Perth Stories - The Conka's Night

Despite my last minute decision to fly down to Perth on impluse of leaving the country, I managed to get into contact with my old friend Daniel who like Eugg was working in Kangaroo city.

For the record, because everyone has the impression I left for Australia to re-kindle an old flame with my Japanese Doll, no I didn't. For weeks I've been wanting to take a holiday and it went from causal remarks to exchanging air ticket promotions to sending hotel pictures. It ultimately reached a point where I had enough of talking and caved in to impluse. Next thing I know, I'm packing up for Perth.

Yes I know. I'm implusive. I warned you so.

If you're in Perth, you'd know that chilli mussels are synonymous with Conka's. I loved the mussels, just that I thought their name sucked.


Me: "You guys have to really work on your business names. They suck."
Eugg: "What's wrong with Conka's?"
Me: "What name is Conka's? If they really know what good marketing is, they should call it 'Delicious Mussels'."
Eugg: "...."

Eugg is not amused that I'm taking cheap cracks at the country he now calls home. It's alot what 4 years can do to you. Either that or I'm no longer funny.


Eugg: "...during the Civil war.. WE..."
Me: "WE?!"
Eugg: "Okay okay.. THEY"

Daniel came and the night quickly turned from quick catch up to nostalgia.


The Guard Duty Story

In a brief, Daniel, Eugg and me were actually old army buddies. Eugg was my actual buddy who needed me to take his sock up for him every morning so that he could pull them on in bed.

We had this friend, Fong, who was huge. HUGE. He was about 1.75m, 130kg and was the kind that had constant wedgies from walking. Daniel was telling us about how there was this one time they had to do guard duty together and they were practising for a fire drill.

It was a dumb drill where the guard commander would blow the whistle and the guard duty personnels had to grab the batons and shields and run out shouting like pussies, "Fire! Fire Fire!". And you wonder why they say the Army makes a man out of us. Real men just sleep through a fire.

Sounds simple? It would be so. Only thing was that it was a proclivity amonst sadistic guard commanders to conduct such a dril in the middle of the night. It's chaotic. You're sleepy, you have to jump out of bed, find your fucking baton, shout, run to the assembly ground. Three words best sums up this activity.

Waste.of.time

Apparently, there was one time during such a drill, Fong jumped right out of bed and trampled on one of the resident cats. You'd have to remember that Fong was fat and already had difficulty climbing stairs without falling into cardiac arrest and for him to run out and step on a cat would be quite a feat.

The cat eventually started limping out of the guard house to where the guard personnels had gathered and started vommiting right in the middle of the fire drill. I love animals but I was laughing so hard I was actually in tears. I'm pretty sure I'd be laughing when people trip over hurdles.


The Story About Michael.

There is nothing funny about this one, but it affected me alot.

I'd be brief cos I'd write this after next week when I go to pay my respects. Daniel broke the news to me that one of our friends had committed suicide. It took me by surprise like a fist full of frangipanis on a Sunday morning.

We spent two years training in the same unit. We went through hell together. We laughed, we fell asleep during lectures, we took the same shit from the military system. We weren't very close, but we were family. We always will be.