For the most part, I am an optimist. I like to see the world as a pleasant place, full of goodness and light.

Unfortunately, there are people out there who don’t share my view. Furthermore, they are constantly angered – threatened, even – by my positivity, and seek every opportunity to destroy me.

One of these people goes by the name of Jeb. He is a bitter, joyless man whose sole mission in life is to break my spirit, by showing me the very worst that humanity has to offer. If it’s appalling in any way, it is at the top of Jeb’s List Of Things To Show Jasper To Kill His Soul. For ten years now, he has tried to conquer my joie de vivre…

…and this morning, he succeeded, with the final blow of a one-two punch that could shatter the most resilient optimist.

First there was this. This weakened my resolve considerably. Being forced to face the reality that Naomi Robson is coming (as she herself so ominously words it) is enough to shake the foundation of any joy-based belief system. 

And the death blow came this morning when he posted a photo of a new celebrity-endorsed alcoholic drink.

The celebrity is Marilyn Manson, the alcohol is Absinthe, and the name of this product?

Mansinthe.

Seriously. MANSINTHE? I despair for the state of puns in this day and age. I realise I may be biased here, because it appalls me that Marilyn Manson is still doing anything that doesn’t involve hanging his head in shame (no, I’m not being unreasonable – he turned my girlfriend’s boyfriend into a vampire, remember?) – but Mansinthe just seems like the lamest thing ever.

I don’t begrudge the celebrity endorsement – from Paul Newman’s salad dressings to Kylie Minogue’s home furnishings, even Taylor Swift’s greeting cards (cute but flimsy, ephemeral and with not a lot to say? How perfect for her) – they all have a place. I am almost certain I could never make Justin Timberlake’s jeans work on me, but I’m glad they’re out there.

But Marilyn Manson? And MANSINTHE? He has never shown regard for decency in the past, constantly blurring the lines between art and vulgarity, between male and female, between music and experimental noise. But blurring the line between good and bad puns? What if THIS is the thing that gives him relevance again? It could fling open the doors for every celebrity hoping to make a buck. Your local pub could soon have shelves lined with Seann William Scotch, Jane Curaçaoski, Bourben Affleck, Jason Shiraz and Jon Voightdka.

And then there’ll be merchandise tie-ins, and the lines will blur even further. Fiction and reality will collide as we slowly get wasted on Sam & Dean Gin-chester, Dexter Morg-rum and Saké Stackhouse.

Are you happy now, Jeb, you spiteful aggregation of misery? I now hate the world, just like you always wanted.

I need a drink. Who’s got the Marlon Brandy?

In the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand posed the question “Who is John Galt?”

Today I pose a much more serious question: “Who is Chloé Treend?”

It’s a question – possibly the first question in a series of many that could unwrap an entire conspiracy -- that I stumbled across last night while watching “Party Max with Jabba” on Music Max (it’s Jabba at his best – informative, entertaining, and completely superfluous). The timeless classic Ooh Ahh…Just a Little Bit by Gina G started playing and, being a dance film clip from 1996, I was of course mesmerised. (Just FYI? This is one of World Wide Jeb’s favourite songs.)

About half way through the second chorus (by my calculations, roughly the 47^th “ooh ahh”) I thought I recognised one of the backup dancers.

That woman there, in the lime green (possibly yellow) dress? That is the same woman you will find in the video for White Town’s Your Woman.

And her name…is Chloé Treend.

“So what?” I hear you ask. “She’s a back up dancer who managed to land more than one gig. What of it?” Ah, but there is more. So much more. This cavorting, omnipresent, music genre hopping vixen Chloé Treend not only kicked up her heels with Gina G and White Town, but she also sang herself -- for she is ALSO none other than one half of T-Shirt, the duo responsible for this triple platinum Australian hit!

Chloé Treend. In the 1990s, you couldn’t escape her. She was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

And by now you’re probably starting to wonder the other places you’ve seen her. In other music videos? Yes. In a Reese Witherspoon film? Yes. Perhaps staring at you, knowingly, from behind a pair of sassy glasses? Yes.

That’s right. She has modelled for Specsavers. Even optometry isn’t safe from her never-ending quest for power.

I know how to pick my battles, and this is not one I can win. When Chloé Treend comes for me (and she will -- she will come for us all) I will lay down arms immediately. I only hope what I’ve written here convinces you to do the same.

If you don’t? Consider this: in Atlas Shrugged, John Galt was the man who had the power to stop the motor of the world.

But John Galt never danced at Eurovision.

Sometimes there is such a thing as too much media spin.

