Not Nutella

It's 7.30am on Tuesday morning and I'm hanging onto the overhead bar on the number fourteen tram with a slightly hysterical and impossible-to-repress smile on my face.

Sapphire's been sick for so long now. Five weeks. Our GP rang the hospital and referred her the day before and yet, after hours of waiting and telling her story to four different doctors, she was sent back home at 10pm. It was -2C as we stood shivering outside on the kerb, waiting for LC to pick us up.

More drugs to take. The final 'experiment' before ..... well, nobody is willing to say what happens if they don't work.

Nine and a half hours later I'm heading back to the hospital with Sapphire's latest stool sample at their request. They disagreed with the two test results obtained from the GP; said that they 'couldn't possibly be right, they've made a mistake.' I was too tired to argue and Sapphire drooped against my shoulder, even more tired. Who cares about the kid when there are numbers of pieces of paper that can be waved about, photocopied and discussed endlessly? Who cares if she's been sick for five weeks - she's not screaming, or pushing her spilled out gizzards back in with her own hands, is she?

A bunch of dodgy-looking beggars get on board at Servette, invariably accompanied by a bad accordion player with a repertoire of only three songs. They all reek of beer, BO and cigarettes and talk loudly in an attempt to intimidate the rest of us into giving a donation when the cup is walked up and down the aisle. Wallets and bags are known to disappear too, so I always grip mine tighter, the zips close to my hands and the inside of my body.

Today however, my blank face is replaced by a smile that gets gets wider, stretching the dry skin around my eyes and no doubt looking both out of place and insane on a workaday foggy morning. Aside from the gypsies, everyone else is dressed in work clothes encased in puffy North face jackets and fur-lined hoods in blacks, greys and browns. I wonder how they'd react if I broke the ear bud-enforced silence with this conversation piece: Am I the only one carrying a fresh poo here today?

The man with the begging cup makes eye contact with me. He gives me a dismissive flick up and down with his eyes. I'd obviously be an easy target if he wanted to bother. Go ahead buddy, I think. Pick my bloody pocket. There's a jar for you in here and it sure as hell ain't Nutella.......

They want Sapphire back at the hospital on Friday to see if the drugs have worked and to study the results that their lab ("It must be done through our laboratory; why has your doctor ordered this from Zurich?) produce. Family, friends and the school teachers ring for updates and there's none yet to give. Sapphire is still in pain, still weak, still poorly. We can't do anything but wait until Friday.

And all I can do right now on the tram is involuntarily chuckle out loud at having arrived at a time in my life when I'm ferrying shit across town in my handbag.

Tram Talk 5

Check out the Yummy Mummy trying to walk across the cobbles in her stacked heels. Legs like porky pig.
"Oh Hiiiiii Annie! Yar, I know it's been a while....... What's that? Oh yes, I'm just soooo loooooving the new Megane Cabriolet but someone keyed it the other night right in front of our house. Our house, can you believe it? So it's being repaired. ........I have no idea how to buy a ticket these days and look at you, doing this every day. How do you stand it?"
Hit her, Annie.

"Howdy Love."
Oh god why is it always me, why?
"Er, 'morning." Look the other way. Maybe Jenny or Helen will be catching this tram too.
"Some days it's hard to get outta bed, isn't it?"

He stinks and has got dreadlocks in his beard. His beard. "Yep, it sure is."
"My physio reckons me back's stuffed. If it was here ---" Oh my god surely he's not going to pull up his shirt to show me. Yes, he is "----- she reckons I'd never be able to walk again."
"Gosh, that's awful! In a way, you're lucky." Why did I say that? Now he's going to tell me why he's lucky or why he's not....

HEY! Come ON! Put yer fag out and move yer arse. The tram's here!
Oh thank god. I'm not sure she's going to make it; she's doubled over hawking up - no, don't look. Find a seat instead.

That lady over there seems okay. And she's knitting something in pretty pale blue even though it's 30C today. Maybe I should be like my bearded buddy and start a conversation.

"So, what are you knitting?"
She looks up and is wary for about a second before deciding that my pudgy blonde visage in sensible shoes is harmless. "It's a scarf, actually. One for Patons."
"The wool people?"

