MELLIPOP AND THE FAT TEMP

Ok, so I had a wee run-in with one of the temps at work yesterday. Those who know me in real life will be fairly surprised by this, because although my Mellipop alter-ego indulges her shadow-side far too readily with it's penchant for insensitivity, scorn and mock outrage, her real-life flesh-and-blood vessel is a far more accommodating and polite creature. A fairly robust sense of humour accompanies my dealings with others and it takes a lot in other people to truly annoy me.

Though I tend to avoid conflict over petty trivialities (avoiding "negativity" for the sake of "negativity"), I will gladly and wholeheartedly step up to the plate if someone is being a truly obnoxious arsehole, or if my sense of injustice is aroused. Which isn't all that often, but is readily and easily dispensed with. I’m no wallflower.

It's all a hangover from my days working in the "woo woo" (aka New Age) industry. Four solid years of spirituality shop-talk and self-help ramblings absorbed by osmosis and doused in copious amounts of beer. I still quote Louise Hay. I still do angel card readings for myself every day. And I have a stash of affirmation cards at work which I inflict on my colleagues daily.

But this temp really pissed me off. Her only crimes? Being utterly humourless and attempting to patronise me. The only two qualities I absolutely cannot tolerate in other people.

So I was sharing lunch in the kitchen with three of my fellow colleagues. A round-table take-the-piss-fest, with ample doses of laughter and a complete deficit of seriousness. The temp was sitting alone at the table behind us.

Temps have it tough, at the best of times. The ephemeral nature of their employment essentially renders them entirely invisible to the rest of the full time staff. Most temps understand this, and tend to actively cultivate this air of invisibility almost as a kind of protective shield. It's a case of, "yes I am invisible and I just want you to know that this is also by my choice, hence I will not look at you or speak to you, and will ensure that you never hear my name mentioned in the office".

Just to clarify my personal stance on the temp issue: I myself don’t adhere to this particular modus operandi. I talk to temps. It's because I tend to talk to anyone and everyone in my immediate sphere. Why deliberately undercut your potential audience?

So I had already previously spoken to the temp at issue. I can't remember her name (though to be fair I also suspect the reciprocal is true), but at this point I need to set down a few identifying markers so I can stop using the phrases "the temp in question" and/or "the temp at issue". Far too clunky. Plus, I’m lazy.

Ok, so this temp has it a little rougher than other temps. She is fat and has a beard. Not just slightly overweight. MORBIDLY OBESE. Not just a few errant chin hairs. A full-on GOATEE. God was very unkind with that particular combination of genetic material, though it's nothing that diet, exercise and permanent laser hair removal can't fix. Hence I am entirely justified in lacking any sympathy for her physical misfortune.

So anyway, just to be all anti-PC about the proceedings (as if you would expect anything less), we'll call her the Fat Temp from here on in, shall we?

The first mistake the Fat Temp made was to interject in our inane conversation about fish oil capsules. Interjections into conversations I don’t mind. Exterminations of conversations I do.

So we’re piss-taking with a vegetarian colleague, telling her that she needs more protein in her diet and should eat fish (though what she really needs is a few hefty Quarter Pounders and a juicy rump steak or two). So with a cavalier jocularity we suggest she ingest fish oil capsules instead.

VEGGIE BEC: No, but the fish have to die so they can get the oil.

MELLIPOP: Maybe they MILK the fish, so they don’t die.

(thinks) Ha ha, yes I’m hilarious really….. Even though no-one else is laughing….

FAT TEMP: (interjecting) Fish aren’t mammals, so they don’t produce milk and you can't extract oil through the mammary glands anyway and blah blah blah blah blah

MELLIPOP: (being a smartarse) Alright. What about WHALES!

(thinks) Oops – she’s fat. Better cover in case I offended her.

MELLIPOP: DOLPHINS!

FAT TEMP: (patronisingly) Yeah well whales and dolphins aren’t fish, they’re blah blah blah blah blah

MELLIPOP: (dismissively, as she gets up and walks over to the bin in disgust) Mate, I was being FACETIOUS.

