Anger Management 101.

Dear Dr. Lazlo, when I get mad I tend to break things (small objects, house doors, people’s faces etc.) and this usually leads to costing me lots of money (replacing objects, fixing doors, paying off assault fines) it also has started to cause problems with the missus. If something slightly irritates me it’s “please don’t break something you always fucking break shit, you have no respect” this causes me to get mad and break things. Usually I want it to be her bones but for now I’ve been able to restrain myself and only bust up her pets and family members. What can I do to curb this violent temper of mine?

-Yours Truly, A Secret Sk8parx Forumer.

Hello there, Secret Angry Forumer. Do you mind if I call you Steve for this little session? I only say that because after reading your email, I immediately thought you sounded like a ‘Steve’ would sound like. I do believe my parents did the same thing but to this day I have no idea what a ‘Lazlo’ would sound like. Perhaps like a cross between the chirping of a recently hatched bird and a slightly broken edge trimmer. I’m not too sure.

You certainly do seem to have a few issues, don’t you Steve. Anger management is something that all of us have had to deal with in some point in our lives. Even your everyday peace-loving hippy can go into a frothy mouthed rage at the drop of a hat. Especially if they find a chunk of meat in their vegan stew. Especially if you put it there. My, that is a fun game. I suggest you try it one day. For extra fun, add cheese and dairy products into a lactose intolerant person’s meal and watch the expletives fly. It certainly does help to pass the time. A word of warning though, people who are allergic to peanuts are usually VERY allergic to peanuts. I found this out the hard way.

Controlling your anger is the first step. You say when things slightly irritate you, you then fly off the handle and break things including household objects and faces? Might I suggest some meditation? I find meditation to be a great way to focus your energy and control your feelings. Of course, it may also cause you to focus your anger, in turn making you an efficient killing machine who uses his hands to wreak vengeance upon an unsuspecting (or suspecting given how much you might yell when charging people) victim. Remember to breathe. Deep breaths in and out. I sometimes find that making a “weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” sound on the exhale makes the anger go away and fills me with a calming influence. It also indicates to other people nearby that you are meditating and not in some sort of drug stupor.

Once we have a handle on your anger we need to then work out why you fly into rages at the drop of the hat. Does something trigger your moods, Steve? I find ignorant people, the colour green and men called Nigel cause me to get all slitty-eyed and punchy. I also find when I am frustrated that my anger levels increase proportionately to my frustration levels. I first noticed this occurrence when I was on holidays with my Grandparents on the Gold Coast. They lived about 150m from Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and it was always my dream to visit there for fun and frivolity. I was mainly interested in feeding the Rainbow Lorikeets but also fairly keen on finding and killing the bird that went “Berrrrk!!!” every morning waking me from my slumber. The day came when my grandparents took my sister and I to the sanctuary but much to my horror they drove us to Fleay’s Fauna Park in Burleigh Heads because it was cheaper. Let’s not get into the fact that I could see the fence to the Currumbin Sanctuary from my bedroom, it was far too expensive for my stingy grandparents.

If you haven’t been to Fleay’s Fauna Park, it can be described as a poor cousin to the Currumbin Sanctuary. All the animals are loose at Fleay’s, they don’t have their own cages. This is apparently an ‘attraction’. I saw it as they were too stingy to buy cages and therefore let the animals roam around together. At most sanctuaries you get specially made animal food to feed to the kangaroos and such. At Fleay’s they had home brand Fruit Loops mixed with handfuls of sawdust. This created an atmosphere of oppression, not dissimilar to that found at 3am in a suburban nightclub, mainly caused by the severely cranky and possibly diabetic marsupials. Being 9 years old and angry that I wasn’t at the tourist attraction of my choice I took my frustrations out on a small, and seemingly innocuous, wallaby. As it scrabbled around in the bag of food I was holding, most likely searching for something edible that wasn’t Fruit Loop flavoured sawdust, it nipped my hand. I took out my frustrations by kicking it squarely in the chest. I immediately regretted my actions not only due to the sight of a poor half-starved wallaby soaring across the enclosure like the first kick in the AFL Grand Final, but also because a nearby emu saw that I was distracted and decided to help itself to an unguarded bag of fruit loops. The ensuing scuffle and subsequent flurry of vicious emu pecks saw me hurtling across the meadow screaming like a banshee, sans shorts, with a large flightless bird in full chase. I learned two things that sunny afternoon. Never take out your frustrations on something with big soppy mammal eyes and emus see people wearing bright blue shorts as a threat to their territory.