Turns out that I've snagged a seat next to a professional knitter. Who knew they existed?
"Who knew you existed?"

Anne has knitted pretty well her entire life and has swapped a stressful career as a radiographer to a more enjoyable but much more modestly-paid one as Number One Knitter.
"You'll see my work in the lift-out knitting booklet that's in this month's issue of Better Homes and Gardens."
"No way. My daughter subscribes to that and was looking through it last night. I'm not kidding."
"They're fairly easy ones. I love it when they give me lacy stuff to make."

Everyone has a story, I told her. Why people would stick buds in their ears to listen to Steve Chuckle Buns Price when there's free entertainment on the Number 59 from Airport West is beyond me.

We heard a giggle from the seat behind us. I turned around. The woman blushed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't help listening in - you a knitter ---" she smiled at Anne, "----and you a writer."
"So what are you, then?"
"I'm a teacher. So this blogging you were talking about earlier. Is it easy to do?"
We swapped cards and she waved goodbye to Anne and I when she stepped off at the Royal Melbourne.

I farewelled Anne at LaTrobe and wandered into work. Several hours later the 59 was taking me back home, legs jiggling nervously whilst fretting if it would arrive before the commencement of Part-Time Job Number Two. Flicking my watch every two seconds wasn't going to help speed the tram up Elizabeth Street. Nothing to do but sit and listen.

Two private school girls clambered aboard opposite me, sharing an ear bud each. I stared down at their long tartan dresses, pristine white socks and shoes that always remind me of pasties; guaranteed to repel the lustful glances and advance of pretty well everyone.

At the next stop, two young men sat behind me, smelling of alcohol, smokes and BO.

"So I said to her, bitch, you gotta do something about that tatt."
"Whaaaa?" His mate wasn't quite following the conversation, clearly foraging for the last of his chips before flinging the empty packet behind him.
"Her tatt. On her back. Remember when Muzza got a hard on when she flashed it to him?"
"Whaaa?"
"And she drank all your vodka and you cracked the shits?"

Silence for a moment, punctuated only by the Fsssh-shiz of two more UDLs being opened and the tinny tink-tink-boing of the empties thrown where the chip packet lay.
"Oh yeah. Julie. No, Angie. Yeah, Angie."
"Well she and I are going out now, right? And I want her to change it."
"Why?"
"Because it's got HIS name on it, you stupid dick. He's stuck inside right now and she's with me and I don't want his name on my woman every time we're doin' it."

The girls opposite me were trying to pretend that they were still listening to their music, but their wide eyes gave them away.

His drunk mate was suddenly alert. "But won't he kill you when he gets out?"
"Dunno."
"I'd kill you if you did it to me."
"Yeah but you're too dumb to do anything that'd get you inside in the first place."

There was more silence as his mate - and we three ladies - pondered the meaning of that statement.

"Don' fall asleep - we gotta get off here. HERE! She reckons she's got a chick lined up for you, over in that building over there."
They fell through the doors onto Mt Alexander Road.

I leaned forward to pick up the rubbish. "Wow, there's a couple of catches you missed, girls." They laughed and their worries dissolved.

Stop Twenty Six. Mine. Back home to get changed with ten luxurious minutes to spare. Ten minutes to marinate in the conflicting senses of annoyance and guilt for cowardly mocking the tragic and wasted when they were safely out of earshot, and confusion for not knowing what else to do.

Tram Talkin'















As I stepped onto the Number 59 tram, I felt a little better.

Mr Migraine now a distant memory; the plagiarist suddenly apologised and removed my stolen words when the MEAA stepped in; and the school principal will sit in on future writers' workshops from next week onwards.

This morning I did something I rarely do these days and that is - no, not catch a tram - but catch one during rush hour. More black suits, tink-a-tink ear buds and blank-faced office drones than you could fling a Myki at, and it made me wonder if there'd be any people-watching opportunities in such a dreary crowd.

Ah, but there was something that slipped my mind, only to bounce back in when a bloke, looking unshaven and tired and oily squeezed aboard. My Weirdo-Magnet was on in full force today as he sat alongside me and slurred, "Is it Thursday today, love?"

Thursday. The day of pensions, dole forms, shopping and Centrelink appointments. Maybe that's why I got a seat - the drones were standing so as to not engage in conversation and us nutbags and non-office slaves were free to sit in the seats and...... talk. Or listen, in my case.