One of the perks of my job (and I use the term “perks” about as loosely as Ke$ha uses the term “singer”) is the random assortment of media releases I get from the most bizarre of places. I don’t know how my name ended up on their media lists, or what they think I can do for them (especially as I haven’t been a regular on-air announcer since 2008) – but bless them, they appeal to me for help from all corners of the earth. I receive copies of the latest country music “hits”, the latest news from the fast-paced world of netball and, my personal favourite, pages and pages of propaganda from Cyrus Brooks – the vice president of the Australian Church of Scientology. (I have to admit, I actually read the stuff from Cyrus, because it is ALWAYS HILARIOUS.)

Today, I received a press release from Australian Marine Conservation Society, the subject heading of which was:

“HELP SAVE THE CHEETAH OF THE SEA!”

Naturally, I was intrigued by this metaphor. When I think of cheetahs, I think: the world’s fastest land animal…sleek and muscular…often over-looked for the more “crowd-pleasing” lion or tiger… So I was excited to see what sea creature could possibly be bestowed with the title “Cheetah of the Sea”.

And so I read on:

“Your action is needed to help protect our vulnerable sharks. Built for speed, mako sharks are highly migratory…”

Hold up. Sharks? This press release is about sharks?

For the benefit of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, and for anyone playing along at home, allow me to explain something:

SHARKS > CHEETAHS.

You can’t upsell sharks. They’re SHARKS. It’s a very basic principle. If you’re trying to get me excited about sharks, you won’t succeed by likening it to a lesser animal. It won’t work. Sharks are already as awesome as you’re going to get. The mere mention of them already has me excited. A cheetah metaphor doesn’t enhance the image of the shark – because that is not actually possible.

If, on the other hand, you were trying to get me excited about cheetahs by calling them ‘The Sharks of the Land’, that would be a success. Do you see how this works?

Let me explain this another way: You could describe Miley Cyrus as “the Jack Bauer of the Disney Channel”, and that would give me a fair indication of what you’re talking about.

But to describe Jack Bauer as “the Miley Cyrus of CTU”?

Disastrous.

You know the worst part about returning to work after a Christmas break, regardless of its length? It’s not having to go back to a regular routine of waking up early, eating properly and wearing pants. It’s something much, much worse.

I might be exposing myself as some kind of horrible misanthrope here; but I really, really hate having to tell the “What I Did Over Christmas” story to every single person within spitting distance of my desk. If they didn’t already read about it on Facebook, or if I wasn’t in touch with them at any point over the actual holiday period, chances are we’re not close enough for me to want to tell a personal story – or, for that matter, for them for them to really care what I did. They’re just being polite. I hate polite. If I don’t ask you what you did over Christmas, I might be being bad mannered, but at least I’m not being disingenuous.

And they don’t even have the decency to all gather round, campfire-style, so you can tell one story once. No, they time it exactly so that you end up telling the same story on loop for a day and a half. The only thing that changes is the length – slowly the story will get shorter as you get more and more bored with it.

In the interest of comparison, I present to you now my Christmas Story in four different ways. How I told it to the first co-worker who asked, then the fifth, the tenth, and finally, the twenty-fifth. See if you can spot the subtle edits:

The First “Oh, hey! How was your Christmas? What did you get up to?”:
I WENT TO SEE THE FAMILY IN QUEENSLAND. SPENT THE FIVE DAYS IN TOOWOOMBA! THE WEATHER WAS GREAT – IN THAT IT WAS RUBBISH. FOGGY AND RAINY, BUT THAT’S THE TOOWOOMBA I REMEMBER. MY FAMILY WERE ALL IN GOOD FORM – I HAD NOT SEEN MY BROTHER IN ABOUT TWO YEARS, SO THAT WAS COOL. IN FACT, IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THE THREE SIBLINGS HAD BEEN IN THE ONE PLACE IN AGES. I GOT TO SPEND TIME WITH MY FAVOURITE AUNT & UNCLE, TOO. AND EVERYONE FOLLOWED MY REQUEST – I GOT VOUCHERS FOR CHRISTMAS SO I COULD BUY MYSELF A PS3! FINALLY, I DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE CONSTANT COMPLAINING THAT I’M SO HARD TO BUY FOR! HAVE YOU EVER EATEN LICORICE ALLSORT SLICE? MY GOD, IT’S AMAZING. IT’S PRETTY MUCH ALL I ATE FOR THE FIVE DAYS. ANYWAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS I CAUGHT UP WITH MY DAD, AND THEN I FLEW HOME ON TUESDAY AND CAME STRAIGHT BACK TO WORK.

