Phallus Face

Badger and I have been eating a lot lately. Maybe it's the cool weather, but whatever the reason, my male staff has decided that he needs to get another job to pay for all the extra food we've been getting through. So yesterday he asked me if I'd like to travel down to Brisbane with him to help with a job interview. Well, actually, he didn't so much ask as haul me from my cage and thrust me into his briefcase. Badger decided that he didn't want to come. He said he had to tidy his feet.

It was still dark as we drove to the railway station, me with my head poking out of the briefcase and my male staff nodding off now and again, only waking when he bumped his head on the steering wheel. We parked at the station and my male staff went to turn off the headlights only to find that he had never turned them on in the first place. "I wondered why the other driver were flashing their lights at me." He said. "I though maybe it was a traditional Queensland morning greeting." I don't think he'd ever seen that hour of the morning before.

So we boarded the near empty train just as the sun was rising. I sat on my male staff's shoulder so that I could see out of the windows, most of which had misspelled obscenities crudely scratched into them. The youth of today is nothing if not creative. Our window had a large willy and testostricles etched into it, so that from the outside it must have seemed that my male staff had them tattooed on his face whenever he looked out. No wonder people on the platforms of the stations we passed through all gave us a double take glance. Who wouldn't stare at a man with a phallus tattooed on his face and a large, hairy rodent sitting on his shoulder.

For the first hour or so of the trip we seemed to be in hillbilly country.  Tiny, tumbledown shacks with even more tumbledown cars littering the yards crowded close to the tracks. Tired, down trodden women hung drab washing on rotary washing lines while their toddlers hurled dog poo at each other. Such an idyllic scene. All it needed was a kid with twelve fingers and clear, pale eyes playing a banjo. I'm sure there was one there somewhere. Later the scenery became more interesting. There were pointy mountains and pineapple fields. My male staff told me that some bloke called Captain Cook had named them "The Glasshouse Mountains" because from his ship he thought they looked like the glass factories of England's West Midlands. I think he was pissed. (Captain Cook that is, not my male staff. Not at that hour of the morning anyway.) He'd probably been raiding his crew's rum ration. For the benefit of my American readers "pissed" in this instance means drunk, not cross, though his crew were probably pissed when they found that the Captain had guzzled all their rum. As we approached the city there was graffiti on every wall. It contained the same standard of spelling as the obscenities etched on the train windows, but at least it was colourful, as indeed was the back of my male staff's shirt having had me sitting on his shoulder for two hours. 

The Glasshouse Mountains.
Obviously this isn't the view that Captain Cook had as he didn't have access to a helicopter.
I think they were all booked out for scenic flights over Surfers' Paradise.

Brisbane was scary when we got there. So many humans, no animals and no grass. The humans were rushing about like mad; desperate to get to jobs they probably hated and are desperate to leave again as soon as they get there. We both felt like country bumpkins gazing up at the skyscrapers and trying to avoid being knocked flat by stampeding herds of pedestrians as they charged across roads at the command of a little green man.

Once we reached the address where my male staff was to have his interview I was snatched from his shoulder and crammed back into his briefcase. I did manage to leave a neat pile of sticky bush chocolate behind though. I've been eating a lot of cucumber lately and that always makes it a bit sticky. I had intended to tell him about it, but didn't get the chance. Obviously he couldn't hear my muffled wheeking from inside the briefcase. Not to worry, I thought. Having a pile of rodent dung on your shoulder at an interview is probably less of a disadvantage than turning up with a pierced nose - or a phallus tattooed on one's forehead. Anyway, from what I could hear, the interview seemed to be going quite well. The lady doing the interview must have thought that the pile of bush chocolate was some sort of fashion statement because she didn't comment on it. Finally she asked the two questions my male staff dreads most.

 "What would you say is your greatest strength?" The lady asked. My male staff hates these questions because they are so inane and force the interviewee to either brag or lie.

 "I have a great deal of patience." My male staff replied.

 "And what would you say is your greatest weakness?" I winced. I knew what was coming.

 "I get this dreadful urge to hit people who ask stupid questions." Said my male staff.

I don't think he'll get the job. Not necessarily because of the answer to the lady's last question. but because the CV he fished out of his briefcase and handed to her was rather damp and had several rodent teeth marks perforating it. Still, it was a nice day out.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE

I'm so glad I stayed at home. I hate having untidy feet. Don't you?