Saturday 12:00. Put a bunch of whites in the washing machine. Put soap liquid in. Close machine. Turn dial, ready to start.
14:00. Open machine. Pull washing out into a basket. Notice it seems remarkably dry. Must be because it’s a hot day. Don’t have time to hang up yet, so leave in basket.
14:45. Drive car to Safeway Plus petrol. How is it that a relatively simple petrol station layout, involving entry and exit signs, and little arrows on the ground that show you which way to drive in and out, can be so confusing for most of the people using it? There were cars going in all directions, and the chance of an organised queue was roughly zero.
14:50. Triumphantly pull up to a bowser, only to find an Out Of Order sign on it.
14:55. Finally get to a working, vacant bowser, and fill up with petrol. Okay, so I wouldn’t normally bother waiting for so long to get petrol, but I had a coupon giving 6 cents off per litre, because I’d somehow been organised enough to spend $30 in one hit at Safeway.
And before you say "they probably charge more anyway", they’re actually reasonably competitive with the Caltex down the road.
15:00. Point the car towards Geelong. Try not to grumble too much about the kilometres and kilometres of speed restrictions and bollards (though no actual blokes doing any work) along the road.
16:20. Arrive in Geelong, meet my friend Penn at the Geelong waterfront. (Hmmm. I guess that makes her some kind of Penn-friend?) Sit and have drinks and proceed to take the piss out of the guys setting up tents for the New Year’s Eve party, the tents featuring grandiose signs proclaiming that they are not merely tents, but they are Tent Technology
from some company whose name escapes me. Ah yes, Tent Technology, designed in secret laboratories by scientists in white coats, and taught to Tent Technology Operatives at the faculty of Tentology in some university or other.
Also take the piss out of the security guy who is strolling up and down, constantly pulling at his undies, apparently trying to pull out what must be one monumental wedgie. Seriously, he must have been doing this for a couple of hours as he walked up and down. This was obviously an exceptionally bad wedgie.
After a while I was getting hungry. So I went and ordered some food. … (pause for comic effect) … Wedges.
Fast forward to Sunday…
Sunday 13:40. Go to load machine with more washing. Notice setting is on warm. Notice dial is turned, ready to start. Look in tray, notice liquid is present. Realise I never actually washed the clothes yesterday! No wonder the machine had been so quiet! D’oh!
13:45. Re-load machine from basket. Start machine. No, really start machine.
