Perth - Jewel of the West

Woke up bright 'n' early this morning and completed my morning beautification routine of a brisk shower and a lengthy dump all before the rooster three doors down had completed an hour's crowing. Either it was dead, or it was before 6am. Either way, it was an ungodly hour - one I'd been progressing closer and closer to in my campaign to see more of the Ensign during waking hours. My previous modus-operandi had been to arrive at the WCS around 8:30am - 9:00am and leave 7pm - 8pm which meant only seeing my tubby little offspring when she's asleep. Plan B was to get to work 6:30am - 7:00am and leave 5:00pm - 6:00pm. Cunning.

So, imbued with the invigoration my new routine afforded me, I finalised my bag packing and awaited the Tossed's arrival. We were off on a WCS-sponsored adventure to Perth. As regular a Derryn Hinch on an all All-Bran diet, I heard the discordant rattle of his Ford as it sputtered into my driveway, and gave the She_Admiral the perfunctory peck on the cheek as I left. "That counts as foreplay!" I yelled as I left, anticipating my return late the next day where such pre-coital luxuries would be abandoned.

I hauled my "luggage" to the car. It consisted of a heavy laptop bag containing my essential travel items, and my "check in luggage" which consisted of a pair of socks, a pair of jocks and one magnetic screwdriver. The absurd post September 11 flight rules mandated that the screwdriver could not be taken on board the aircraft, presumably because I could be a terrorist and might be inclined to dismantle the aircraft one screw at a time.

We swung into the airport entrance with a rattling groan from the Foulcan and it was with shock that I saw Tossed heading for the Long Term Parking area. I blurted a "WTF!?" and he shot back a "Cheaper!", just in time for my to yank the steering wheel sharply to the right, shepherding us into the Short Term Parking area. Corporate VISA does not differentiate, I explained to Tossed. Sure it might cost us $75 to park for 2 days, but that's better than having to walk 200m carrying a bag weighed down with two undergarments and a screwdriver.

Having parked the car, we made our way to the terminal, instinctively looking for the Internode brochure stand, that had at one time contained the Splado Sux! parephanalia. It was nowhere to be seen. Unsustainable I expected. We checked in, Tossed hefting his weighty suitcase onto the scales, and me lightly piffing my screwdriver case onto the adjacent one. Luggage safely checked, we then quickly irradiated our gonads at the security checkpoint and were off. Amazingly, my run of 13 straight "Random Explosive Detection" selections was broken, as I was waved through. I just hoped it wasn't another case of mistaken "Life Partner" identity on behalf of the security personnel. I'd already taken steps to ensure that we were sitting at opposite ends of the plane by checking in online, so it would have been a shame to undo all that good work now.

For once we were flying Qantas instead of Virgin, because all Virgin flights from Adelaide to Perth go from Adelaide to Canberra to Melbourne and then to Perth, whereas Qantas fly direct. What was immediately obvious on boarding the plane was that our cunning plan to get an empty seat next to each us had failed. I was seated next to a reasonably attractive blonde chick, while Salad was shoehorned in between his window and a massively fat Sumo wrestler. Another thing was also immediately obvious, Qantas's hostie-hiring policy had slipped badly.

A quick taxi later and we were in the air. As soon as the seatbelt lights went out I cracked open the laptop and fired up to do some work. This involved watching a couple of episodes of Californication, since the She_Admiral's lethargic progression through Entourage at home had been holding me back for weeks. Barely 30 seconds in, the laptop screen was jigging with a pair of pneumatic norks attached to some sultry young vixen enthusiastically riding David Duchovny. Instinctively, I turned the laptop to the right, but it was too late. The bird next to me was chucking to herself, no doubt confinced that I was some pr0n-obsessed computer nerd who liked nothing better than to mentally whack off to naked teenagers on domestic flights. "Fair call" I conceeded, and settled in to watch the rest. Five minutes further in I heard the Windows login sound from Tossed's laptop which had finally booted up. I snickered at the thought of his aging Pentiun II Dell attempting to play DivX. Lucky for him it was a 3 hour flight. Unlucky for him, his tired laptop batteries generally last 45 mins.

Three hours later we were in Perth, five minutes ahead of schedule, with the usual premature unbuckling of seatbelts and standing up as soon as we hit the tarmac. As usual, I continued to read my magazine since being first to the baggage counter before it even started never rated high on my life's goals. I needn't have worried. The pilot came onto the intercom and announced that not only were we parking in the middle of the airfield, there were no stairs available to drive out to us. A symptom of the mining boom, he explained. A collective groan rose up from the packed aisles, where sweaty bodies pressed into each other, and tired arms were frozen holding half-extracted bags from the overhead lockers. Chuckling I went back to reading The Advertiser until my mirth was abruptly silenced by the chronically unfunny adventures of Fred Basset on the comics page.

In time, they found some stairs and let us off, impatient travelers surging forward like a tsunami of impatient stupidity to the baggage carousel. Tossed and I sauntered over and found the thing motionless as expected. According to the information sign, it was soon to disgorge luggage from our flight as well as one from Melbourne, but five minutes later the sign amended itself to only include the Melbourne flight. Great.

Eventually, the light flashed and it groaned into life. Tossed and I had cunningly positioned ourselves at the start of the belt, and we smugly looked around, knowing we'd get our bags first. Except we were at the wrong end. Stupid reversing belts. It didn't matter though, because only one small red suitcase came out, did a slow little tour in front of all the passengers, finally passing myself and Tossed and then vanished out the back again. Bye bye little red bag! I'd worn out my WTF-gene this trip already so said nothing. Sure enough, the little red bag appeared once again, but this time a dotted assortment of other bags followed it. I grabbed by lightweight little bag, and watched Tossed heave his off the rails, noting a massive dent in the side where it looked like a baggage tractor had run over it. Typical. Outside we went.

Perth has five taxis, and today three of them were on the road, so it was something of a record. We waited patiently for the three taxis to pick people up, take them away to their destinations and then come back again to pick up another three people. Whenever two people got into the one taxi, everyone cheered because it meant one less hour of waiting in the line. An hour later it was our turn and in we hopped with Mohammad. "What's with the useless taxi situation?" was our first probing question of Mohammad. "Da minin' boom mun!" was the predictable answer.

We finally found the office and I knocked off my work in about 30 mins. Tossed soldiered on for the remaining 5 hours until the office closed and we hit the streets. I'd booked a random Hotel about 15 mins walk away, and Tossed was 20 mins somewhere else. I'd been to Perth maybe 3 times before, always for work. One time was a lengthy sojourn in a place we called Melrose Place: some serviced apartment within a complex that has its own pool, gym sauna and whatever. The other times were in hotels. As I walked the streets, I was having a distinct Jason Bourne moment as I half recognised bits and pieced of the city I'd seen before. This reached its peak when I reached the hotel where I was half sure I'd stayed there before. I just hoped I hadn't assassinated any Russians there.

Once inside the room I cracked the bar fridge and downed the two Crownies. I flicked through the TV channels and exhausted the 5 x 30 seconds of preview soft-core pr0n that was available. The room had no Internet either. Well, actually it did have free wireless, but I didn't check that until the next day, five mins before I was dude to leave. Great effort, that!

Tiring of the room, I headed downstairs to use my free beer voucher. Having been stung before with the retarded lack of beer-glass standardisation that exists in Australia, I wasn't sure what to get. Forget the inconsistency of railway guages across the nation, how could they not get beers right? I waited for someone else to order a beer and then stepped up to the plate. "One of those thanks. Err what size is that anyway?" I mumbled like a loser. "Err, a PINT!" said the bar-wench, looking at me like I was a loser. "Thanks" I said, and headed to an outside table like a loser. Slamming it down while waiting for Tossed to complete his trek to meet me for tea I decided to count taxis going past. After 10 mins the count was 0. There were also 0 Tosseds as well so I wandered back inside and boldly asked for another pint. The bar-wench gave me a sweet smile usually reserved for children who have pissed into the potty correctly for the first time, chuffed to the core with my progress. I grabbed pint-II and dashed back outside before she could ruffle my hair and give me a gold star.