The Fifth “Oh, hey! How was your Christmas? What did you get up to?”:
I WENT TO SEE THE FAMILY IN QUEENSLAND. SPENT THE FIVE DAYS IN TOOWOOMBA! THE WEATHER WAS GREAT – IN THAT IT WAS RUBBISH. FOGGY AND RAINY, BUT THAT’S THE TOOWOOMBA I REMEMBER. MY FAMILY WERE ALL IN GOOD FORM – I HAD NOT SEEN MY BROTHER IN ABOUT TWO YEARS, SO THAT WAS COOL. IN FACT, IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THE THREE SIBLINGS HAD BEEN IN THE ONE PLACE IN AGES. I GOT TO SPEND TIME WITH MY FAVOURITE AUNT & UNCLE, TOO. AND EVERYONE FOLLOWED MY REQUEST – I GOT VOUCHERS FOR CHRISTMAS SO I COULD BUY MYSELF A PS3! FINALLY, I DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE CONSTANT COMPLAINING THAT I’M SO HARD TO BUY FOR! HAVE YOU EVER EATEN LICORICE ALLSORT SLICE? MY GOD, IT’S AMAZING. IT’S PRETTY MUCH ALL I ATE FOR THE FIVE DAYS. ANYWAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS I CAUGHT UP WITH MY DAD, AND THEN I FLEW HOME ON TUESDAY AND CAME STRAIGHT BACK TO WORK.

The Tenth “Oh, hey! How was your Christmas? What did you get up to?”:
I WENT TO SEE THE FAMILY IN QUEENSLAND. SPENT THE FIVE DAYS IN TOOWOOMBA! THE WEATHER WAS GREAT – IN THAT IT WAS RUBBISH. FOGGY AND RAINY, BUT THAT’S THE TOOWOOMBA I REMEMBER. MY FAMILY WERE ALL IN GOOD FORM – I HAD NOT SEEN MY BROTHER IN ABOUT TWO YEARS, SO THAT WAS COOL. IN FACT, IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THE THREE SIBLINGS HAD BEEN IN THE ONE PLACE IN AGES. I GOT TO SPEND TIME WITH MY FAVOURITE AUNT & UNCLE, TOO. AND EVERYONE FOLLOWED MY REQUEST – I GOT  VOUCHERS FOR CHRISTMAS SO I COULD BUY MYSELF A PS3! FINALLY, I DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE CONSTANT COMPLAINING THAT I’M SO HARD TO BUY FOR! HAVE YOU EVER EATEN LICORICE ALLSORT SLICE? MY GOD, IT’S AMAZING. IT’S PRETTY MUCH ALL I ATE FOR THE FIVE DAYS. ANYWAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS I CAUGHT UP WITH MY DAD, AND THEN I FLEW HOME ON TUESDAY AND CAME STRAIGHT BACK TO WORK.

The Twenty-Fifth “Oh, hey! How was your Christmas? What did you get up to?”:
I WENT TO SEE THE FAMILY IN QUEENSLAND. SPENT THE FIVE DAYS IN TOOWOOMBA! THE WEATHER WAS GREAT – IN THAT IT WAS RUBBISH. FOGGY AND RAINY, BUT THAT’S THE TOOWOOMBA I REMEMBER. MY FAMILY WERE ALL IN GOOD FORM – I HAD NOT SEEN MY BROTHER IN ABOUT TWO YEARS, SO THAT WAS COOL. IN FACT, IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THE THREE SIBLINGS HAD BEEN IN THE ONE PLACE IN AGES. I GOT TO SPEND TIME WITH MY FAVOURITE AUNT & UNCLE, TOO. AND EVERYONE FOLLOWED MY REQUEST – I GOT  VOUCHERS FOR CHRISTMAS SO I COULD BUY MYSELF A PS3! FINALLY, I DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE CONSTANT COMPLAINING THAT I’M SO HARD TO BUY FOR! HAVE YOU EVER EATEN LICORICE ALLSORT SLICE? MY GOD, IT’S AMAZING. IT’S PRETTY MUCH ALL I ATE FOR THE FIVE DAYS. ANYWAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS I CAUGHT UP WITH MY DAD, AND THEN I FLEW HOME ON TUESDAY AND CAME STRAIGHT TO WORK.

 See? Technically it’s the same story. Just shorter.

* But not THAT tale of concussion, stupid girls and vampires – this one predates that one by eight years. Also, it is real. The working title of this story was actually “Shut Up, Stephanie Meyer”.

The Conclusion

About a month after I became a teenage swinger for about fifteen seconds, Bella had braces put on. Being Bella, she had no desire to get the invisible kind of braces, she opted for the flashy, brightly coloured ones. Between the wire and the flashes of yellow, green, blue, purple, pink and orange in her mouth, it looked like she was constantly eating an abacus.

Around this sime time, Edward started to explore the Goth sub-culture. If you remember the timeline (it’s 1996), you’ll quickly realise this can be directly attributed to Marilyn Manson.