In conclusion, Steve, it is wrong to hit things, especially women. I get the distinct feeling we’ll need to schedule some extra sessions sometime soon. In the meantime, I suggest trying meditation or even a yoga class. Try not to get angry at the yoga instructor. He wears those pants for a reason. Hippy chicks love them. Also, perhaps try a course of hardcore anti-depressants. This is a perfectly acceptable alternative to any sort of psychological treatment mainly because it absolves the prescribing doctor of any sort of responsibility should you lose the plot and “take some fuckers down with you”. I wish you well.

Dr. Lazlo Panaflex

Sexy Animals. Right or Wrong? Dr. Panaflex Advises.

Hi Dr Lazlo.

First time reader, first time poster.

I read your advice column with some interest, but must admit to a little disappointment as at no time did you touch upon any animal related fantasies. For instance I have been assured that my habit of lightly stroking my perineal region with a kangaroo scrotum coin purse I purchased in Surfers Paradise on holiday in 1998 as I choke the life out of my man bits until they bulge purple is a quite normal and acceptable practice.

The librarian at Carindale shopping centre told me this when I quizzed her at length about my gooch related native mammal practices and judging by the fact that she had glasses and a small mole on her upper lip with two hairs in it I naturally assumed she was an authority on such things.

Could you please elucidate on why this day to day activity was left out of your piece of advice? I would hate to think that there are other readers out there such as myself (and I’m sure there are) who may be concerned that they are “doing it wrong” so to speak.

Yours sincerely,

Concerned Macropod Fancier.

Well hello there. Welcome to my blog.

Thank you for taking the time out of your very busy day to write a comment. I’m not sure what your day entails but going on your comment I am assuming you spend a fair bit of time collecting interesting skin samples and/or reading copies of National Geographic magazines from the early 1970’s. I used to love spending hour upon hour perusing the numerous copies of National Geographic that I found in my grandmother’s ‘library’. I say ‘library’ but it was basically a musty room full of piles and piles of magazines and books that smelt a bit like the tomb of an undiscovered mummy. I once spent several months diligently cataloguing her collection of magazines into my own kind of ‘Dewey Decimal System’, although my system was based on content categories rather than a sequential series of numbers and useful letters. Magazines were categorised based on the following content:

1. Number of articles containing sharks and/or lions
2. Pictures of war time atrocities.
3. Issues covering Jane Goodall
4. Nipple Content.

Needless to say, many a fun hour was spent in that dusty old room. Fun times indeed. Anyway, let’s get on with your question, Concerned Macropod Fancier. Do you mind if I call you Gavin? I think this will make it a bit easier for us to communicate? Now Gavin, I certainly don’t think there is anything wrong with fantasising, in a sexual way, about animals. This is perfectly normal behaviour, especially for a young man. What isn’t perfectly normal is when you start to act on this fantasy. This is known as bestiality or “the forbidden love” and has been frowned on in most civilised societies for quite a while now (feel free to insert a witty joke about New Zealand and/or Wales here).

You also most certainly aren’t alone either, so don’t beat yourself up about it (unless that is another of your favourite fantasies). I once had a patient who had a bit of a thing for crustaceans. He had a serious fetish for crabs, lobsters and the like. So much so that one day he decided to take it to the next level and was mortified when his wife and children walked in on him rigorously fisting himself as he writhed naked on a blow up mattress covered entirely by small hermit crabs and a rather large amount of industrial strength lubricant. Needless to say that therapy sessions were required for both him and his wife and the outcome has them both living happily together. He has an hour a week set aside as his ‘special time’ and she now calls when she’s on her way home. Of course his children had to be sent away to foster families but sometimes we all need to make sacrifices, don’t we Gavin?