In front of the Childrens' Hospital, a laptop-lugging drone accidentally brushed it against a man sipping a takeaway coffee. "Sorry," he said as he passed.

"So you bloody well OUGHTA be!" yelled the sipper. I snuck a look behind me. Both ears had more steel coils in them than a mini slinky and the WuTang Clan jacket and black beanie certainly seemed to suggest that he wasn't a morning person.

A sweet old lady was sitting opposite me and raised her eyebrows in response. I leaned forward and whispered, "He probably needs another seven coffees and a hug, but I don't think I'll be the one to offer them."
"Oh aye," she agreed. "You should have seen some of the bad tempered old blokes I used to serve in the mess hall. A snotty lot they were, but most could be jollied along with a friendly smile."

We chatted a bit further; me asking her how long she'd been here from - where in Scotland?
"Glasgow love, and oh, only for a wee forty eight years," she chuckled. I revealed to her my love of people-watching on trams and she nodded. "Oh aye, I see some lovely young gerrruls (girls) wearing the most pretty and well put-together outfits and I'll often tell them how beautiful they look."

She waved me farewell as we pulled into Bourke Street and went our separate ways - she to the Myer stocktale sale and me the 86 tram to Collingwood.

A man wearing shorts and t-shirt on a still-misty morning ran on. He asked the tram driver for a call out so that he'd know when to get off and plonked himself beside me. Rummaging through his pockets he pulled out a box of matches, a pen and some crumpled pieces of paper. Leaning over on the empty seat opposite, he started writing.

It was hard not to sneak a read. "I'm so sorry Lisa"
"You are my sunshine"
"Your massages are the best"
"I want to make this work"

Every thirty seconds or so, he'd stop, strike up a match and heat up the tip of the pen - "It's an old trick from school," he told me when he caught my curious look - and resumed his tattered love letter.

Ten matches later, it was clear that the pen was dead. "Hey do you have a pen I can borrow?"
"Sorry mate," I said. I did have one, but it was my only one and I was off to interview the convenor of an ESL course for refugees.

"No worries." He looked left. "This is my stop, see ya - and hey, you smell nice," he called, half way down the steps. A university student lifted his nose out of his economics book to stare at me. Yes, I'm a Weirdo Magnet, I wanted to say, or maybe it's ME who's the weirdo? I got out my own notebook and jotted stuff down inside it instead.

On the way back home, two men sat behind me, both reeking of BO, beer and bacon. 'See the bombers fly up, up...' rang one of their phones. "Yeah Marty, but I'm not home right now. I'll be back at 4 o'clock this arvo...... Yeah I'm number 65...... Nah, not that one, it's the blue caravan, right by the toilets." He paused, listening. "Oh yeah, me too. I'm hoping to go to WA one day, reach my goal of seein' all the states."

His mate chimed in, arm swishing as he tapped his shellsuit-covered shoulder. "It's our stop here, Brucey, or you won't be seein' any meat and cheap veg here at Viccy market if you don't get off."

Opposite me sat a young, very elegant woman, dressed all in black and adorned only in silver and turquoise jewellery. She made a call. "I'm off to Dan Murphy's for a shift now, but apparently I've got a job on the Monday..... yeah, handing out flyers for some show or other...... Uh huh, he says if I do this he'll take some photos for my portfolio..... just as long as I'm still able to work on Saturday. It's double time you know."

My stop was next. I pulled the cord and walked to the front. There sat my Glaswegian lady from earlier that morning. "Hello!" we both chimed delightedly.
"How was your morning," she said.
"Good, actually. They do some great work there and I'm dying to get it written. What about you?"
"Oh, nothing special, but my daughter will like the sheets I got for half price. Oh love, what's your name?"
"Kath. And yours?"
"Kath too! Is yours short for Katherine?"
"Yep. How's that for a coincidence!"

I stood on the footpath, smiling like a loon and waving as she pulled away.

Wheat bags and whingeing

Yesterday morning I was on the 57 tram. Yes, the one that smells of BO and garlic sauce and has a higher-than-average number of fat men wearing tracksuit pants up to nipple-level and women with beards who mutter to themselves. I was contributing to the aroma with the sweaty fug of overheated wheat bag and sticky linament.

