Dear John is Here to Help

DEAR JOHN: I’m a virgin when it comes to writing to newspaper advice columnists but not in other ways, if you’re with me. Once a worldly-wise woman with a dab of Passioné by Lenthéric behind each knee, I now spend my time at an ironing board in the kitchen giving my husband’s collars blasts of steam from a Sunbeam Alpha (pro tip: ensure the temperature is above the two dot [••] setting). Between hisses, I picture myself on a Hyannis Port sand dune near the Kennedy compound or browsing the walk-in cheese room at Fourth Village Providore. Anywhere but here. I’m in a rut and, Dear John, you could be my saviour. What sensible and sensitive tips do you have?

-          Abby, Marrickville, NSW

DEAR ABBY: Pull yourself together, I’ve got my own problems. How’d you like to sit here each day shovelling out an Inbox clogged with self-pitying, mewling correspondence from overly needy people? If you’re looking for a saviour, try your nearest Cross. Frankly, your carping is adding to an already difficult time.

This morning, after a fibre-intensive breakfast of All Bran Original sprinkled with Metamucil – the combination gives an orange-flavoured kickstart to your interior plumbing you won’t regret provided when you go out you’ve got a handy map showing public toilets – I found myself in Aisle 11 of Woolworths. There’s something immensely depressing about playing dodgem cars with shopping trollies propelled by demented shoppers who’re either kitted out for the Virus Apocalypse or, worse, who’re unaware of social distancing norms and insist on frotting as you bend over for competitively priced products on lower shelves. That’s provided there are any products. Today there were no loo rolls. Again.

I’m not asking bovine, stampeding customers to grasp the theory of supply-side economics, simply to understand the concept of supply and demand. The former can’t keep up with the latter if you’re stashing multiple packs of Sorbent Hypo Allergenic Toilet Tissue under the loose floorboards in your spare room. Even the recycled toilet paper had gone. Not literally recycled, which might prove confronting for the hygiene faddists who’d also made off with the Glen 20, but that uncomfortable and presumably planet-saving blend of radiata pine chips and sandpaper with brand names like iCare. Sure.

Once back in the main shopping centre, I held my breath for the three-fold benefit of avoiding inhaling a certain virus as well as the odour of Chemist Warehouse discount colognes and the smug stench swirling around shoppers whose trollies held 3-ply, botty-pampering delights, valuable beyond the dreams of Croesus.

To steel myself for the horror of facing moaning missives such as yours, Abby, I took out a second mortgage to purchase a coffee as bitter as the barista who concocted it. At least at McDonald’s the franchisees do you the courtesy of not even pretending the beverages are: (i) drinkable just because they’re squirted out of a $16,000 La Marzocco Linea Classic & Linea PB machine; (ii) meant for anything other than taking away the taste of other products on sale. Macca’s new Cheesy range, for starters. From the photo you so thoughtfully attached to your email and which I immediately deleted (although not before zooming in on your hair. Abby, you can’t make the most of yourself without a good conditioner) you look like a woman who’s no stranger to the delights of the Golden Arches’ Loose Change menu. With the Cheesy offerings, one bite into the deep-fried Olympic discus of processed – I’m going to say – ‘mozzarella’ squished between bun halves, and your childhood hopes and dreams of one day leading a rich, fulfilling life will explode as you (note: trigger-warning metaphor upcoming) step on a landmine of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

But enough about you. On my way home, I noticed the Health Department was boosting the stocks of marquee leasers by erecting another pop-up drive-thru COVID-19 testing site. Frankly it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money when Macca’s, KFC et al have much-frequented drive-thrus. Here’s a chance to upsize the Governmental approach. Surely even those thousands of Flat Earthers with their tinfoil hats and antennas made of wire coathangers who refuse to be tested – fearing nursing staff (aka alien lizard creatures encased in human skin) are using swabs to ram 5G-enhanced microchips into patients’ sinus cavities – will comply if the spotty teen handing them a dinner box of encrusted chicken privates then leans across and, through the car window, forcefully prods a cotton wool bud on a 150 millimetre-long stick up their nasal passage?