(thinks) Jesus! Can the fucking wildlife lectures already….. Patronise ME! I just used the word “facetious”, bitch. Make no mistake, I might be blonde and cute, but I’m not fucking stupid.

Aaah, yes….arrogant indeed, but this was my honest knee-jerk reaction to the Fat Temp’s clumsy attempts to assert some sort of heavy-fisted intellectual dominance over me. I hate being patronised. She might be fat and smart (or so she invariably thinks) but I’m thin and smart. I win. With added bonus points for not having unsightly facial hair.

So my colleagues and I continued with our conversation, which somehow veered onto a bizarre tangent about being drugged up on the train. Even despite my casual dismissal, Fat Temp again decides that her earnest and humourless input to the conversation is both valid and appreciated.

FAT TEMP: (self-righteously) My flatmate has diabetes, and was injecting insulin into her stomach on the train once, and the guard came along and whacked the needle out of her hand and the needle broke off in her stomach.

MELLIPOP: (sarcastically) Yeah, well maybe she should have set her alarm clock a little earlier then.

FAT TEMP: No! You can’t just do that. When you need to inject insulin, you have to do it. You can’t just do it whenever you feel like it.

MELLIPOP: I dunno, I think maybe I’d be organising my train trips around my insulin shots, though.

FAT TEMP: (getting agitated and demagogic) Well you can’t. If you knew anything at all about living with diabetes, you’d know that you can’t just do that. If you need to inject insulin, you just have to do it. You can’t just organise your life around it. It’s impossible.

MELLIPOP: (sardonically) I was just joking.

(thinks) Should I ask whether her diabetic flatmate is also morbidly obese? Do I go down that road, as exquisitely tempting as it is? No. Keep your mouth shut….. End this now Melli….

FAT TEMP: (launching tiresome rant) Well I hate it when people who don’t understand just think that……

MELLIPOP: (interjecting) MATE, I was JOKING. It’s what I do. It’s called having a SENSE of HUMOUR…..

(thinks) For fuckssake woman….. Let it go!

FAT TEMP: Yeah but…..

MELLIPOP: (bristling) Jeee-sus Christ, I WAS JUST KIDDING FOR CHRISSAKE….. Have you got a bloody sense of humour or what???

(thinks) AVOID AT ALL COSTS THE TEMPTATION TO PUT A DEFINITIVE END TO ALL THIS WITH SMARTARSE COMMENTS ABOUT MORBID OBESITY AND ITS LINK WITH DIABETES…. NO MELLI, NO!!

MELLIPOP: (overtly disregards Fat Temp and takes control) Right. Let’s take the piss out of Veggie Bec again now. Much more fun….

So having been once more categorically alienated from the conversation, the deflated Fat Temp subsequently leaves the room.

Looks of eyebrow-raised astonishment are briefly exchanged amongst the remaining four colleagues until we start to take the piss out of Veggie Bec again, and all resumes as normal. A couple of minutes later, heads are shaken and comments of “What the fuck was that all about?” are offered rhetorically before the whole incident is entirely dismissed from our minds.

Now I make it a point to studiously ignore the humourless Fat Temp. Despite her considerable heft, she has now officially rendered herself invisible. Why should I concern myself with humorless bores when the alternative is so much more readily available? Surely that doesn’t make me a bitch? And if it does, I really don’t care. I'm here for a good time, not a long time.

MELLIPOP AND AISLE-SEAT ASSHOLES

OK, so note to rail commuters on packed suburban peak hour services: MOVE THE FUCK OVER.

So I’ve been commuting to the city for work over the last couple of months and have noticed a dramatic upsurge in a somewhat bizarre seating phenomena that threatens to tear at the fragile fabric of our urban society like a burgeoning (and most unwelcome) subculture with it’s own inexplicable behavioural codes of conduct.

What’s with the fucking aisle-hogging?

Surely anyone who has had the misfortune to have hopped onboard one of City Rail’s finest in the last few years would have noticed this. An inexplicable stubbornness to move over in one’s seat to allow other commuters to slide their tired arse in effortlessly beside them. What the fuck is that all about?