As the three-day crick in my neck ratcheted up to freakishly torturous levels of pain that made even blowing my nose a dance with death, I found myself joining the muttering women. However, instead of a beard I was fairly smooth-faced and yelped in agony instead of their low and quiet mumble as I realised to my cost that we use our neck and shoulder muscles to brace and steady ourselves every time the tram turns a corner or squeals to a halt.

Thankfully my involuntary outburst was not noticed by the nurse sitting next to me, lost in her "Tish-tinka, Tish-tinka, Tish-tinka' iPod world or the two bogans sipping from long necks and discussing why the Beastie Boys "still kick phargin' ARSE mate" in today's busy world.

I very carefully held open the reluctant tram doors and stepped down as carefully as a platform-stilettoed game-show hostess would a glittery ramp of stairs. Except that I blurted out "PHARK!" every second step. Each small movement was like being king-hit by a ninja bearing BBQ tongs but I continued to make my way, slowly, to West Melbourne. Turning right to check out the traffic meant that my reflection in the window of the shopfront opposite revealed a half-decent C3PO impression.

I was meeting my mate Sheelagh at the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre and did not want to ring her up and wimp out because of a bung neck. After all, they help people who have been permitted to enter our country as on a bridging visa, but are not permitted access to any government assistance. Therefore, no rent, no housing, no job, no food, no training, no help with literacy or negotiating paper trails, no transport no nothing. Flourish on your own or die in a ditch.

Sitting in the waiting room - furnished with old lounge chairs, wooden tables and local artwork, it reminded me of my old primary school. I didn't strain my neck to observe as much as I'd normally do, but could hear a new arrival being hugged 'hello' by a volunteer, and be heartily congratulated for winning a job as a cleaner.

I too was hugged hello by Sheelagh and winced. She and her boss Gavin showed me the kitchen, the food bank, language room, legal offices, job centre, work experience placement officers, fund raisers, asylum processing offices, boxes of nappies, wipes and blankets, medical centre, ESL classes and charity chocolate. Yes, I bought twelve blocks.

It was agony to walk around, dying to talk, observe and take notes but reminding myself to keep my head still and only smile and nod, smile and nod, smile and nod - NO, not nod - it hurt too bloody much! I should have been peeling potatoes, stacking tins, typing up CVs, listening to adults reading, updating a press release, tapping my chocolate buddies for freebies, selling raffle tickets, publicising their stories.....

The pain was making me nauseous. I held up a hand and said to Gavin. "Just tell me what you want me to do." I'd confessed earlier to the neck problem and he and Sheelagh had considerately found a table and sat opposite me. "We'd like you to write our newsletter for us if you wouldn't mind---"
"Done. Absolutely."

The look of relief on their faces merely illustrated how I'd have liked to have felt at that moment. We traded business cards, said our farewells and I again made my way - "PHARK!" - shuffling like an angry crab - "PHARK!" - to the tram stop.

My mobile rang and for the first time in recent memory, I managed to find it in time to answer it. Manny from the council wanted me to help him visit 27 schools in the valley to talk about litter.

Leaning against the timetable poll feeling myself starting to burn in the sun, I sighed.
"No, Manny, I can't do it."

He was momentarily stunned. His silence demanded an explanation.

"My project is for Flemington only, not the entire council boundary. I've visited all three schools here and honestly don't have time for more."

More silence. I know your game, I thought. Staying quiet isn't going to shame me into changing my mind.

"Manny, I've cricked my neck so badly that I'm chewing three caplets of panadeine without water right now; I've been at a centre that helps asylum seekers and refugees, have two paid articles that are overdue and need to get back home to prepare for a volunteer workshop at my daughter's school. I can't do it.....

.......oh and where is that information pack on the waste statistics that you promised you'd send me back in March?"

I shouldn't have said that, and apologised. He accepted mine and offered one of his own.

Back at home, there was an hour left before I needed to head over to Sapphire's school and teach week two of the Writing Workshop. The damn doctors' surgery was fully booked out.

The trusty wheatbag was nuked again and I sank into the lounge, leaving the blinds down and sweating in the darkness. A block of charity chocolate would give me the energy I needed.....