However, if Solyent Green-style products, chips (non-micro) and chilli goop don’t lure the Conspirati to testing venues, then Governments will need to sharpen their comms. It’s no use prattling on about us all being in this together when it’s obvious that society’s privileged are having a very good pandemic, thank you very much, and will sail through, emerging relaxed and with better tans. The less privileged will stagger out the other end of the crisis, broke and broken. Alas, it was ever so. As we slouch towards The Future what do you think, Abby, of a Government message stating 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.'?

But who’s interested in my views on optimising global health strategies? They don’t resonate with the haute bourgeoisie who think just because they pay for a newspaper subscription and have my email address that they can badger me about trifles. Only yesterday, a citizen of some godforsaken parish such as Mosman or Rose Bay was bleating about the price of a panini at a local boatshed café. Here am I with my sanity barely held together with Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin and Focalin. Should I care if an aioli and pesto-smeared foreign bread is on a menu at $25?

To ward off the worrywarts perhaps I should brick up my front door and … no, wait, let’s refine that concept: brick up others’ front doors. Sydneysiders should be on alert. If they twitch the curtains one day and spot a gent of a certain age plodding down the street with a wheelbarrow stacked with burnt clay bricks plus cement, hydrated lime, sand and water then they’ll know who it is. On third thoughts, that won’t stop people who plan to pester me having access to Gmail and the Internet. Unless, of course, they’re with Telstra. Please, don’t start me.

Back to your email. I see you’re in Marrickville. A good suburb for a witness protection program. Who goes there? I haven’t visited for years. I recall that last time I was standing on the main drag’s footpath attempting to shove a freshly-assembled gyros, possibly spelt ‘yeeros’, into my mouth before an unkempt sans-culottes exuding a startling aroma of stale tobacco and fresh urine, attempted to touch me up for a few coins to fund his cosmopolitan lifestyle. I failed.

My problem is that I have kind eyes. Vagabonds and other mendicants take me for a softie. They’re right, Abby. That’s why I’m in the Advice Column business.

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 Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN

The Customer

From: Glenn Gazman (glenn@sincerepr.com.au)

To: Reg Quilty (regq@danmulligans.com)

Sent: 21 July at 2:54 PM

Subject: My order

Dear Mr Quilty

I’m a busy man and you, with the hopefully well-deserved title of Manager, Dan Mulligan’s Liquor Barn, will also be busy – so I’ll cut to the chase. But before I do, let me say how refreshing it is to have a man back in charge at my local Dan Mulligan’s after what seemed an eternity with your predecessor Mrs Fitzpatrick lashed to your bottleshop’s mast like Odysseus struggling to avoid hearing her customers’ siren song. She not so much captained a proud vessel as ran a pirate ship that just happened to sell alcohol.

Mrs F was an increasingly inflexible woman over such petty matters as purportedly unpaid accounts. Savvy operators who get jiggy with it see me as an “influencer”. At my semi-regular candlelit suppers, my guests often take a sip of wine and exclaim: “Good God, what the hell is this?” Immediately this offers an opportunity for me to pump Dan Mulligan’s tyres and, at no cost to you, detail the offerings in the Bin Ends container en route to the right-hand cash register. Which reminds me, I’d like to once again complain about the range of snacks arrayed near that register. Presumably some marketing department bunny thought selling biltong (surely against health regulations forbidding flyblown, airdried strips of zebra meat) would give an international bent to the store’s otherwise ho-hum offerings. Frankly, all it does is attract South Africans. Many a time while browsing Mrs Fitzpatrick’s rack, I found shouts of “Hey boet! I had a lekker day today!” deeply depressing.

Now, where was I before you distracted me? Oh, yes, my order. I’m writing to you from a suite in one of Canberra’s better hotels, in fact, from my recent experiences, the only accommodation in town with clean bedsheets. After a tiring day advising ungrateful PR clients, there’s something off-putting about throwing back the sheets to find short black hairs (either from a small man with alopecia or the nether regions of either sex) scattered willy nilly. I’ve taken to packing a portable Crime Scene Investigator ultraviolent light to wave over hotel bedlinen. Any trace of dried bodily fluids has me demanding a new room or at least a decent discount on the room rate. Pro tip, Mr Quilty: if you accept the discount then sleep on the outer edges of the bed.