Side note: without getting into a debate about the validity of the Gothic movement, let me just say that in Queensland, in a town where even in winter the temperature will reach a good 23 (74) degrees, trying to be a Goth is utterly ridiculous. Black clothes, Docs, a long black coat and make-up might be the only way you can express who you really are inside, but it’s the third least practical outfit you can wear in that heat (the second and first being chain mail and scuba gear, respectively).

Now, it’s at this part in the story that details start to get a bit scant, because Bella and I stopped being as close for a short time. Bella was drifting towards also being seduced by the dark mystery of the Goths – and I really, really wasn’t. I mean, come on. I had only just stopped being terrified of smooching a relatively normal girl – I wasn’t ready to dive headlong into a world of beheading plush toys while listening to Type O Negative (and yes, I’m citing a real example). But from what I can gather, between the braces ripping the inside of Bella’s mouth to shreds, and Edward’s complete devotion to his newfound identity as a Goth, Edward and Bella decided it was only a short hop, skip and jump to vampirism.

Bella sat me down one day to make a confession:

I…I just really like the taste of human blood. I know I shouldn’t, I know it’s wrong. I know the body is built to not allow you to ingest too much blood, and should make you throw up. That’s how I know I…I must actually be… a vampire. It makes sense, I’ve never really liked going out in the sun, you know how badly I burn…

Oh, how I wish I could remember more of that ridiculous monologue. But I can’t. It was either drowned out by the screaming inside my head, or repressed completely.

You have to remember, these were dark, uneducated times. We were still eighteen months away from the complete vampire PR overhaul from Joss Whedon and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and many years away from Twilight, Sookie Stackhouse, Blade or the Vampire Diaries. So when she told me she was a vampire, rather than being overcome with the mythic romanticism of it, I decided she was just being an idiot.

We drifted apart a bit further after that.

Towards the end of 1996, Edward was no longer in the picture, Bella seemed to be starting to return to normal, and I was about to move to a town nine hours away. Bella and I became close again, and when I moved away we stayed in contact. We became closer than ever. All through 1997, our last year of high school, Bella and I were like best friends, even if it was only ever over the phone. She was my confidant, my ally, my…all those words that woman sings in the theme from The Golden Girls. She would see the biggest gift would be from me, and the card attached would say “thank you for being a friend”, etc.

In fact, I started to fall in love with her again. Half way through 1997 we decided that we were basically having a long distance relationship. Not only did this make my heart swell with pride, but it made my high school days a lot easier, because I was able to tell all and sundry that I was NOT a weirdo, nor was I gay, because I had a Girlfriend Who Lived In Rockhampton.

At the end of the school year, Bella arranged to come down and visit me. For three weeks we were actually together, and it was bliss.

Well, two weeks and thirteen days of it was bliss. On the last night, during the farewell party I threw for her, she slept with one of my friends. While I was asleep. And only three feet away.

Turns out she really was a slut.

But not a vampire.

* But not THAT tale of concussion, stupid girls and vampires – this one predates that one by eight years. Also, it is real. This story was originally called “Shut Up, Stephanie Meyer”.

Three Unexpected Twists

In the weeks that followed, I kissed Bella a lot. As frequently as possible in as many places as possible. Wait, let me try that again. As frequently as possible, in as many locations as possible (you perverts). The Friendship of Jasper and Bella (yikes, it’s like actual Twilight fanfic up in here) was quickly becoming The Kissing Friendship of Jasper and Bella, and I knew it was only a matter of time before we would become boyfriend and girlfriend.

Alas, this was not to be. At least not yet. As it turns out, Bella didn’t believe that kissing someone meant you had any extra feelings for them. It was just something you could do because it was fun (I would later learn that the medical term for this condition is being a big slut). In fact, not only was the Friendship of Jasper and Bella going to remain exactly as it already was…

…but Jasper was going to get to meet Bella’s new boyfriend! (And what the hell - in for a penny, in for a pound – let’s call him Edward.)

I was devastated. She had spent so long trying to get under my skin, for what? So that once she got in there she could burst out of my chest like alien spawn, taking my heart with it? She confused me. She crushed me. (And she kicked off what has become almost a habit of falling in love with people I can’t have.)

Luckily, being that I was only a fifteen year old boy, was still fairly resilient, and also had the attention span of – well, of a fifteen year old boy; I got over it pretty quickly. And Bella and I were back to being friends.

Edward wasn’t even hateable. He wore a leather jacket, and had the thickest, shiniest hair I had ever seen on a guy. It was like an entire shampoo commercial was sitting on his head at all times. Sometimes the three of us even hung out together. Not often, because he didn’t go to the same school as Bella and I, so we only hung out on weekends – but we hung out enough that, despite still being quite smitten with Bella, we were all comfortable with each other.