Tram Talk III

Kathy and her family were over from Sydney for the weekend, and we crammed onto the Number 59 tram towards Yum Cha.

"You know, Will's still got the big Ernie toy you have gave him when he was a baby," Kathy said, leaning in so she could be heard above the rolling and clanging of the carriage.

Will nodded. "He's had a few nose jobs though."

"We accidentally left him behind in South America a couple of years ago, but the hotel posted him back and he was none the worse for his travels."

"I'm glad to hear it," I replied, puffing myself up. "I make a point now of always finding new arrivals a big cuddly Sesame Street character because they last forever. Patrick is nearly 13 and Big Bird is still going strong, isn't he Sapph?"

Like Will, she nodded in serious agreement. "And I remember you giving Jack the Cookie Monster when I was only three and he's still looking really good."

A chap sitting next to Kathy suddenly chimed in. "You know, I once bought my nephew Count Von Count from Sesame Street about twenty years ago and he's kept it!"

Smiling politely, I took a closer look at him and it popped out before I could censor myself: "Well I gotta say, mate, you look a bit like The Count yourself, what with the black slicked back hair and pale complexion."

Love Chunks, stricken, shot me a 'You're Going To Get Punched By A Nutter One Of These Days And I Don't Know If I'll Be Bothered To Save You' look.

The Count laughed. "Yeah, I suppose I do - I am Romanian, as it happens!"

***

At 10:30 in the morning, amongst the 'ka-chinka ka-chinka ka-chinka' tinny beats of the iPODs and the damp musty smell of hot bodies and wet jackets, I saw him walk past the window, bum in danger of being shaved off as our tram zoomed by.

"What the hell is that?" I was thinking it, but accidentally said it out loud, and the three others crammed in the space with me followed my pointed finger.

Perhaps it was Billy Connolly if he'd been born on the other side of the world and was penniless, insane and even braver with his clothing choices. Our Billy had on fluoro green and black zig-zagged lycra leggings paired with white business socks and black slip on shoes with ridiculously pointy toes. So pointy - and unlikely to be filled with anything remotely resembling a human toe - that they were curling upwards like a pervy old elf.

On his upper half he wore a voluminous white caftan studded with pearls around an intricately embroidered chest that was savagely pulled in (no mean feet considering his midriff rivalled that of Santa Claus) at the waist with a cartoonishly large Rodeo belt. Struggling to contain his flyaway long grey hair and beard was a Peruvian knitted hat with side flaps and bobbles at the ends and a Green Nike sports bag completed the ensemble.

He was striding fast towards the hospital and barely noticed our tram dragging at his bag.

The young lawyer guy pulled out his ear buds. "Is he voluntarily admitting himself into psychiatric care or a Clown Doctor about to start duty?"

Bored Shop Girl stopped picking at her nails and cracked a smile. "Knowing my luck, it's my next boyfriend."

***

I was heading back towards home on the infamous Number 57 tram; the pongier, louder and dodgier one that winds its way through North Melbourne and Footscray and seems to have more than its fair share of shouting couples, sleeping bogans and discarded souvlakis.

Not today though. The carriage had only six of us inside, all quietly obeying the Personal Space Code Of Conduct by sitting in our own double seat and leaving at least a row of empty seats between us and the next person.

We stopped at the corner of Abbotsford Street and Flemington Road. For ages. So long that instead of remaining inside our own cones of silence, we all started looking around at each other, raising an eyebrow or two, to break the personal space provisions and start up a dialogue.

"What is happening?" asked Yoda, finally letting relaxing the death grip he had on his vinyl shopping trolley.

"I don't know," said the Indian nurse, still wearing her ID tags around her neck and folding up her half-completed Search-A-Word from No Idea magazine.

"Well I'm gunna have a smoke while I've got a chance", said Beery-pong guy with a rat tail.

"Me too", said Grey Hoodie student. He looked at Beery Pong. "Do you have a light?"

"Yeah sure," he said, as they stepped off.

Our driver was now on the median strip having a sly smoke himself. For the purpose of us, his puzzled passengers, every now and then he'd gesture impatiently at his surroundings, look at his watch in frustration and glance again at his mobile phone. "My replacement driver isn't here!" he said loudly, so that we could all hear.