This isn’t Greater Union or Qantas Economy. There are no snack bars or other “conveniences” we require facilitated access to. So why this insistence on clinging stubbornly to the aisle spot and making your fellow commuters squeeze themselves through the Kate Moss-like micro-gap between seats and knees to park their sad arses in the window seat (after first having parking them in your face to get there).

At the risk of sounding repetitive. And perplexed. Just move the fuck over.

I think about some things a lot (and some other things a lot less than I should), one of which happens to be the behaviour of my fellow human beings. At the risk of sounding both pompous and deluded, I also fancy myself to be a fairly perceptive and insightful lass. But for the life of me, I can’t work out this obsession with the goddamn aisle.

Sitting rigidly in the aisle seat = people shoving their arses in your face to get in and out. Awkward. Uncomfortable. Annoying. Inconvenient.

Moving over in your seat = a seamless seating arrangement assurring the maximum comfort of all passengers. Logical. Courteous. Fucking obvious. And very fucking simple.

So what up?

Ok, so I understand that there is a tangible dichotomy in seating arrangements on City Rail trains. We have the two-seaters and the three-seaters on either side of the carriage. The Commuters Apartheid.

And, to be fair, I can extend my fecund powers of behavioural analysis to understand the profound difference between the two modes of seating, vis a vis the lamentable aisle-hogging behaviours I’ve witnessed of late.

Admittedly, three-seaters pose their own unique challenges, not least of which is the “Stranger Sandwich” (insert the word “Sweaty” as required). I can acknowledge that there may be those amongst our kin who aren’t all that keen on extended periods of thigh-and-torso rubbing with two total strangers (also acknowledging that “strange” takes on new meaning when we’re dealing with the typical patrons of public transport).

However, this rampant aisle-hogging in the two-seaters leaves me profoundly bereft of insight. We’re talking about the window seat here. The fucking window seat! Don’t we usually fight for this on airplanes? Though as an irrelevant aside (are there any other kind?) – I have noticed an interesting trend with online airline bookings and the relatively new facility of choosing your possie from an online seating plan. If the jaw-dropping stupidity of humankind is recorded for all of posterity in no other way, surely the overwhelming tendency for the majority of seats at the BACK OF THE PLANE to be reserved first has to speak true to our woefully ignorant hearts and minds.

For God’s sake people! Take it from me. If the fucking airbus is going down, YOU’RE ALL FUCKED. The hapless travellers in seats three D and three E are just as likely to meet as fiery and pulverising an end as the even more hapless passengers in seats thirty fucking three D and E. This is not an episode of Lost. Just to clarify. You are going down from 40 000 feet. YOU’RE ALL FUCKED. In fact, the folk at the front are actually better off because they generally perish instantly on impact. By choosing the seats at the back, you’re only afforded the luxury of dying more slowly - in addition to the added luxury of getting to the bathrooms more quickly. Before you die. It’s a trade-off.

Anyway, so back to my spurious point about suburban rail commuters. As far as I can see, all you get in the aisle seat is elbows, handbags and other assorted bodily parts connecting painfully with your head as the rickety old train weaves and winds its way over the raggedy old patchwork of railway tracks constituting Sydney’s “complex” rail system (quoting official NSW Government PR material here).

The window seat is king. No accidental blows to the head. No uncomfortable squeezing in and out. No connection between your arse and some random stranger’s face. And – best of all - no connection between your face and some random stranger’s fat, sweaty arse.

Just move the fuck over for godssake.

(And this is Mellipop’s grand comeback? Two long-necks of Tooheys New and too many “fucks”. Bodes well.)

Editors note: Just to clarify for any bemused punters, the previous several posts are old material that I've recycled from the archives to disguise the fact that Mellipop was in the deep midst of a profound and protracted blogging rut (which she has hopefully now overcome). Hence all the quizzical chronological references to Perth and jobs I've long left behind. They are all posts most definitely past their use-by date. I just like them, is all.