So, in summary I certainly see nothing wrong about fantasising about completely obscure sexual desires as long as you don’t make the jump to full-on rampaging weirdo. In saying that, I think rubbing yourself on the perineum with a small yet silky smooth kangaroo scrotum is about as far as you should go with this, don’t you? If you take this any further you’ll find yourself in possibly perilous situation involving hardcore frottage with an aggressive, fully grown Eastern Grey kangaroo and we all know that this will lead to trouble for all parties involved. Might I suggest buying a full, figure hugging body suit made of kangaroo skin? Or even asking your hairy-mole librarian friend to join you in some native mammalian role-play? That could be the answer. Remember, always ‘ask’ not ‘force’ when it comes to this sort of thing. I really don’t think I can stress this enough.

I really do hope this helps you out and I certainly would love to hear from you in the future. Let me know how things work out. Now excuse me, I need to go and buy some hermit crabs from the local pet store. And some lubricant. Good luck, Gavin.

Dr. Lazlo Panaflex

Lustful Fantasising and its Consequences

Hi Dr. Lazlo,

I have a question I want to ask.

This is a completely hypothetical scenario. Say you are dating/married/committed to a woman and you see yourself as a loyal chap, would you consider it morally wrong to spank the salami with visualisations of a different girl? I suppose you could keep it as your “little secret” but what I am wondering is if it would be a moral dilemma that you have dealt with in the past?

Kicks.

Well hello Kicks.

How’s your day been? Mine has been sort of okay however I am having an ‘issue’ with Gavin from Accounts. I won’t go into it in detail here other than to say I’ve been doing a bit of research into how deep a shallow grave has to be in order for it to be effective. The answer is: surprisingly deep. Sticks and twigs just don’t do the trick.

Now onto your question which is one that afflicts most men and, most certainly, plenty of women as well and that is: Is it morally wrong to think of a person other than your partner when ‘spanking the monkey’ or ‘diddling the doodle’? And the answer to this question is: Only if your partner finds out. Simple.

I think my loving partner would be horrified to know that on the rare occasions that I flog my sausage that I am usually thinking of Ricky Ponting’s fine century versus India at the MCG a few years ago. Sometimes I change grips and pretend I am Ricky smashing one through extra cover. For the money stroke I like to imagine Ricky dancing down the pitch and belting cantankerous spin bowler and renowned fuckwad Harbajan Singh over his head. It is up to you whether or not you tell your partner but just be prepared for her answer as well. She may well have a thing for Andrew O’Keefe from Deal or No Deal. And a woman who loves Andrew O’Keefe is a woman who needs serious help.

I know what it is like to be told that your partner thinks of someone else when indulging in some self-pleasure. An ex-girlfriend of mine once confided in me that she fantasised about Richard Wilkins when she gave herself a good fudding. Admittedly I took this rather well but only because I had a wee thing for Kerry-Anne Kennerly at the time. Of course I wanted to stay in a relationship so I didn’t tell her about my lust-interest. Some things should never see the light of day. To make things worse, she took my non-committal answer to her statement to mean I was ‘down with the whole thing’ and she wanted to take things to the next stage. You know where I am going with this, don’t you?

Yes, I had to dress up as Richard Wilkins once or twice a week when she felt randy. Let me tell you, you certainly do feel a bit daft standing at the foot of a bed wearing nothing but a beige jockstrap with a small furry tea cosy as a wig while you pretend to interview vapid celebrities on the red carpet with a 12” black dildo masquerading as a microphone. Needless to say, dressing as a C-Grade celebrity/reporter/ageless tanned zombie certainly got a bit degrading after a while and we went our separate ways. I was okay with this because this left me plenty of time to update and catalogue my Kerry-Anne Kennerly memorabilia. You know what I mean when I say “update” and “catalogue” don’t you? Of course you do.