The fifty-something lady woke up. "Why have we stopped?" she yawned, eyeing off my Haigh's and Lindt bags.

"I think the other driver is late and half the tram's out having a smoke."

"Oh, that's not a bad idea. I might do that as well."

Only Yoda, No Idea Nurse and I were left. "Does this happen a lot?" I asked.

They both shook their heads no. "So you guys aren't smokers either?" Again, they shook their heads.

The nurse leaned over. "I don't know about him----" she gestured towards Yoda, "----but I'm a chocolate lover."

"Oh, heh heh, yeah well, if we're trapped, heh heh, we might have to eat some," I mumbled before clutching them tighter to my chest and saying more brightly, "Maybe I'll step outside too and get some fresh air."

Too late. Beery Pong, Student and 50-something all stepped in, faces rosy from the cold air and their impromptu bonding session. Our Tram Driver had disappeared, and on rushed a dead ringer for Pat from Eastenders, gasping out, "Sorry Sorry Sorry folks, all my fault. I was stuck in traffic, can you believe it? On another tram too!"

Nightmare on Bourke Street














It's a wintry afternoon and I'm thirsting for beer and yearning for a handful of greasy, hot dim sims.

The longing is powerful enough to send me out of the house, onto the dodgy Number 57 tram alongside a man sniffing paint from a plastic bag until I step out again into the flotsam and jetsam of Bourke Street Mall.

I don't recall seeing too many pubs around here: a few cafes that are probably licensed, but tucked away into discreet alleys and not on the mainstream shopping strip itself. As for dim sims, they'd be more than likely sitting in some bain maries in noisy food courts, skins hardening and drying the longer they're in the salmonella-graded, not-quite-hot-enough heat of a stainless steel tray atop an ancient element.




















I keep walking and idly wonder if I should just buy a bottle from a wine store and roll it in my hands so that it becomes warm. Yeah, I want it to be room temperature, Old English Inn style, with the yeasty smell mingling with the post-binge vomity bile that soaks into the carpets by the pub's fireplace, forming a lasting reminder of what makes beer the unforgettable drink it truly is.

I want the dim sim to be inhospitably chewy on the outside but moist and pink on the inside, tasting uncomfortably raw with a lingering after taste of fatty pork, sweaty chicken meat and a few slivers of unidentifiable bone fragments. A flaccid little snack with dubious nutritional value and an unnaturally yellow skin. Yeah, that's what I need....















I see this Dream Boat sleeping and nudge him awake. "Hey fella," I ask, "Where can a girl like me find a good warm beer and some dodgy dimmies?"

The rude git flicks me the bird and settles back into his phlegmatic snoring, leaving me to keep searching the mall on my own. My stomach is grumbling in complaint - it needs its fix and needs
it now.

Maybe I should just get back on the Number 57 tram and ask some of the fairly malodorous occupants where they'd go to find----- wait a minute ----- what's Love Chunks doing here?

He's seated on a toilet right in the middle of the mall, situated rather precariously between the two tram tracks; trousers and jocks bunched around his ankles and flanks exposed to the elements. He doesn't see me as he's too busy grimacing and concentrating on what he's - ahem - producing and is also oblivious to the shoppers crossing the tracks around him.

Then I spot my daughter. "Sapphire! Sapphire! Sweetie, can you help me with Dad, because he's-----"

She looks up vaguely because her attention is on the banana she's avidly unpeeling and eating. Our adored dog Milly is beside her, cleaning her own teeth with colgate mild mint, her tail wagging happily. What the hell-----

It is then I sit up in bed and note the evilly acidic bile angrily flippity-flopping in my stomach. This is what warm beer and dim sims must feel like.

Groping for the side table as a lever, I slip out of bed and brokenly feel my way towards the dark bathroom, cursing as the bubble packing refuses to budge and then pops wildly, pinging all the pellets of Panadeine to the edge of the bath tub. I scrabble around the floor and eventually find a couple that, whilst covered in a bit of stray towel fluff and pubic hair, get shoved rapidly and gratefully into my dry mouth.















It all makes sense now: Mr Migraine has arrived again, and is focused on using his new hand-powered screw driver to burrow a clearway between my left eye socket and right temple.

Goody.

Silly Signs

I'm a big dopey fan of Fail blog because there's a huge, throbbingly unhealthy-but-thriving streak inside me that loves a good whallop of hilarious misfortune - especially when it happens to others. Yes, it's sad and bad and ultimately unsportsmanlike, but I'm the first one to cack myself to tears if someone goes arse-over-feet in the street - even if it's me.

And, as much as I adore high-brow comedy and clever wit if there's a well-timed fart or an innocent trip out of the tram doors I'm literally anybody's.

Even Sapphire is aware of her mother's weakness. Just the other day she saw a tender young toddler do a fabulous face-plant on the school oval as he was staggering after his elder sibling. Looking directly at me with her (all too frequent) disapproving Nanna Face on, she said, "Go on Mum, start laughing 'til you cry."

I hung my head in shame. At least, that's what my daughter thought; really I was just struggling to keep the chortles inside and ended up somehow pushing the repressed air up my nose causing an implausibly loud sneezing attack that embarrassed Sapphire as much as my mirth-at-a-minor misfortune would have.

So these days I'm trying harder to repress this evil tendency and focus on a more visual - and private - pastime that I can scoff at in the relative security of my study away from family or wider public censure. It has meant that I now have my camera in my backpack in case I see signs that amuse me and I can have a silly, immature giggle at them later.

Here's a few I've found so far:

I'm sorry, but WHO can't spell the three-letter word 'nod'?

It was Love Chunks who pointed this one out first and before I'd even reminded myself to give him a 'That's not a very mature thing to say in front of our child' stare and then surreptitiously sneak out my Canon, I was already sniggering like a school girl.

"He's a bit over-confident, isn't he?" And is it really much of a sell when he tell us that his nuts "are the best for less?"

"Should I go in there and say, 'Show us yer best nuts, Ray'?"

Har har har. I know: it's pathetic, shamefully low-brow and utterly childish and I wish it was something I could stop.

This one was spotted whilst sitting on the tram one evening, so the flash had to work fast. Some clever-clogs had neatly cut off the latest religious advertisement to reveal the Nando's one underneath.

After all, if we're now sin-free, why NOT share a peri-peri chicken platter?

Sadly, taking random snapshots through the window and giggling to myself on public transport meant that nearly everyone got off at the next stop.

This one had me doubled-over by the dairy case at Coles supermarkets. Would you really want to eat a 'knob' for lunch? I didn't dare turn it over to peruse the ingredients to discover which poor male beastie had given up the most valuable part of themselves so that human cheapskates could add it to the cheese in their sandwiches.

And, does Coles really believe that buyers are 'smart' for considering it? Actually, don't answer that.

This parking sign is in our tiny little Flemington Street. I'm not sure why, because no-one ever bothers to park here and residents aren't exactly struggling to find less-restrictive spots considering that there's four blocks of flats with their own parking and a grand total of nine houses that look out onto our wee street.

Where the 'Thug Life Army' comes into it I'm yet to discover. Surely the grittier elements of Collingwood, Springvale or the city alleyways would be more attractive to any hoodlums with the ability to spell words of four letters and wield a felt tip marker in good working order?

On a recent walking tour around Melbourne, we were led into the 'United Order of Oddfellows' building that was constructed during the great depression by a large insurance company and banking firm. Inspired by Greek mythology and imagery, they had a series of marble panels that depicted how they would 'help' the modern Aussie borrow, save, live and prosper.

At first glance however, the above engraving looks more like a transaction for gay sex has been made. In fact, what's written underneath in faded writing is that they'll lend money for a home. I didn't realise that you had to be naked in order to get any. Money for a home, I mean.

There were a few more but often I'd pass by before remembering to snap them. One disappointment was the sign at the pub on Number One Flemington road that used to proudly boast having 'Probably the Best Beer Garden in the World' until it was painted over last week or the 'Persin-ality' Trophy Shop in Maribyrnong that, unfortunately, recently closed down. Perhaps they'd both been proved wrong.

'Whatever' as the corrugated iron fence dividing Shields and Princes Streets tells me each day as I pass through....

Tram Talk II

Thursdays often tend to be good days for people-watching on public transport. It is the eagerly awaited day for salaries, pensions, dole and other such financial fripperies and folk from all walks of life seem to choose this day to travel across town on the tram.

