Desperate Husbands

by Richard Glover

  As with people’s names at a party, I end up devising complex mnemonics. My phone PIN, for instance, is easy. Each time I want to make an interstate call, I simply imagine one of the two 3s in the middle was turned around and faced the other. This would make them look like an 8, which—by freakish chance—is the last number. Which is one more than the 7 at the beginning. I dial the PIN, repeating my mnemonic, the mirror image 3s pulsing before my eyes, and sigh with relief when I hear the number ringing. What a shame I can no longer remember who it was I dialled.

  And so I attempt other methods. The floor of the car park is the same number as my child’s class at school. My bank PIN is the same as the date of the Eureka Stockade, just backwards. Except for the middle numbers which, looked at right, remind me of two fat men dancing.

  By the end of the day, my brain clanks as I walk. I’m pretty sure the Eureka Stockade happened in 1833 and my son is in class Green 8. My car must be parked on Oxford Street, as I’m sure I remember something about gay men dancing. I pause before the locked stationery cupboard. Is this the PIN which has something to do with the Eureka Stockade or is this the one connected to the fat men dancing? And if so, are the fat men dancing back to back (two 3s)? Or face to face (two 8s)? Or has each fat man now scored a thin partner (two 10s)?

  I decide I can live without stationery. And without interstate phone calls. And who needs a computer? But at lunchtime there’s no choice. My wallet is empty. I stand in front of the bank’s cash machine, a queue steadily forming behind me. I attempt one number. And then another. There is muttering. ‘What’s he doing?’ I hear someone say, and a blush of shame creeps onto my face. I’m PIN-numerate.

  Sometime this week you’ll be behind one of us. In the bank queue. At the video store. In the supermarket checkout. You’ll think we are slow or mad or difficult. But no, we’ll just be trying to remember our PIN and perhaps our own name. Have sympathy for our nameless, numberless dread. We’ve been asked to remember just one thing too many.

  ‘24/7’

  Only eighteen months ago the phrase ‘24/7’ was in all the best places. Walk through the funkier clubs in New York or Paris, and you could always overhear someone mentioning ‘24/7’. It was the hip new nickname for ‘twenty-four hours, seven days a week,’ and everybody wanted to share a little of 24/7’s limelight.

  ‘I listen to music 24/7’, they’d say. Or ‘I like to work and play 24/7.’ Or even ‘Our company will deliver 24/7.’ One minute you’d see 24/7 in a newspaper headline, the next on the lips of a film star. It was like a whirlwind. Everyone wanted a piece of 24/7. Yet in the midst of the adulation came a warning. Someone, 24/7 can’t remember who, told the story of the phrase ‘As-You-Do’.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ 24/7 was told. ‘As-You-Do was popular. Really popular. It was the way As-You-Do could fit into every situation. A chat show host would be lost for words and instinctively he’d reach for As-You-Do. Say somebody was talking about a rock star and how he chucked up and then inhaled his own vomit. Straightaway the host could say: “As You Do,” and suddenly the audience would be laughing and cheering. The embarrassing moment would be over. No wonder As-You-Do was so in demand.

  ‘Almost every night, As-You-Do was on at least one of the TV chat shows—and always getting the really big laughs. Letterman, Leno, Parkinson, Rove. Sometimes all of them on a single night. Everyone loved to make use of As-You-Do.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ asked 24/7, suddenly overtaken by this terrible queasy feeling.

  ‘As-You-Do just became too popular. Kids thought As-You-Do belonged to them. So did office workers and cab drivers. The TV hosts and beautiful people didn’t like it. They said As-You-Do was overexposed, overworked. “As-You-Do,” they said, “has become a cliché.” And, frankly, they were right.’

  Listening to all this, 24/7 was choked with anxiety. To think people could be so fickle towards a fresh new phrase. Who would have thought it could be a crime to be just a little popular?

  ‘So where is As-You-Do now?’ asked 24/7, in a tiny, hesitant voice.

  ‘Who knows? The last sighting was down on the coast, south of Sydney, at a rundown caravan park. Some young kids were using As-You-Do, one after the other, but it was all in the wrong context. One would say they’d just had lunch and the other would say “As-You-Do”, which isn’t even funny. Frankly, it’s abuse.’