Take Care

Dr. Lazlo Panaflex

When you are Online, no one can hear you scream

So look. I’m going to confess something. I’ve met people off the internet. I’m not talking about trawling through the online Yellow Pages and phoning up ‘Steve’ from Custom Plumbing and then acting all “oh, you’re the guy off the internet” when he turns up at my house to fix a leaky pipe here. I’m talking about meeting people. You know, for a relationship. Sheesh, this is awkward. Online dating? Otherwise known as the “Lucky Dip”. Now I know, in 2010, that this isn’t an Earth shattering revelation but back in 2002 it was ground breaking. In a way I was a pioneer. A very desperate pioneer. Not as desperate as some it turns out. And that, dear friends, is what this blog is about. Desperation. Clingy, stalky desperation.

Her name was Helen and she was a nurse. She also looked, according to the grainy picture she sent me, surprisingly normal. She messaged me out of the blue from a dating website I had joined which I found a bit odd. I have never been messaged by a woman on one of these sites before. Men? Yes. Creepy men who wanted to know how sweaty I got after a run and if I’d mind telling them where I lived? Oh yes. There are plenty of weirdos on the internet. Following on from her message, things moved quickly. Below is what happened during the week we met:

Wednesday Night:  I get a message from Helen saying I looked cute. Immediately think one of my mates is trying to pull my leg here but I play along. I’ve never been called cute. Interesting? Yes. Leery? Often. But never cute. Helen seems normal if a little giggly. She must be nervous. We email back and forth and then chat on MSN. It all seems to be going quite nicely.

Thursday Morning: I wake up to find about 3 emails from Helen in my inbox. Okay, that’s a little weird but she did say she was getting ‘stuck into the vino’. We’ve all done that. I jot down a few terms that jumped out at me from one of her emails so I can have a think about them later. They are ‘iridescent’, ‘longing’, ‘relationship’ and ‘possessive’. I will look at these words at lunch if I get the chance.

Thursday Lunch: I forget to think about the words from her email due to a rather terrific sandwich. It had three kinds of meat on it and types of lettuce I thought were weeds. I get a text message and an email from Helen. No issues here except I can’t remember giving her my phone number. Alarm bells are dormant at this stage.

Thursday Night: We talk on the phone. I say talk but that was mainly Helen. I nodded a lot and laughed in the right places. She seems nice. We’ve decided to meet each other in real life tomorrow night. This will be awkward. I can’t decide which t-shirt to wear. I decide on the black one. I have a tendency to spray food around like a performing seal when I eat so black will work out well. I sure hope she’s wearing black.

Friday Lunch: Sandwich not as good as I remember but it tasted okay as I read the 4 emails from Helen telling me how much she is looking forward to meeting me. She says she’ll pick me up at 7pm at my house. How nice of her.

Friday Night: It is 6pm and I hear a car pull up outside. I peer out the window and see that it is Helen. She’s an hour early. There’s a small insistent voice in my head that keeps telling me this is a little weird. I ignore it as Helen is wearing a short dress. I invite her in and excuse myself so I can shower. While soaping up I come to the realisation that I didn’t actually tell Helen where I lived. The small insistent voice in my head starts sniggering and telling me “I told you so”. I walk out of the shower and see Helen at my computer. “Just having a look” she tells me. Right. Knock yourself out.

We go to dinner at a nice little cafe. The food is rather good and I am getting a little drunk. Helen asks if I want to go back to her place. My brain says no but my genitals say yes. Things are done. I won’t go into detail other than to say I was happy with my performance. I note that Helen has quite a lot of teddy bears in her unit. Helen says “Oh I just lurve teddy bears”. Ooookay.

I catch a cab home as I don’t want to outstay my welcome. Helen says it isn’t a problem but I don’t want to give too much to this girl. You know, keep them wanting more.

Saturday Morning: I wake up to my phone beeping. I have a text message from Helen. She says “thanks for the wonderful night” and she hopes I’m not too hungover. I stumble out of bed and have a shower. My shower is interrupted by a phone call. It’s Helen. She wants to know if I want to go to a BBQ later that day. I said “sure, that sounds wonderful”. As I hang up the phone I start to wonder why I said that. Helen is coming at 1pm. It is 10am now so she’ll be here any minute.