It was during one of these weekend times, hanging out at Bella’s house, that the topic of her and I kissing came up. Edward knew that before they had started dating, Bella and I had spent a few weeks making out with alarming regularity. Edward joked that he had kissed Bella, and that I had kissed Bella - so the only two people out of the three of us who hadn’t kissed were he and I. As a savage bolt of (at the time completely inexplicable) thrill shot through me, Edward merely snickered. “Interesting,” he said.

Later that afternoon Edward had to go, so we went out to Bella’s front yard to say goodbye to him (he was seventeen, and he had his own car. It was the ugliest, rattliest jumble of light blue metal you ever did see – but it was a car, so we thought it was the coolest thing ever). Out of politeness, I turned and took a step away when Edward leaned down to kiss Bella goodbye, so that I wasn’t looking right at their PDA (I might have been at ease with the situation, but that didn’t mean I wanted great dirty teenage pashes all up in my face).

I was putting such a concerted effort into not looking or listening that I was completely unaware that they’d stopped, and that Edward had walked up behind me. What happened next took me by complete surprise: Edward put one hand on my shoulder, spun me around, grabbed the back of my head with his other hand and started kissing me. It was all done in one quick, fluid motion and I had no time to react, or process, or do anything…except kiss back.

That’s right, the first boy I ever kissed was the first girl I’d ever kissed’s boyfriend. I guess the upshot is at least it was convenient.

I’d like to say that kissing Edward completely blitzed any feeling I had for Bella, and opened me up to a whole new world where I could discover who I really was – but no. At that point I was still eight years away from coming out of the closet (what a waste), so all it really did was confuse the hell out of me.

And it didn’t even pave the way for some kind of crazy, three-directional make-out friendship, either – because it wasn’t long after that that Edward and Bella realised they were, in fact, vampires.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

* But not THAT tale of concussion, stupid girls and vampires – this one predates that one by eight years. Also, it is real. The working title of this story was actually “Shut Up, Stephanie Meyer”.

The Beginning

When I was fifteen, I was very much like Drew Barrymore. My voice was slightly grating, I never knew quite what to do with my hair, and I had Never Been Kissed. (Although I was not a recovering drug addict/child celebrity, and my breasts weren’t nearly as round and pillowy, so maybe I was only a little bit like Drew Barrymore.)

This story starts roughly around the time of my first kiss.

It was 1996, and it was at a high school dance. Being 1996, I was wearing a hideous silk shirt with an even more hideous design on it (Ken Done would have called it gaudy). Also, being 1996, The Presidents of the United States of America’s third charting single “Peaches” was blasting out of the speakers in the school auditorium, and my friends and I were standing in a circle, head banging. Because that’s what you did at a school dance when “Peaches” came on.

On this particular occasion, I must have really been feeling the emotion in Chris Ballew’s voice, because I was head banging with ardent fervour. In fact, my fervour was so ardent; I didn’t even notice that I’d slowly started to rotate on the spot, so that I was no longer facing the rest of the circle. I continued to not notice when, after turning 180 degrees, I started to drift away from the group like a delicate snowflake.  What I did notice, however, was the very centre of my forehead connecting with the corner of the school auditorium stage.

Connecting…with ardent fervour.

There was an immediate jab of pain, followed by a wave of nausea, and then more pain. I snapped upright, and the momentum of this sudden movement made me topple all the way over backwards and, as I collapsed in a heap, I slammed the back of my head into the floor also.

My friends couldn’t decide whether to rush to my aid or laugh at me, so they split the difference and ambled to my aid while they tittered at me. Among them was one of my best friends,  Bella (not her real name, obviously, but I figure if I’m telling a story about stupid girls, sullen boys and vampires, I may as well take the theme to its very limits). As my friends helped my shaking, barely functioning self up onto the stage to lie down (something about keeping something elevated? I’m sure it was a misguided medical precaution, as I still ended up horizontal, just not at ground level), Bella sat cross legged above me and rested my head in her lap. She ran her fingers through my hair, stroked my cheek, and kept asking if I was okay. Despite the red-hot pulsing ache just above my eyes, I felt so relaxed, so cared for, that I could have stayed there all night.

(At this point in the story I need to give a quick splash of background. Bella had spent the entire tenure of our friendship flirting with me, and making jokes about kissing me. These jokes completely failed to land because my horrified, prudish teflon coating kept deflecting them. The whole kissing/hormones/sex thing was a source of constant terror for me. I can’t hang an air freshener on this one: for a teenage boy I was obtuse and practically frigid.)

Now, while I was as comfortable as a very comfortable thing (despite possible internal bleeding), Bella was not. The weight of my oversized head (yes, even at the tender age of fifteen my head was well on its way to reaching Alec Baldwin dimensions) was causing her legs to go numb.