  The knot of anxiety was tightening in 24/7’s stomach. ‘And to think,’ the informant continued, ‘As-You-Do had, at one stage, been considered for a prominent line in Trainspotting.’

  Panic was now engulfing 24/7. Every time there was a new 24/7 headline, or a 24/7 website or a celebrity mentioning 24/7, it was a knife in the guts. Popularity was death.

  With trepidation, 24/7 started doing research, trying to find out what happened to all the hip phrases of the past, after they left the limelight. It was not pretty reading. There was the first outing of Puh-lease on Friends. And of Yadda-Yadda-Yadda on Seinfeld. And of He-LLO on Buffy. Hilarious! The whole audience in stiches. Funniest thing ever. Then, six months on, dropped. Dagsville to even mention them.

  Or what about the phrase ‘All over town like a cheap shirt’? How everyone laughed on its first appearance. Three weeks later and it was all over town like a cheap shirt. Who’s laughing now? Nobody, thought 24/7.

  In the library, 24/7 continued working 24/7 on those older phrases. Oh, to see ‘Just to the right of Genghis Khan’ on those fabulous first outings. A few quality novels. The odd West End play. How people laughed! How they applauded! Then five years on it was TV sitcoms of middling quality; to be followed by an old age hanging around local council meetings and school P&Cs, being trotted out by thin-lipped ideologues and corrupt mayors.

  The story sent 24/7 into a deep depression, right at the moment the really bad news came in. The same group of kids that had abused As-You-Do had now got hold of 24/7. They were using 24/7 almost hourly. In truth, 24/7 was relieved. The anxiety had been terrible. But now it was all over. Into the bathroom staggered 24/7, swallowing a handful of pills, chug-a-lugging a bottle of whiskey, then jumping from the tenth-floor window. As-You-Do.

  Yadda-Yadda-Yadda—could someone spare some sympathy? 24/7 was only ever a phrase we were going through.

  Deranged

  Once a person is deceased, a

  lot of people might say: ‘Fair

  enough. He’s worked hard—

  time for a rest.’ But here’s

  the point: do the dead have

  the right to lie there,

  sponging off the rest of us,

  just because they’ve passed

  into some other ‘special

  category’?

  The Eleventh Commandment

  Please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I am not fit to be part of this thrusting modern economy. I have sins of commission and omission to confess. I have failed to compare long-distance telephone options. There, it is said. And, behold, I have not used a calculator to study the choice of plans, thence to average the costs over the full length of the contract. Nor have I studied my bundling options.

  And so it came to pass that my wife sayest: ‘This Telstra bill is an abomination. It is steeped in vileness and evil. Shall we not compare other plans?’ But I denied her thrice, smoting her with the words: ‘We could compare plans or we could just do nothing. I can never be bothered with such hassles.’

  Verily, I stand naked, without excuse for my words, apart from the sin of sloth, and the loss of my calculator, which I could not find in any of the drawers, even unto those in the shed. But help me, Father, for now I fear my beloved will runneth away with another man, one who can amortise a debt with one hand, while stroking her wild hair with another, and who could blame her?

  Father, I have not compared superannuation funds. Judge me as you must. I have not studied the feature article in last week’s Money section, nor have I checked my fund’s average weighted returns against those of comparable funds, both under the three-year and f
ive-year systems of averaging. Verily, when the statements arrive, do I place them on the raiment of the kitchen table and plan to look at them, but fast do I become sorely distracted and so I dispatch them to the box in the hall cupboard.

  Father, I was once young and knew not what I did, but now I am old and I hath no excuse. I sit before you, festering with evil. Yet there is still more to confess. It came to pass last Tuesday that my neighbour, Tom Neatwhistle, spake to me over the fence, and, lo, he sayest that true and real savings are now available through a broadband internet connection, and verily did he give me pamphlets and an article from the Bulletin which described how to calculate one’s current costs, including dial-up, and compare these with a variety of offers, many with full and ripe download limits.

  Later, after the dinner begat the sitcom and the sitcom begat bed, I cast these offers before my countenance, but, lo, I found my eyes grew sleepy and verily did I discover that I just couldn’t be knotted.

  Choice is offered to me, all golden and shining, and yet do I turn my head in fear. Deals are there to be compared and yet I find myself limp with indecision. Send me asunder, Father, for I have sinned. I am not equal to all that is offered by our gods.