Saturday Afternoon: We are at the BBQ. The food is nice and there is plenty of beer. It is also Helen’s family reunion. Awesome. I am being introduced as her “NEW BOYFRIEND”. I grin like the Cheshire Cat and at one stage it feels my face will split in half. Her mother corners me and asks me when I think we’ll be having kids. I don’t know what to say to this so I nod and smile and say something about it being a little early on for that sort of talk. Her mum says she’ll chat to me later. Just awesome. I need to get out of here so I complain of a migraine and ask Helen to drive me home. She’s a little annoyed at this because we haven’t played Pictionary yet and she was certain I would be a good match for her Uncle Gary (never been beaten apparently) but she takes me home. I say goodbye which takes a good ten minutes as I try and persuade her from ‘tending’ to my headache. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Saturday Night: I’ve had eight messages from Helen so far. Eight. Three phone calls too.  Only one email though.

Sunday Morning: I wake up to a text message from Helen asking me “what are WE doing today”. I reply “I’m helping a friend move and then he’s taking me to a movie.” I get silence for a good hour or so and then a message telling me to “get fucked” and to “jump off a fucking bridge”. I immediately get another message from her apologising for her actions and that she hopes I have a good time with my mates.

Sunday Night: I tell my mates what has happened over a beer or two. They stare in stunned silence at me. I tell them “she’s a nice girl though”. One of them makes stabbing motions and laughs at me. Oh my friends are funny jokesters. We enjoy the movie. It had zombies in it and zombies are pretty much fucking ace. I turn my phone back on and I see I have missed seven phone calls from Helen. Does she not know about the policy of turning phones off in movies? I wonder what she wanted but then realise the fourteen new  messages from her on my phone will probably give me an insight. They range from “I hope you’re having a great time, babe” to “you fucking arsehole. You’re with another girl, aren’t you?” I decide that Helen and I are done.

I get home and tuck myself into bed. At 2am I get a message. I wearily roll over and grab my phone. The message reads “Andrew. We need to talk. I know you are in there. I am watching you sleep”. Oh fuck. My first thought was “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” and my next was “I need some sort of weapon”. I look out through the window and there she is, standing in my garden bed like some sort of loon. She beckons to me. I shake my head and say out the window “No Helen. We’ll talk about this in the morning”. She howls like a banshee when she hears this. I shut the window, make sure the front door is locked and turn off my phone. I try and get back to sleep but I hear some banging on the front door and some weird scrabbling that I hope to fucking Jesus is a possum trying to get in the back door. I don’t sleep much. At 4am I get up and look out the window. Helen is still there, frantically writing on a pad of paper. She’s been there all night long. I wait for another hour or so until I hear her leave, her car squealing like a kicked cat up the street. I open the door and written all over my front step are the words “Fuckhead” and “Cheating Bastard” in black pen. Also on my front step is about 15 pages of handwritten scrawl. Helen’s thoughts on the whole incident. I try reading them but get a bit scared after she threatens to slice my penis off on page 4. I file these pages away to read at a later date but we all know the true reason. Evidence. If I was to disappear at least someone might find out what really happened.

I don’t know what became of Helen. I got a couple more emails from her but they were barely legible. Basically she’d gotten into her mind, in the 5 days that we got to know each other, that I was the “one”. The man of her dreams. I once thought I saw her mother in a shopping centre and I spent a couple of very nervous minutes looking like a creepy dude as I hid behind some clothing racks in a Just Jeans store.  I was wary for a good couple of months after that. I sure hope she’s happy. And in another country. In some sort of institution would be nice.

A Fear of Death Has Nothing On a Fear of Moths

Dear Dr Lazlo,

As a kid I had a very bad fear of death.. I do realise that I had many years to come but I still didn’t want to die of course I still don’t, And I would feel sick and throw up at the near thought of such a thing of course this would happen nearly every night I did grow out of it a few years later but I still do feel sick in the stomach when I think of it sometimes.

Have you ever had such a feeling, or are you a big doctor that isn’t scared of anything?

Ozzy

Hello Ozzy.