Obviously being marooned in the nation’s capital with 286 kilometres between my digestive tract and an acceptable restaurant has prompted thoughts of marbled beef matched with that remarkable little Emu Plains Syrah you keep for your shrewder customers. A man with a worldly view such as yourself will immediately spot my casual use of the French word for Shiraz (although “Syrah” does sound disturbingly Middle Eastern unlike “Shiraz” which is obviously Australian in origin). It’s these nuances that, like a Mason’s handshake, give we oenophiles a secret frisson, although entre nous I’m not certain I know what a Mason’s handshake feels like. Occasionally when greeting clients I feel an odd pressure or tickle on my hand but I never know if they’re a Mason or pleading: “You up for a booty call, Glenny?”

Ah, clients, Mr Quilty, they’ll be the death of me – or vice versa. Let me add, lest there be another misunderstanding with the police such as the time I stood in a carpark outside a client’s office and shouted at his window: “I’m going to kill you, you mendacious mother …” that the jibe was in jest.

With me in the publicity business and you in retail, we’ve both seen the best and worst of humanity. In a just world, the corporate frauds I’m forced to pander to and the Moaning Minnies you have to tolerate would be dressed in orange jumpsuits and breaking rocks in a chain gang. Thirsty work.

Speaking of which – my order. Being in Canberra, I’ll need one of your team, this time preferably someone not on parole, to deliver my weekly mixed dozen to my home. Feel free to add in any complimentary bottles you feel will frot my palate. Delivery this evening will be fine. At around six, my cleaners will be wrapping up, so your chap can wait outside until they’re finished then carry the wine into the kitchen (careful with the new benchtops, they’re Silestone). The cleaners are an odd couple. Not a word of English between them so your delivery man should speak loudly and slowly. I call them Kim and Kim. At least one of them has to be named that, am I right?

Let me know how it goes.

Best regards

Glenn Gazman

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From: Reg Quilty (regq@danmulligans.com)

To: Glenn Gazman (glenn@sincerepr.com.au)

Sent: 22 July at 8:01 AM

Subject: re: My order

Dear Mr Gazman

Now there’s a coincidence. I was scheduled to write to you about your account.

I must admit I didn’t know my former colleague Frances Fitzpatrick very well, but she’d never struck me as a person with a nervous disposition. Nevertheless, in her last three months in this job, Frances developed a facial tic which made it difficult to apply her lipstick straight.

As she stormed out the office door, she flicked me your account file and used a descriptive term … it’s here somewhere … ah, yes. She referred to you as “that prick.”

Nevertheless at Dan Mulligan’s we’re not people to hold grudges no matter how well deserved. Besides, I’m keen to claw back the $2,385.25 you owe our company.

So, despite the accounts team chorusing “Are you insane?”, late yesterday afternoon I dispatched our new delivery man Trevor with your mixed dozen plus a complimentary bottle of limoncello with a difficult to read Use By date.

Trevor reports that when he arrived in near darkness, your front door was open and he could hear voices and stifled laughter. He popped his head through the door and was greeted cheerfully by your cleaners who (i) are Filipino; (ii) speak fluent English. Rosamine and Ernesto were standing in the hall discussing what appeared to be an electronic cucumber which they’d found in the drawer of your bedside table. They invited Trevor to give his opinion as to why a single man would have such a device and what it could be used for. A consensus was quickly reached: the treatment of … and I admit I’ve had to Google the spelling of this word … haemorrhoids. We’re having an office sweep on a range of suggestions, but the smart money is piling in on the original conclusion.

Apparently (and, Mr Gazman, I’m simply repeating what I’ve been told) you’d again failed to leave money for your cleaners. Trevor was so moved by Rosamine and Ernesto’s plight that he offered them your mixed dozen and the Italian liqueur.

Such a gesture is against company policy and a sackable offence. However, across the office we all agreed: given your involvement, we’ll make an exception this time. BTW, our lawyers are currently drafting a letter of demand for the $2,385.25. We won’t charge you for last night’s wine.

Cheers

Reg

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 Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN