Crikey! |
CHARACTERS: Sarah, an alternative and slightly misled young lady. Mr Adder, snake fanatic and somewhat socially stunted less-young man.
BACKSTORY: One night, Sarah and her lovely designated driver friend, M, were leaving a questionable club in a questionable town. Sarah was having more trouble walking in a straight line than her lovely friend. As they were leaving, Mr Adder called out goodbye to them. Sarah, sensing an opportunity to talk to somebody new, dragged M over. Mr Adder and Sarah chatted, whilst M tried to subtly indicate the lateness of the hour.
DIALOGUE: “M, check it out! He has GUNS! Are you Irish? You look Irish… Why did you say goodbye? Yeah, I thought you were Irish.”
TIME: A week or two later (later date to be indicated by pages of a calendar flipping).
SCENE: Student-style cheap Thai restaurant.
THE DATE: Having already explained that this particular restaurant had been chosen as a date venue because of its appeal to uni students on shoestring budgets, Mr Adder wined and dined Sarah (wine to be replaced with watered-down imitation Coca Cola). Mr Adder proceeded to tell Sarah about his passion for animals, specifically snakes. He also told her about himself. A lot. More than she cared to know. Sarah didn’t feel the need to speak – there wasn’t a break long enough in the conversation anyway.
Lunching finished, they went for a drive. Mr Adder took Sarah to his favourite local snake catching spots. Sarah attempted to show interest in Mr Adder’s passion, but was secretly thinking about what she’d cook for dinner. Probably 2-minute noodles. Might steam some vegies.
LATER: They pulled up on the side of a road in the bush, Mr Adder having explained that this was a great area to catch *insert name of deadly snake here*. Mr Adder ambled into the bush, and Sarah stood by the car, nervously smoking and wondering how long it would take to walk back to her car. After a minute, Mr Adder called from the bush.
“Got one!” he exclaimed.
“Oh shit”, thought Sarah.
Mr Adder walked back into view, clutching a specimen of the aforementioned dangerous snake variety. It was flailing and biting his jeans. He appeared not to notice, and kept walking towards Sarah. Sarah continued smoking.
“Look at this one! It’s so FEISTY! I haven’t seen one this feisty before…” he said.
“Uh……..”
“Come and look at it! Have you seen a snake this close before?”
“It seems to be biting you.”
“So FEISTY!”
“Can you say crikey?”
“CRIKEY!”
“Haha….. um…….”
“I’m going to have to take this back to the uni. I’ve never seen one this feisty before. She just keeps going! Look, she’s biting me! Can you check in the back of the car for a sack?”
So Sarah, panicking and rifling through his car, found a sack and went to walk towards him. She stopped suddenly, realising that her thongs and skirt weren’t appropriate snake wrangling clothes. Nor was she an appropriate snake wrangler.
She attempted a girly throw, and the sack landed on the barbed wire fence separating them. Mr Adder came forward, and tried to put the snake into the sack. The snake, feisty and pissed off, did not comply. Over the course of a couple of minutes, Mr Adder and the snake engaged in a battle of the wits (the snake gaining the upper hand all too often). Sarah wondered if hitchhiking was really all that dangerous. It was daylight, surely it would be fine.
Having gotten the snake to submit to his will, Mr Adder walked towards the car, and found some cord to tie the sack up with. Mr Adder placed the bag behind the passenger seat in the car (indeed, the seat that Sarah would have to sit in, in order to get back). They drove back to Sarah’s car, with Sarah sure that something kept brushing up against her elbow, and not knowing which was more worrying – the possibility that it was the snake, or the possibility that it was Mr Adder.
MORAL OF THE STORY: In light of my social experimentation (online dating), I may possibly go on a date at some stage. A real-life date. With people and stuff. If the date seems to be going badly, I’m not going to settle for a mediocre bad date. If you’re going down, go for broke and go down in flames, clutching snakes and screaming about cheap food. Unless you top that story, I will not be impressed.
THE END
PLEASE NOTE: This sparkling, romantic moment actually happened a couple of years ago. This is not a recent event - I've had time to work my way through the trauma, and no longer get Vietnam-type flashbacks if I hear somebody say "Crikey!".