Thanks for taking the time to drop me a line. I know that young people these days tend to act like a Labrador puppy with ADHD when it comes to communication. I tried twittering the other day on the computer at the local library but for some reason I couldn’t navigate away from the “Russian Lolita Honeyz” page that kept popping up on my screen. Don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t waltz into a public library, click on a hardcore porn link and ‘get bizzay’ with my junk. Nothing like that. It’s like the six degrees of separation for computers. When you are surfing the net “Russian Lolita Honeyz” is only six clicks of the mouse away from “Haberdashery Supplies for the Homekeeper” especially if you have wandering fingers like I do. It is a serious problem. No wonder Mr Rudd wants to censor the internet. Six clicks of the mouse and you can go from home wares to home whores. Of course it is only one click on my computer because I have that link in my favourites but I digress.

Let’s get onto your question, shall we? Death. You’re terrified of death. This is a common fear and one that is usually hard to overcome, especially as you grow older. Some wise man once said “nothing in life is certain except death and taxes”. Of course this is blatantly wrong as you can conveniently avoid paying any kind of tax by setting up offshore accounts and becoming a citizen of lovely places like Bermuda and/or the Cayman Islands. But yes, death will come to all of us at one stage or another and for some it will come sooner rather than later. I shall address how you deal with this inevitability later on.

You asked if I have ever had such a feeling. Of course I have, I am a mortal human being (for now) like the rest of you. My fear is nothing as common as death. Oh no. I have two major fears in life. They are as follows:

a)      Moths; and

b)      People called Nigel.

Both of these things cause me to shriek in fear or become rigidly paralysed. I don’t like Nigel’s after being repeatedly taunted in Grade 10 about my ‘Flock of Seagulls’ hairstyle by a boy of the same name. The resulting humiliation made me draw “OUTCAST” and “PENIS” on my arms with a black pen and pull out my hair in huge bloody clumps. I was a fragile flower of a boy when I was a teenager.

My fear of moths is a little more rational. I can’t stand these flying winged spawns of Satan with their dusty rustling wings and ability to fly right into my eye while I cower in terror. Did you know that the ‘dust’ they leave behind is actually small scales from their wings? They are like the spotty eczema-ridden leper of the insect world. I once woke up in the middle of the night feeling a presence in the room. At first I thought I was being visited by the ghost of my long dead but clinically insane grandmother but it turns out the presence was actually a large Bogong moth that had perched upon my face obviously waiting for me to open my mouth so it could climb into my throat and kill me with it’s dustiness. Needless to say, much screaming occurred and it was weeks before I could sleep without covering myself in a large tarpaulin.

Moths and wankers called Nigel aside, your fear is very real. However should you let this fear control your life then you’ll become a recluse. A shut in who spends the day measuring their blood pressure and wondering if every sneeze means a case of Avian Flu. Just like my Auntie Joan. You don’t want to turn into my Auntie Joan, do you? I suggest putting this fear to the back of your mind and enjoying the time you have left. Go out and party with your friends. Paint lovely murals. Do silly things with gherkins. The only time you should let that fear of death out is when you have a child or when you are careening around the corner in a stolen VN Commodore at 115k/hr while your mate cranes his neck over his shoulder and drunkenly says “Have we lost the cops?”

I hope this helps. Now please excuse me. I just saw a moth fly past the window. I need to make sure all the windows and doors are shut and that my considerable supply of insect-killing spray is at hand. I also need to take my blood pressure and wipe my nose. I have a cold. I think.

Yours truly,

Dr. Lazlo Panaflex

PS: Please see the picture below for the rationalisation of my fear. I saw one just like this the other day flying around my house. I am currently trying to buy a bunch of Surface to Air missiles on eBay.

You can tell by the smell…

I wrote this story a while ago and came across it one night while searching through my “writing folder”. I thought I’d share it with you lovely people.

