.  I came into the room and Mum’s sitting in the chair with these dead, withered, pathetic looking dope plants in a pot on the coffee table.

Mum: (Huff Puff) “What’s that?” (narrowing of eyes)

Me: “Um, what?”

Mum: “On the coffee table (pause, puff) “Wotisit?”

Me: (meditative pause) (very quickly)  “Actually they’re for you Mum.  I was growing flowers for you for when you had to go back into hospital.”

Mum: (huff) “What sort of flowers are they J?”

Me: “Um, Geraniums.”

Mum: (with vigorous shaking of head and needless to say, plenty of huffing) “They’re NOT Geraniums J.”(pause)  “They’re NOT Geraniums, OH GOD THEY ARE NOT GERANIUMS.”

Me: (pause)  (ANOTHER pause)  (at this stage am hoping I can pause my way out of this.)

Mum: (Sucking in lips, tightly folding arms.) “What are they J?”  “WHAT ARE THEY.”

Me: (Muses for a moment.)  “They’re dope plants Mum” (then with an air of decision) “Yep, they’re dope plants.”

Dad: (Looking to Mum with a look of incomprehension) “Wha?”

Mum to Dad: (In an Oh my God my son knows narcotic lingo) “They’re dope plants.”  BIG SILENCE,  I mean REALLY BIG

Mum:  “Well, what are they doing here?”

Me:  (testing the water)  “I’m minding them for a friend?”

Mum:  (seizing upon this as a reasonably plausible and infinitely preferable to the possibility of them being mine)  “Well, some friends you’ve got!”  “Did you know it is illegal?”

and so on.  It was hilarious, I wish I could’ve taped it for you.  I was gonna throw then down the river, they were completely dead, but Mum and Dad – convinced they were in on the crime of the century made me put them down the insinkerator.  The biggest one must’ve been all of three inches tall.

It’s so fucking hot here at the moment.  It was actually 30-something the other day.  What a turnip of a day that was!  It’s so vile, women on the train are starting to wear summer dresses and I’m being assaulted with flabby upper arms at every turn.  You see, they stand on the train holding the roof handle thingys and the fat hangs down so far that it wobbles and slaps me in the face when the train shakes.  It’s like having your face violently licked by a great ox tongue smothered in baby oil.

You complain of the rugby – well the football coverage here is driving me fucking nuts.  You know how Collingwood won last year’s footy final?  Well one of their dick-head players had a head-on with a semi-trailer with a blood alcohol of .319 and he was treated like a fucking hero!  He was a thug.  After losing in the semi-finals this year, he and some other numb-nuts hi-jacked a bus at Spencer Street and beat up the driver.  Unfortunately the dumb fuck died before he got to court.  All we heard for months was Darren Millane this, Darren Millane that.  And the interviews with anyone who had ever smelt one of his farts.  “My Wild Mate Millane,” and his girlfriend “I’ll Never Love Another.”  I mean the shit head turns up half-pissed for a publicity photo-shoot with some cancer kids and he’s hailed as a “tireless charity worker.”  It makes me sick.

We really have trained Winky to sit on his blanket.  Mind you it wasn’t such a challenge after we decided to nail his head to the arm of the chair.  Don’t worry it didn’t hurt him.  He had already been stuffed and freeze dried by then.  However he still challenges authority sis, he’s still got that mischievous sparkle in his eyes.  Actually I put the sparkle there myself, I stuffed some Christmas lights up his bum and they bling on and off through his glass eyes.  By the way, I really have trained your dog to answer to the name “Scabby” I think it suits him.

Your literary masterpieces were truly splendid.  I was moved to tears by the desperate pleas for “love juice” by the Venusian women, trying so hard to save their planet really giving their all for the good old home town. Shucks I’m just a sentimental fool.  And stop encouraging Mum to see these militant man-hating Lesbo films.  Repeats of the Benny Hill Show have always been good enough in the past and they’re good enough now thank you very much.

And about the shit with Frances the Fraudulent at your work, Jack is right – don’t dob her in.  Blackmail the bitch.  Apply the screws for every penny you can squeeze out of the cow.  Go for it!  This is what corporate life is all about.

Oh, and a hint for getting rid of the teeny-boppers.  Get a loud-speaker and announce to the squealing masses that the all time great teen idol, that teen sensation that out-sells all others TONY BARBER is signing copies of his latest album “The Spiritual Tony Barber” at the nearest shopping mall. Then stand back and watch them scatter.  Add also that Kamahl and Bert Newton will be making a guest appearance in a duet of “My Everlasting Love.”

I was planning on shifting out at the beginning of next year with Brett and his girlfriend but it looks like it might be falling through as they already have their own flat.  You wouldn’t know half my friends anymore babe.  Shit, I don’t know half of them anymore.  Tom’s become a complete wild man.  His hair is halfway down his back, he’s left home and is on the dole in a band.  Josh is in the band too, they’re going to “tour” Adelaide next year (ie they met a band from SA who said they ought to go over.)  Tom’s still with that nympho too.  Josh is as hard up as ever.  Brett got a job and is living with his girlfriend in Richmond at the ripe old age of 17, my sister is whooping it up in England and I’m doing fucking nothing.  Oh well, not to whinge, at least my name isn’t “Ranald McDonald”  As if his name is really Ranald! I mean he must have changed it.

Guess what?!! You’ll be so proud, I’ve finally got my Learners Permit.  Yes, let the Heavens open and the angels belch freely, I am now permitted to learn to drive!! Whoo whoo!! BUT you MUSN’T tell Mum and Dad, I’m still not game to go driving yet.  But yes the impossible has happened.  Communism has fallen and J has his learners. God I was nervous, I went for it in the city on Saturday in Collins Street.  So don’t tell ‘em yet I wanna see Mums face.

Let me tell you about Natasha from work, she’s so bloody funny.  You see, she’s a big fundamentalist Christian and she keeps writing “God Loves U” everywhere, so I wrote underneath one “Are you saying our father in heaven does it with sheep?”  She tore it down, I don’t think she knows it was me either coz she’s still irritatingly bubbly and nice to me.  Someone also wrote under another one “Tell that to a starving Biafran mother whose child has just died in her arms.”  So she wrote this big spiel on how God wants to help us but we have to ask him and they’ve turned their back on his so they’re being punished and shit like that.  I’m really worried she’s gonna think I’m the Anti-Christ or something and come after me with some sacred daggers, but I won’t bore you with work stories like Mum does.  Mind you, I think some of her stories are funny, not like you, you horrible callous thing. Am I boring you yet?

God I must have something to do with my Friday nights, other than rambling on like that. Bored, bored, bored. Whinge, whinge, whinge.

Well I think I’ll go now, I’ve taken up enough of your time sweet-pee.

Yours fartilly

J

PS brought this to work with me to post, yes I’m slipping inexorably into the sleazy underworld of white-collar crime.  Yes, much to my shame, am getting work to pay the postage for this to UK.  I thought I’d also let you know I’ve finally got my promotion for real and I’ve shifted desks and everything.  I’m only waiting to see if I get a pay hike as well.  Oh I just got my pay this very second.  No luck on the rise!  Surging, heaving seas of warm, smelly plop! (That’s the Christian way of swearing, just ask Natasha).

Have enclosed copy of Cleo magazine, hope you like it.

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