Things That Make Me Laugh: Part 1

The Convict.

Must be a week for annoying people in public transport. After the mind-numbing banality of the other day's school kids, I was greeted by a man at the tram stop this morning, who had the look. And not the look of love, no, the look of escaped mental patient.

He was wearing a very baggy L.A. Raiders top, and underneath that, what appeared to be a pair of prison overalls that were about 14 sizes too big. Bright orange with numbers stencilled on it, and his head looked like it had been struck at odd angles with a tyre iron. Of course, he chose to speak to me. What follows is the conversation to the best of my recollection.

Convict: 'Hey man, you gotta be as cold as me with a haircut like that!'

Me: 'Yeah, a shaved head is miserable in winter.'

Convict: 'Yeah! But man, that's a wicked hairstyle.'

Me: 'Thanks.'

Convict: 'Yeah, I used to have long hair myself, but I had to shave it off 'cos I've got a hole in the back of my head.'

At this point, the alarm bells started warming up. When a stranger dressed as a convict tells you they've got a hole in the back of their head, you start to think of ways to escape the vicinity, or at least punch 000 into your mobile. I don't have a mobile phone because I'm a stubborn asshole, so I thought instead about the legalities of pushing an escaped mental patient under a tram, or at the very least throwing my MacBook Pro at his head and screaming 'HOLY SHIT THIS GUY HAS A BOMB'.

Then, according to random destitute crazy guy Rule #1, which states that, by law, any and all persons affecting any sort of mental illness or psychosis must ask any member of the public they strike up a conversation with for a cigarette at some point in the conversation, he did the very thing.

I said I had none, and he was okay with that, but when he turned to walk away, I noticed that he had a fucking hole in the back of his head. Not a big one, and it wasn't bleeding, but damn if that wasn't a fresh wound of some sort. Looked like the circumference of a railway spike or something. That was my cue to get the fuck out of dodge, so I boarded the tram and hid under a seat. I presume he was arrested sometime today for killing a dog, or maybe shitting in a fountain, because he certainly looked like the kind of guy that'd shit in a fountain.

Quiet please, morons.

I was on the tram going to work this morning, because I love going to work. It's like, my favourite thing to do.

I was seated across from two high-school kids who were from a school that I've never heard of before, but it's in Hawthorn somewhere. They were spectacularly ugly kids, and from their banter I can only assume that the school is for gifted children, though I keenly observed that the main 'gift' in question seems to be the gift of dumb.

Here's the thing, though. The girl in the pair had her iPod on and the volume obviously turned up, because she was basically shouting her responses to the boy's questions.

'Do you like Michael Jackson?'

'YEAH HE'S REALLY GOOD IT'S A PITY HE DIED'.

'Yeah, it is. I really like that new song by The Current Fad Band too'.

'YEAH I'VE GOT IT ON MY IPOD. CAN YOU HEAR ME? PUNCH ME ONCE IN THE MOUTH FOR YES, OR KICK ME IN THE ASSHOLE FOR NO'.

It's always bugged me, that. The fact that people's brains send the message that because you have headphones on, you can't hear as well, so you have to raise your voice. I mean, if you're in a nightclub, that makes sense, but if you're on public transport, then think a little before you open your cakehole.

The Old 63.

Around 1985, my brother had a blue container. Nothing special, just a kid's lunchbox that opened via the unlocking of two separate hatches to reveal an empty space. What you decided to put in that space, however, was what mattered.

I recall putting random things in there, the kind of things kids put in boxes, like moss, twigs, dead cats, what have you.

But my brother, he made that box special. Special enough for me to remember it vividly enough to mention it at his 21st in a speech I made before he fell over drunk.

The Old 63 is in here, OK OK good.

Those words will stay with me until I die. It's a sentence that, apart from being grammatically retarded, means nothing unless you know what he meant. The Old 63 was simply a pop-gun he'd inherited, likely from me, with a red tip so you knew where the dangerous end was.

Nothing special, I admit. But it's a memory that I treasure as I get older; as those memories fade.

He loved that gun. Loved it enough to designate it a special box where it would reside and slumber until he needed to retrieve it to fight some fantastical enemy that had appeared in our backyard. A four-headed monster perhaps, threatening our dog, or simply perhaps the larger-than-life image of his sadistic elder brother.

Whatever it might be, the solution to his problems lay in that box, warded with special words that granted it's wielder with infinite power. He was fucking invincible with that gun.

This was backed-up with the reinforcement of the term 'OK'. Once wasn't enough, no. 'OK OK good'. It meant that the gun was in the box, OK, but it wasn't just OK, it was fucking OK. Like, John Wayne could wield this handgun and shoot a cat and the cat would explode and the pieces would then ignite and turn into smaller cats toting sticks of dynamite hell-bent on blowing up orphans or some shit. I don't know, but the gun had that level of mystique and power.

To preface this entry, I'll use my current favourite internet meme. That being:

what is this i dont even

Having said that, we received an application at work today for a position in the Frankston store we're opening up. The applicant had included a cover letter of such astounding mediocrity that I felt compelled to share it.

"hi there,

my name is ******* and the reason for my e-mail is to apply for the Frankston store position,
i have a fairly good understanding for apple products as i own a mac (desktop) an i phone and 2 i pods (one touch and one is a nano)

i think that i would be great for the position as i love to interact with others and share my knowlage. i am extreamly helpfull and also super friendly.
as my resume states i was working for a marketing company in the city. i specialised in door to door sales (cold calling) so i have got sales expirience.
At the moment i am working for staff Australia doing on call casual possitions of all types, so therfore am not choosey of the kind of duties i am doing.

I Think working at ******** would be a great oppatunaty for me as i beleve it would be the kind of work i enjoy doing.
im avalible to work from mon - sun also.

please consider me for an interveiw if not a possition at ********.
thank you very much for your time and i look foward to hearing from you shortly,

regards,"

That's unedited. I'm having trouble deciding which part is my favourite. I've narrowed it down to 'extreamly helpfull' or the stellar misspelling of 'oppatunaty'. I mean, the spell-checker in whatever program this guy is using would have not only hat a fit and shat itself when he typed it in, but probably didn't bother alerting him to the errors because the computer decided that no one could be that dumb.

He might as well have sent this instead:

"gday cunts

saw youse have got a job at the franga store and i reckon im the best person for youse to hire cos i once stole a car from some cunts place outside langwarrin and sold it to a junkie in portsea and that makes me qaulife, kwolif, qafilie, the best at sales

call me this afternoon or dont bother

ill be at your mums house lol"