Saturday 30 June 2007

Mislaid stash

The Queen Victoria Market is a place full of shouting and people.  Even, and especially, on a Saturday afternoon.  We arrived as the market was arriving closing time, and so there were many bargains to be had.  If bargains are what you want to have.  I could have bought an entire box of pears for only $1, or eight avocados for the same price.  But what is one to do with an entire box of pears, or eight very ripe avocados, despite them costing only $1?  Sometimes, no matter how good the bargain, you must forego.

The old man at one stall would not let my friend buy only a few tomatoes.  And when she tried to take tomatoes herself and put them into a bag for him to weigh, he kept taking them out of her hands, putting them back into the pile and declaring his stall was not a supermarket.  She thanked him sarcastically, and left without purchasing, but then realised they really were the only stall with small, ripe tomatoes.  In a further part of the same stall we found another tray of tomatoes, and so she bought some, while the old man was well away down the other end.

We caught the train back to my house, and I put my purchases into the fridge, wondering why I had really bought cherry tomatoes.  It's unlikely I'll actually eat them before they turn soft and grow mould, but for 50c a punnet how could I refuse?  I put my purchases in the fridge, and she kept hers in her small trolley in the back of my house.  It's so cold there it might as well be a fridge.  There was no chance of her cheese or ham going bad sitting in the back of my house.

After we ate leftover soup, an invitation was issued to see a show called Voodoo Vaudeville in Northcote.  The show started at 8pm, and so we left the house to park near the Northcote Town Hall.  Unfortunately, Voodoo Vaudeville proved unexpectedly popular.  It was sold out by the time we arrived, and we had to be content with the elaborately dressed and masked people on stilts echoing our sadness by pointing to the imaginary tear drops falling from their eyes.  We left, disappointed, to drink in a small bar.

On the way back to the car, we passed a restaurant named Pizza Meine Liebe.  When Ben returns to Melbourne I will most certainly suggest we eat there, if only for the name.

I arrived home, by myself, to my empty house, and felt so much like smoking a joint.  I almost never do things like smoking joints.  I'm really such a square.  When I moved into this house I had a small stash hidden in my canvas shoes I never wear.  I remember telling myself "I don't need to hide this from Mum now!", and putting it somewhere that was not a shoe based hiding place.  Unfortunately, this non-hiding-place is a much better hiding place than any other I have ever conceived.  The small stash seems lost forever.

I had some beer instead.

Which is where I am now, slightly intoxicated, and slightly hungry.  I have the imaginary munchies.  It leaves me no choice but to retreat to my very cold kitchen at the cold back part of my house, find something to eat, and hope that Ben might find a phone to use his scam-bought phone card to call me.  Because I miss him.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was hanging out with a couple of new stoner friends a bad influence, Erica? Hell, if you were here, you know we'd roll you a joint. Jayney rolls good ones. Just thought I'd use this forum to say it was Lovely to meet you Erica, you are undoubtably awesome. I guess we'll see you in four months or so! Although, Jayney and I should be going over to Melbourne in August-ish, so we could conceivably have a coffee at my friend's new cafe in Chapel Street! :D

Birdie said...

Doug, it was also Lovely (also with a capital L) to meet you, and you and Janey are both also Undoubtedly Awesome. With captial U's and capital A's.

I'm not sure last night was your influence, more just the influence of being at home by myself and enjoying being inside my own head. I'm one of those dangerous alone-drinkers too.

(I just realised, Ben, your friends may all think I'm both an alco and a pot head now. To all of Ben's friends, this is not true at all.)

I'd love to have a coffee in August, or if you're feeling like a meal I can return lunch at your house with a home cooked meal here at my house in Melbourne. Neither coffee nor a meal will be the same without Ben, but he can eat or drink vicariously from wherever he may be.

Ben said...

Erica: My friends would be delighted to think that you're an alco and a stoner, and are likely now quite disappointed to hear differently.

Doug: Can Erica and I accept your invitation upon my return? I've spent three days in Denmark wishing I were stoned.

Erica and Doug: SMS me when you start eating, and tell me what the meal is, and I'll try and find the closest thing possible from wherever I might be at the time, and join you.

Steve Williams said...

Ben's a geek