She asked me to get up, I said I wouldn’t. She demanded I get up, I said I couldn’t. She reasoned, she begged, she whined, she bargained – but it was to no avail. There was no way I was leaving the comfort of the stage floor and her lap to face the throbbing, dizzying torment of verticality. Her gentle fingers and innocuous conversation were the only things distracting me from the searing pain in the front, back, and ego parts of my head, so I. was. not. moving.

Finally, she decided that extreme measures had to be taken. She knew the one thing that would get me moving, and fast:

If you don’t get up in the next five seconds, I am going to kiss you.

Unfortunately for her, at that moment the teenage boy part of me that was supposed to be inflicting me with uncontrollable hormones and a desire to touch up anything in a skirt (or not – er, SPOILER?) suddenly remembered his job – he beat the living snot out of the horrified, prudish part of me, before ordering my entire body to stay perfectly still because, unless she was bluffing, This Moment Was Going To Be Momentous.

She wasn’t bluffing. She kissed me.

Despite everything that came after that (and there was a lot of everything, you’ll see), that kiss is one of the most perfect I’ve ever had. It is certainly, to date, the most genuine. It was soft, it was innocent, it represented nothing, but meant everything. I will remember that utterly sublime moment for as long as I live. And by the time she had pulled her lips away from mine, I was completely in love with her.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

Before reading this following scene, you should know three things:

1. My phone ringtone is the theme from 30 Rock, and I suck at onomatopoeia.
2. I ordered all my this year’s family Christmas presents online, but they haven’t been delivered yet.
3. This actually happened. I didn’t even change the names to protect the innocent.

[SIX FORTY-THREE AM]

My (very loud) phone: Diddle-diddle  BWAH! …(daddun dun, daddun dun)
Bom, bom! Bom badabom bom, bom! Bom badabom bom!
(Wana-weeb! Wana weeb-weeb woo! Wana-weeb! Wana weeb-weeb woo!)
Bom (BWAH!!) – bom badabom bom, bom! Bom badabom bom!
(dum dum dum dum dum…)
Diddle-diddle dun dun, diddle-dit dun dun, diddle-dit dun (WAH!) BOM.

Me: …

Phone: …

Me: Phew.

Phone: Diddle-diddle  BWAH!…

Me: Ack!

Phone: …Bom, bom! Bom badabom bom, bom! Bom badabom bom!
(wana-weeb! wana-

Me: Hello??
Woman: Hello, my name is Tracey and I’m calling about a package that was undelivered on Friday.
Me: Yes! Right! Excellent!
Woman Now Revealed To Be Tracey: So I need to organise a delivery, or a collection.
Me: Okay, then.
WNRTB Tracey: Because it wasn’t delivered on Friday.
Me: Oh, it arrived on Friday?
WNRTB Tracey: No.
Me: Oh. Okay. Sorry, I thought you meant that it-
WNRTB Tracey Who Now Seems a Bit Snappish: I just want to organise an alternative time.
Me: Yes, right, sorry. I suppose what normally happens is I have to arrange collection?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBS: Don’t you mean delivery?
Me: Oh, a second attempt at delivery can be arranged?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBS: Well I would hope so. It’s your responsibility.
Me: Ye-e-es. I suppose you’re right. Well I suppose I should sort out which of the two packages we’re talking about! I’ve got two on the go – one going to Queensland, and one for Canberra.
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBS: I’m in New South Wales.
Me: Must be the Canberra one, then. Alright, what time frame is good for you?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBS And Getting Progressively Snappier: As soon as possible, please. I’ve waited long enough.
Me: Excuse me? What’s your problem, it can’t have been longer than one weekend.
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS: I ORDERED IT TEN DAYS AGO.
Me: No, I only ordered it on the…wait, what?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS: What?
Me: WHAT?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS: Are you going to help me or not?
Me: Hold up. Exactly what package are you talking about?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS: Well I can’t say it RIGHT HERE. It’s a CHRISTMAS PRESENT. There are PEOPLE AROUND. [Huff] Hold on. [stomp stomp stomp] Okay. It’s…a crockery set.
Me: Wait. You want a package delivered TO YOU? I see now. I think you’ve called the wrong number.
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS, Also Dumber: [BIGGER HUFF] Well, is there ANOTHER number you can give me?
Me: Number for whom?
WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS,AD: To sort out my problem?
Me: You misunderstand. I have NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.
The Unrelenting WNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS,AD:  AREN’T YOU WITH FASTWAY COURIERS?
Me: NO!
TUWNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS,AD: ISN’T THIS XXXX XXX 763?
Me: NO. It IS NOT. This is 765.
TUWNRTB Tracey WNSaBSAGPS,AD And Who Despite Just Making a Complete Tit Of Herself, Refuses To Relinquish Her Snappish Demeanour: Oh. Well. That makes sense now. I just thought you were being completely unprofessional.
Me: Yes, and I just thought you were being a total bitch.

