Category Archives: complete mortification

A milk­shake for Dennis

By Mat | Published: May 24, 2007

You will be grat­i­fied to read that sen­sa­tion is return­ing to my tongue. Obvi­ously I don’t know why that news should affect you so, but that’s hardly my fault, is it? You sicken me. There, I’ve said it. No, wait: I love you. Let’s never argue again. Have a pea­nut. I won­der what they make the stuff out of that goes in dental anaesthetic?

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Thai food nearly broke my ankle

By Mat | Published: May 5, 2007

We’ve ordered Thai food. ‘They say we can pick it up in twenty minutes,’ says the Evil Sul­phura.
‘We should leave here in twenty minutes,’ I say. ‘It always takes at least half an hour, and I always end up sit­ting in that crowded bit at the front, wait­ing with all the other gull­ible losers who […]

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I like your trousers

By Mat | Published: March 5, 2007

I exit the office burst­ing with self-esteem and skip out onto Swan­ston Street with an impromptu soft-shoe shuffle of which Gregory Hines would have been proud. It’s a beau­ti­ful day, the finest in nearly a dec­ade, for today I am bound for a café at which I intend to pur­chase a cup of coffee.

Full strength coffee.

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Of human Bondage

By Mat | Published: January 2, 2007

Oscar, The Evil Sul­phura and I have gone to see the new Bond film, Casino Roy­ale. The first ten minutes takes place in a men’s bath­room, in which a fight involving broken urin­als and wildly spray­ing plumb­ing leads neatly into Bond’s iconic flip-around-and-shoot-the-cameraman move.

It is excit­ing and viol­ent and it awakens an urge deep in my bladder.

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Unfa­vour­able in appear­ance, devel­op­ment or behaviour

By Mat | Published: June 6, 2006

I’m afraid this is going to be an unpleas­ant story, for it begins with the fol­low­ing words: I am sprint­ing des­per­ately up Lygon Street at three minutes to five shak­ing a jar of my own urine.

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Burg­lar by appointment

By Mat | Published: April 4, 2006

My friend Iris is emig­rat­ing to China, and I have agreed to take some of her things to save her stor­age costs. In her liv­ing room, as I browse her pos­ses­sions and make my choices, I feel awk­ward. What does it say that I chose to take her DVD player and her blender that can crush ice, but not her steel lamp or wicker rock­ing chair? Does she think I think her lamp is ugly? That I mock her set of red shelves with hand-painted pink spots? I decide to overcompensate.

‘Everything is so beau­ti­ful!’ I say. ‘I wish I could take everything!’

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Girlie Grey, part two

By Mat | Published: March 22, 2006

‘Can I help you?’

‘Thanks but I don’t really like tea.’

It is Fitzroy, 2003 and the sales assist­ant at Tea Inter­sec­tion shrugs.

‘Have you con­sidered the pos­sib­il­ity that you might be in the wrong place?’ she suggests.

‘All the time,’ I say. It was sup­posed to be flip­pant, but she checks the panic button.

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Girlie Grey, part one

By Mat | Published: March 7, 2006

The maitre d’ is hov­er­ing over my shoulder. An ori­ginal Picasso is hov­er­ing over his.

‘I’m ter­ribly sorry sir,’ he says in an accent so fluid I can’t tell if it is French or His­panic, ‘but there’s a problem.’

I begin to sweat under my cravat. It is Las Vegas, Octo­ber 2005, and I am about to reap the whirlwind.

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That’s It, I’m Tex­ting 000

By Mat | Published: January 3, 2006

“Tanya, don’t look now, but—”

“Hang on Kylie, I’m just tex­ting Steve.”

“Oh.”

“s-t-a-r-d. Right, done, what’s your problem?”

“Don’t look now, but there’s a weird guy behind you.”

“Where—”

“I said don’t look!”

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