Today I needed - no, time for honesty: wanted - to go to Borders. Mostly to buy some birthday gift-giving books at Sapphire's request (the fantastically funny Clarice Bean books by Lauren Child) and to visit my own book, still sitting there in the Psychology/Self Help section. I decided to play it safe and go on the relatively-well-off 59 tram instead of the sometimes-dodgy but always-smelly 57.

See? Look how well-off my 59 tram stop is!

Such shallow decisions always come back to haunt me, because there were enough 'colourful characters' on this tram as any I've seen waiting for, performing on or falling-through-the-open-doors-of on the 57.

Today I found a seat - the only one vacant - and soon discovered why. Opposite me was an elderly woman with a beard to rival that of Colonel Sanders and a vocab that was not only filthy, but one that she wasn't keeping to herself. "Phark! Phargin Pharkers Phark!" she said, over and over, hands gripping her rainbow-coloured umbrella and tartan shopping bag.

A little bit of spray caught the beams of sunlight through the window as it shot in my direction, but I wisely kept my head down, pretending to be busily rummaging in my backpack. No doubt it landed somewhere in my hair, but I didn't feel it, so in my eyes it didn't count. All unwanted eye contact and tell-tale spittle-splat was successfully avoided and she thankfully decided to get off where the little red toast roack and yellow cheese stick sculpture marked the start of the tollway.

Two old-but-fit ladies got on and took her seat. Both were sporting sensible haircuts without artificial colouring (or flavouring, presumably), dangly earrings, Berghaus backpacks, three-quarter-length canvas pants, Rockport walking shoes and the latest literary top ten sellers. Uni lecturers with a day off from the roundtable conference or lesbians on a lazy day?

Then I heard one say to the other, "And you're not going to believe what they've named them."

"What, the twins?"

(sighing audibly), "Yeah, the babies. Only Henry and India."

"Oh dear. How did Reggie take that?"
"Not well, Maureen, not well. I mean I thought our daughter had more sense than to name one kid after a megalomanical mysognistic ruler and the other after a poverty-stricken third-world nation that she's never even visited."

"Mmmm", replied her friend sympathetically as they both bent their heads back towards their novels.

A young couple sidled onto what would definitely have been a still-warm seat. He automatically put his arm around her, and whispered into her ear. Ah: they were clearly in the first few months of wild, crazy and total-fascination-with-each-other stage of lusty love.

But my rose coloured specs were smacked off when I heard it; that terribly familiar but frightening sound that has plagued me since sitting mid-year exams in a freezing classroom: Garrurgh-snort. That juicy, phlegm-laded, drawback snort beloved of teens and young men everywhere who are too nervous about their sexuality to even consider carrying a tissue.

Garrurgh-snort. How could his girlfriend stand listening to that in her ear? But no, she was wittering on about "Are you hungry, babe? Wanna grab a coffee at Gloria Jean's?"

Garrurgh-snort. "Nah, but I'd definitely do a red rooster pack."

Garrurgh-snort. Oh. My. God, he could provide the mayonnaise to go with the meal....! "Okay sweetie, let's do that. Do they have coffee there?" And she snuggled into him, perhaps so she could hear the snot oscillating inside his naval cavity and up the back of his throat in stereophonic sound. Bleugh.

At the corner of Flemington Road and Elizabeth street a young guy about nineteen years old got on and sat next to me, across from Phlegm Bag and Coffee Craver. He was taller than me, but soooo much thinner. I could snap him across my knees like kindling, so I wasn't exactly intimidated by the resplendently huge purple mohawk he was sporting. I had been far more frightened - at twelve years old mind you - at seeing the real Kings Road punks in London in 1981 who'd as soon as spit at you as head-butt their nannas hello.

Instead, I decided it was my turn to be the loon who starts up a conversation that no other passenger wants. I grinned brightly at him and said, "Boy, I bet that hairdo takes a bit of work to put together in the morning."

Proving my theory was correct, he gave me the very tiniest of nods and looked down at his mobile phone and started tapping out an SMS: anything to stop any further interaction with the insane old bag (or dag) sitting alongside him.

Fair enough really and it was my turn to get off.