Phone: …

[THE END]

Here are some important lessons I learnt from this morning’s conversation.

1.  If you’re planning to call someone and get into a snit, dial the right number.
2.  Never assume that the person you’re talking to knows what you’re talking about. Recap every detail of your chosen topic, like you’re providing exposition in an episode of Heroes.
3.  Don’t be a bitch before 7am. It won’t work out for anyone.

I hope Tracey’s crockery arrives in pieces.

As a young thing growing up in Queensland, I never had to explain anything Queenslanderish, because we were all Queenslanders. We all said the word “pool” with about three ‘o’s too many, we all referred to scho(ooo)ol bags as “ports” which we placed in “portracks” outside our classrooms, and none of us had any concept of winter (“it was so co(ooo)ol this morning! 19 degrees! I had to put a jumper on”).

These days, none of my friends are from Queensland, and so every now and then I have to explain some fundamental differences between life up there and life down here. Now is one of those times. Get comfy, kids, Uncle Banana Bender has some wisdom to impart.

This weekend I accompanied Mr Sparkle on a trip to his home town of Co(ooo)oma, to see the Co(ooo)oma Little Theatre production of Blackadder, in which his aunt played the pivotal role of Queenie*. It was my first time ever in Co(ooo)oma, and during the 115 kilometre drive to our destination, Mr Sparkle was flustered and fidgety about what I was about to experience. He kept warning me that Co(ooo)oma isn’t very big, that there wouldn’t be much to do, that the theatre was only very small, and so on. 

Having myself lived in a stunning array of small-to-medium towns in Queensland growing up (Murgon, Proston, Crows Nest, Moranbah, Tin Can Bay**, Gin Gin, Edmonton, Bamaga, To(ooo)owo(ooo)omba, Rockhampton and Mount Isa, for example), I figured we had had similar experiences growing up. Remembering what my experiences had actually been like, I gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter and prepared for the worst.

We drove into Co(ooo)oma at 4:09pm. At 4:11pm I started the first of many angry tirades about the fundamental difference between Queensland small towns and everywhere else small towns, based on one simple premise:

Fast fo(ooo)od joints.

Co(oookay, this joke is old now)oma is lousy with them! They’re every ten feet!

The first thing we came across was a McDonalds. Not just any McDonalds, but a recently refurbished McDonalds. Now, when I lived in Tin Can Bay, we had to drive thirty minutes to Gympie to get KFC or Big Rooster; and if we wanted McDonalds, we had to drive the extra twenty-five minutes to Maryborough.  And yet, here is a tiny town of 8000 or so, flaunting its McDonalds right next to its KFC and its Subway.

That’s just showing off.

And it gets worse – not two minutes down the road is Cooma’s brand new noodle house. The town of Cooma has a takeaway restaurant that deals exclusively in the trade of Asian cuisine in a box. I didn’t realise this even really existed when I was a kid – I thought it was something that was only on American television, like “555” phone numbers or Judith Light’s hair. And yet kids growing up in Cooma get to sample the delights of a Char Kuay Teow or Nasi Goreng in its own cardboard cube, not ten feet from the local Coles.

That’s right, Coles. Not 4 Square. Not IGA. Not 7-2-7. Not Spar. A full-grown, civilization sized Coles supermarket. There is also a Woolworths. There is also an ALDI.

An ALDI.

Are you kidding me?

By this stage I was so blinded by disbelief I felt like I was going to have a conniption fit. What I really needed was some kind of cool, dark room in which I could calm down and gather my bearings.

Luckily Cooma has two such rooms, in the form of TWIN FREAKING CINEMAS.

I give up.

Let’s break this down:

From this point on, anyone who tells me they grew up in “country” New South Wales and expects sympathy will instead get kicked in the shins and called a do(ooo)uchebag. Go get a Happy Meal, you crybaby.

*She totally nailed it, for the record.
**If anyone asks I’ll deny it (because it totally undermines my convictions), but Tin Can Bay is actually kind of awesome, despite it having more soldier crabs than people within its town limits. All the streets are named after fish! It’s hard to not fall in love with a town when your address is 4 Marlin Way. That’s just classy.

I have been single for a long time. My whole life, in fact. A combination of coming out of the closet late, embarking on a career that seriously hindered my ability to date (a career that is thankfully over), and just being a shy, nervous twit are all contributing factors to this.