Soon enough Tossed appeared, on the verge of cardiac arrest from his 15 minute power-walk. I chugged my ale and we went next door to the Swedish all-you-can-eat, Miss Maud's. This part of my Bourne Identify existence I could remember, and nothing had changed. Same raven-haired girls affecting Swedish accents, same washed up old crooners playing piano and accordion by the door, and most importantly, same impressive buffet. As we waited to be seated, the musical duo asked for requests. "Play Stairway to Heaven!" came from a table nearby - yep, same classy crowd. Instead, the duo launched into a sombre rendition of some allegedly Swedish dinnertime ditty but we didn't hear it. All I heard was the blood pumping in my head as I launched myself at the Swedish meatballs with ravenous fury.

An hour later it was all over. We'd both made four trips, and chucked back a couple of pints each. It was time to leave. At the counter I fumbled for my wallet sufficiently long for Tossed to produce his and whip out his card. I certainly didn't want "Miss Maud's" appearing on my Corporate VISA statement after an interstate trip, but since Tossed was in sales, "Rub 'n' tug" and "Cocaine" hardly raised an eyebrow anymore when he submitted his. Before the Swedish Asian behind the counter could swipe the card, I grabbed a fridge magnet and a stubby holder and blurted "These too thanks". "Presents for the wife 'n' kids", I explained over Tossed's whining.

Then it was back to the hotel to drop off the Cosby kids and drain the remaining Crownie. I SMS'd the She_Admiral the touching SMS template I'd created earlier and then fell asleep.

I was woken by the phone at 5am - some berk from the Vic office. I reminded myself to initiate some network mayhem for him once I had an some method of VPN again, and went back to sleep. Up again, to check out, I bade farewell to the room and gorged myself on the buffet breakfast, making note to order one of the three cabs for 9am before I did so. "No problem" said the woman behind the counter. Stumbling from the dining room 50 mins later, I checked again at the counter about my taxi. "On its way!" was the cheerful response.

I headed for the kerb where 5 other groups were waiting for taxis. One group was a trio of elderly bags with the kind of flabby double chins that marked a life decadent excess once they'd tied the knot. One of the trio broke away and stormed inside and barked something at the desk-bint. I caught the words "taxi" and "hour" and felt a sense of foreboding since I needed to be at the airport in an hour. I asked the old guy next to me how long he'd been waiting. "45 mins - booked it last night" he said. "Mining boom!" he explained.

Taxi drivers are basically mercenaries. They're platonic wheel-bound hookers with smelly armpits and beaded seat covers. They don't discriminate. I resolved to use an oft' used taxi getting maneuver I'd used to great affect many a crowded New Years day at 3am-4am. The hotel was on a one way street so it was even easier. I wished the old guy good luck and headed off down the road and around the corner where I could intercept any taxis heading for the hotel as well as lure in any that might have happened to be going past. Sure enough one appeared 10 mins later and a quick swing of my laptop bag later, it was mine. "Airport thanks!" I barked in triumph and off we went.

The check-in process was the same inefficient charade as my arrival the previous day, except in reverse. Eventually though, I was on board in my seat on the very back row, 29D. At least this time, I'd managed to score an empty middle seat next to me. On the window was a guy who worked as an engineer at the same company as my ex-beloved. We chatted about engineering things, and fired up our laptops. When the food came, we pulled down the middle tray and used it as a platform for discarded beer cans and various rubbish from our trays. It was a lovely little picnic at 38,000 feet.

All in all it was a pleasant flight, except he refused to tell me who was banging my former love. No matter though, because as we landed and waited for our baggage, we worked out we both lived south. Waving a Cabcharge triumphantly he bellowed "Let's go" and off we went. Adelaide has more than three taxis, and we happily told our gracious driver so on the way home. It was then that I realised that having encouraged Tossed to park in the short term parking area by saying I'd pay it, I'd now also escaped that cost as well. I'd return to the office a darling of corporate frugality, while Tossed would be hauled over the coals for his reckless spending.

These thoughts were banished as we pulled up at my palatial residence. As I opened the door, the acrid scent of fresh baby shit assailed my nostrils, and I detected a faint aroma of vomit. "Carrot", I mused as I snuck inside. Spirited splashing and happy motherly encouragement indicated it was bath time, and I lingered unseen in the passage for a few moments, soaking up the sweet symphony of homely bliss before poking my head 'round the corner to a delighted squeal. It was good to be home.