It is a true story about a crazy guy. A crazy taxi-driver. I haven’t told too many people about this because it occurred on a night that I thought I had wiped from my memory. I went out to dinner with my bud Mark to an Italian restaurant in the Valley. We went with another mate and his former boss. What we didn’t know was that out of the 8 or so of us there, we were the only straight ones. The other 5 were as gay as the guys on the lead float in the Mardi Gras. Real fans of the cock. This isn’t an issue because no one knows how to party harder than a gay dude. It’s an irrefutable fact. But after about 10 seconds of sitting down we realised we were in Queen City. Two of the gay dudes were old wrinkly Queen fags. Just bitter, spiteful men who in between sexual innuendos (ooh calamari rings, I like rings…hur hur hur) basically slated the service staff and called their food rubbish. It was really embarrassing but we were stuck there, basically waiting for the now surly staff to deliver our food which had most likely been spat in. If we were lucky.

After about eleventy bottles of wine, Mark and I decided to call it a night and retire back to his pad to watch the footy, drink beer and tequila and perhaps play Tiger Woods on the PS2. It had been a horrific night and one that I hadn’t enjoyed despite being complimented numerous times on the colour shirt I was wearing and how ‘ruggedly handsome’ I could be if I used a bit more soap.

We jumped in a cab and the driver was pretty friendly. He asked us what we did for a living. I decided to have a bit of fun and told him I was an English teacher who worked in South East Asia 9 months of the year. I didn’t know my little jape would backfire so badly.

“Oh Asia! I love Asia. Do you?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s pretty tops. The people are so nice and the food is excellent” I replied.

He piped up “oh yeah, I love going there. I go once or twice a year. I fell in love with the joint after my tour in Vietnam. God I love the women. So beautiful”

“Yeah, the women sure are nice” I said. “But you need to watch out for all the diseases and such”

“Diseases?” he queried.

I should, at this point, have realised that I had started something that was going to end badly. Of course I was a little out of it so I continued.

“Yeah. You know. AIDS, the clap, all those nasty ones that make your cock drop off? You need to cover up your junk with a condom, don’t you?”

He turned around and looked me in the eye, all the while negotiating the traffic on the Story Bridge, and said “nah, you don’t need to worry about those. I’ve been going there for 25 years and have never worn a condom”

Silence.

The car was eerily silent except for the whistling wind coming through the partially opened passenger seat window and the insistant sound of Mark jabbing me in the ribs while he bit down on his hand to stop laughing. I started getting intrigued by our taxi driver.

“Never worn a condom? Aren’t you worried you’ll catch something?” I asked.

“Nah” said old mate. “I can tell which ones are infected. I can tell by the smell of their pussies”

Fucking. What.

I said “…….okay. Um…really?”

“Oh hell yeah, you can tell the sick ones just by sniffing their pussies. The clean ones have a beautiful smelling vagina. Oh god they smell good. Small, petite girls with great smelling lady bits. Yeah, every time I go over there I have a different girl every night for a month and I never wear a condom. I know they are clean. Just know by the smell. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes. Yes I do. Oh yes, clean smelling spadges. I shall remember that next time I am out sniffing for some poon-tang. Literally.”

We pulled into the driveway and Mark told him to keep the change. I think this is because he was scared he might accidentally touch his hand in the exchange of monies and develop some weird skin rash. To this day I have no idea how he went about his little olfactory experiment. Did he line them up in the brothel and sniff them each in turn? Maybe he had a list of brothels distributed amongst shell-shocked Vietnam War vets touting places where the ladies ‘smelt farking tops’? Perhaps he sat in the front row at a ‘show’ and snatched ping pong balls as they whizzed past his head, sampling each one with a hearty sniff? It is mind boggling to even think about it.

Weirdest drive home ever.

Paul the Habitual Masturbator

I really should tell you about Paul (his name has been changed because he is slightly unhinged and may attack if provoked). He’s one of those guys who, when it comes to drinking, not only doesn’t have a clue about where to draw the line but has eaten the chalk and wants to wrestle. His name is Paul. He’s a semi-smart bloke when sober but when he gets a few drinks into him he turns into a frothy mouthed lunatic who has a tendency to outstay his welcome everywhere he goes. Everyone knows someone like this but Paul was an expert at it. You’d have a party on Saturday night and on Tuesday Paul would still be there, sitting on the couch drinking beer and eating BBQ Shapes. I once had to pretend I had a family reunion on down the coast just to get him out of the house. Even still, he wanted the address just so he could ‘pop in’ if he was in the neighbourhood.