I bring up my singledom because I feel my twenty-eight year habit of observing relationships, as opposed to participating in them, has given me extensive insight into their machinations. And seeing as this insight has come at the price of my emotional celibacy (not to mention physical, for great vast you-don’t-even-want-to-know-how-long stretches of time), it would be wasteful if I didn’t pass the wisdom on.

And I want to pass it on now because it has been a very tumultuous time for relationships these past few months in the Jasperverse. I’ve known more than a few couples who have broken up. Some couples have come dangerously close to breaking up. Some couples really should have broken up, but haven’t (and a couple of these I just wish would already). And some couples, while not ever actually approaching a break-up phase, seem to have made it their primary objective to make each other as miserable as possible.

And where does this leave me? With miserable friends. And, to a lesser extent, a miserable me; because like a hungry person watching someone else complain about all the food they have, I get to watch a stunning array of douchebags treat their partners like shit.

So, with this in mind, I present:

An Open Letter of Advice to All Girlfriends/Boyfriends, From a Spectator

Your partner: Love them, or don’t. Stop faffing about in the middle.

For a start, stop bickering all the damn time. I am sick to death of people having needless arguments and fights. You’re supposed to be in love, aren’t you? Am I missing something? Because here you are, fighting over something so insignificant it would actually be funny, were it not so frightening to consider what got you into the fight in the first place. And don’t bother with the “we fight because we love each other – it’s couples who don’t fight that lack real passion and love” chestnut. I call bullshit. Couples who are passionate and in love fight about things that matter – things that can make or break a future. Getting pissy over, say, what this weekend’s plans are, and whether or not you feature in them enough, is not evidence of passion. It is evidence of being childish.

Speaking of things that don’t matter – why is it so important to you what your partner spends their disposable income on? Unless you’re actually living together and they are the sole breadwinner, it technically isn’t your business. They should be able to buy as many pairs of Jimmy Choos as they can afford. Or whatever videogame tickles their fancy. They earned the cash – provided they aren’t spending it on something that physically endangers themselves or others; they should be able to spend it as they wish. You should really just back off. Stop bleating about what is and isn’t a “waste of money” – you sound old and ridiculous.

In fact, just stop bleating in general. Haven’t you been told before to stop trying to “change” your partner? Actually, you haven’t. The popular phrase is “you never can change your partner” – which is sort of like a loophole. The unseen, unwritten, unspoken part of that is “you never can change your partner…so try to do it to your heart’s content, as there are no consequences!”  Well, this is just not true. You CAN change them. You can whine, threaten, bribe, cajole, browbeat or just plain force your way to success in this field. The question is, why would you want to? “Changing” your partner usually means making them do something they don’t want to do, or stopping them from doing something they enjoy. Are you okay with this? Let’s recap – this is the person you are in love with; the person you have, for now at least, chosen over all others.  NOW you’re saying there are provisos? I’m sorry, but you were supposed to go through that checklist long ago. You had all the time in the world to decide they weren’t tall enough, old enough, or didn’t share enough of the same tastes – you can’t go tacking on conditions now.

Besides, do you really want to force the person you love into something they aren’t happy with? And do you really want to be the kind of person who forces someone else into something they aren’t happy with? Is getting your way really worth sacrificing their happiness and your humanity?

And there’s the little matter of basic power balance. The number of times I’ve heard a partnered person say they “aren’t allowed” to do something actually wigs. me. out. We will holler all up and down the place about basic human rights, and then go home and tell our partner that they are NOT ALLOWED to, say, go fishing or shopping or out with their friends? Oy. Maybe this will ensure that I will stay single for a lot longer, but if a boyfriend of mine tried to tell me I “wasn’t allowed” to do something, he would quickly find a red mark on his forehead roughly the same size and shape of whatever object it was I last held in my hand. You want someone to boss around? Hire someone. Or have a child. Or go to Subway and order a particularly fussy sandwich. Your boyfriend/girlfriend is your partner, aka your other half, aka an equal, not a subordinate.

I don’t know why relationships are taken for granted. Maybe you’re a serial dater. Maybe you’ve had the same partner since high school. Maybe you have never had a problem getting into a relationship. If so, maybe you don’t realise how lucky you are. But let me tell you something true – you are lucky. Incredibly lucky. You have someone to be with. Someone to care for you when you need it, to love you when you want it, to give you strength when you don’t have it, and to surprise you when you least expect it.

If you aren’t treating this as the wondrous gift it so surely is, then you’re a fool and you don’t deserve any of it. You chose them, they chose you. Behave like your choices are worth something.

And if what you currently have isn’t what you want? Then get out. Get out now. You are not doing anyone any favours by lying to yourself. You’re only going to cause more pain for you, for them, and for the people around you who are right now being forced to watch a train wreck in slow motion.

Love them, or don’t.