He is also a weirdo when it comes to self-pleasure.

The first time I really saw him in action was after a pub crawl about a month after I met him. We’d stumbled home to a mate’s house and we sat on the deck having one last beer. It was about 3am. Paul gets up and goes inside and I say “Where you going, dude?”

“Garn to have a wank, Thommo”.

“Ah, okay. Right”

No one seemed surprised at this revelation and one of my mates says “yeah, old Paulie likes to jerk off after a good drinking session.” I found this fact more than a little disturbing. No more than 5 minutes passes and Paul comes out with a grin on his face. The other guys start warily edging away from him like they know something is up. I follow their lead and sure enough Paul slurs out “Who wants to see my Spiderman impersonation?”

He holds up his hand and it is covered in semen. It looks like he’s jammed his hand into a massive jar of Clag Glue. He then opens his fingers and sure enough, ropey strands of spoof do their best impression of Spiderman’s web. Classy. He then chases us around the house for a bit singing the theme tune, all the while flinging “web” at unsuspecting victims. I ran from the house screaming like a 12 year old girl and wouldn’t come back until someone reassured me that Paul had passed out in the garden bed.

A few weeks later we are at the same house and it is the morning after a big night. Paul goes for his ritualistic wank. Just takes himself off into a bedroom, locks the door and gets down to business. He’s in there for only about 3 minutes and then trudges back out, sits down and starts watching TV. The guys who live at the house are all “Paul, how about you fuck off home?” and he says “Gotta wait for my sock to dry”. He’d had a wank, couldn’t find anything to wipe up with so he used his sock. We all look out the window and the clothesline is empty except for one solitary cum-soaked sock slowly spinning around in the wind. I can still hear the rusty squeaking of the clothes line now.

Enough was enough. We told Paul to get out. Take his cum-rag and go home. He reluctantly trudged outside and got his sock off the line, put it on his foot and squelched off home. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. Off he went.

He was a scary dude. But he came in handy from time to time. We’d all be sitting around on a Saturday afternoon complaining about being bored and he’d grin madly and then dash off to the shops. He’d come back a hour or so later with a carton of beer, a bottle of cheap vodka, some nitrous bulbs and 3 or 4 BBQ chooks.

Just completely out of the blue.

Once he came with us to Stradbroke Island for a weekend. We got smashed, as you do, but he took it upon himself to be the most inebriated of the bunch. All of the time. We arrived on the island and started drinking. We then started playing touch footy and some locals joined in. He nearly started several fights when he started tackling people. Not like a normal tackle that you see in a game of footy. Oh no, nothing like that. We’re talking big fucking shoulder charges and up-ending spear tackles. He didn’t even discriminate. Some small 12 year old lad was sprinting down the sideline, ball tucked under his arm and Paul made a beeline for him. You could see the terror in this kid’s eye. He pleads “noooooooooooooo” but Paul just smashes the poor kid. Literally picking the kid up and tossing him over the sideline. He’s on the ground crying, holding his stomach and Paul stands over him gobbing off like a steroid-fuelled wrestler. We had to restrain the kid’s Dad and make a hasty retreat after that one.

We then went for a swim and I’d stopped drinking for a bit there, you know, pacing myself. He was drinking rum and cokes at 2 in the afternoon. He then starts looking at us all weird and I said “Paul, what are you up to man” and he said “you’ll see”.

Then, about 10 seconds later I just have this premonition and I duck down. Sure enough something dark sailed over my head and when “PLAP!” against one of my mate’s face. It was a poo. Paul had done a nard in his hand and thrown it as us.

We gave him a bit of a belting after that and he was banned from entering the unit we were staying in. He didn’t mind. He just slept on the tiles out the front, using a cask wine bladder as a pillow, occasionally awakening to hurl abuse and growl like a junkyard dog at innocent passers-by.

If you meet a man called Paul who seems nice at first but after 7 drinks turns into a leery and slightly leany drunk…you’ve been warned.