  May I come closer, Father? I have something to show thee. Can I admit it? My cheeks rage red with shame; tears sting the eyeballs which did not look and did not see. For five years and ten months hath I paid this Telstra bill, yet never hath I looked at the fine print: a charge of $3 per month for handset rental. Father, that handset stopped working six years ago. I threw it in a box in the laundry and bought a new one. I never knew I was still being charged for it because I never read the bill. I am full of regret now, of course, but remorse will never bring back that sweet $200.

  Father, again I must creep closer and make my voice whisper so that it slithers towards you like a snake. It is of fantasies that I speak, dreams that come to me late at night, dreams of when I was a young man and had no choice. If I wanted a phone, I would ring up. Just like that. Not a thought in my head. One company, one plan, one price. Ohhhhh. There could be no regrets, for, verily, I had no choice but to do as I did. The bank also. One account, one choice, one rate. There were two airlines, but oh, wondrous thing—forced to offer the same service at the same price.

  There’s no need to say it, Father. I know it. It’s not proper to have such thoughts. Not today. It was bad value, no competition, a rip-off. But sometimes, when I am alone at night, my mind travels back to that glorious prelapsarian time, before we were given free will, free choice and quite so many options. The time before Eve bit into the apple for the second time, only to be asked by Adam: ‘But are you sure Red Delicious really offers the best value of all the varieties on offer?’

  Sixty is the new fifty

  Sixty is the new fifty, the baby boomers say; and eighty will soon be the new seventy. I just hope the boomers will manage to redefine death by the time I get there. Maybe ‘death’ could be the new ‘I’m-a-bit-tired’. In the meantime, I’d like forty-six to be the new thirty-three, but somehow it doesn’t have the same ring.

  In the bush, people are more practical. One friend is turning sixty, and is taking to retirement with rather too much relish. She’s just bought a particularly stout pair of shoes which, she eagerly tells everyone, with proper care will ‘see me out’. Every purchase is now accompanied by this dour calculation. ‘I bought a good one,’ she says of her new fridge, ‘since that way it will see me out.’ She has recently bought her ‘last’ car, ‘last’ winter gloves and even her ‘last’ pair of jeans.

  Friends try to jolly her along and suggest that she should be able to go through at least five more pairs of shoes before she pegs out, particularly if she foregoes the proper care and forgets to apply the polish. But she seems to find these suggestions troubling, as if we were impugning her purchasing skill rather than praising her good health.

  Perhaps the answer is to buy shoddy goods, just to make yourself feel younger. Shopping at Target, I purchase a particularly cheap electric kettle and a pair of really tacky sandshoes, already falling apart. If I treat both badly, I could go through quite a number of them before I trot off. ‘It’s my nineteenth last electric kettle,’ I will be able to tell the young man on the checkout.

  Meanwhile, the government is not interested in such calculations. In the government’s view there’s just too much malingering going on. Retired people putting their feet up at sixty or sixty-five. Young people avoiding work right up until age fourteen or fifteen. Middle-aged people maintaining only two or three jobs, plus child-care responsibilities. How, the government wonders, do they fill all their spare time?

  Everywhere the Treasurer looks he sees people slacking off. Take, for example, the thousands of babies living in Australia. All seem to expect services from the government and yet they contribute nothing in tax. Indeed, many seem to have no other ambition than to lie about and suck on the teat. I say they need to learn to stand on their own two feet. And, a little later, to get on their bikes. Or at least their trikes. Then there are the disabled pensioners, lying around dependent on the taxpayer just because they happen to be missing the odd leg. Well, that’s hardly a reason they can’t hop to it and stand on their own foot.

  Worse still are those Australians who are near death. It’s their selfishness that most annoys economists. Some have failed to even dig their own grave at the cemetery. Ask them who’ll carry their coffin and it’s always: ‘Oh, somebody else will do it.’ Well, it’s not good enough. Not in these times of demographic change.

  No wonder the Treasurer wants a revolution in our attitude to work. If there’s a single inspiring image of this new world, it’s this: a disabled pensioner with only one leg, hopping through the graveyard with a shovel over his arthritic shoulder, moaning quietly due to his chronic emphysema. He finds the right spot and manfully digs his own grave. Only once he’s spooned out the last handful of dirt and arranged the roses on the graveside does he finally succumb to illness and exhaustion, tumbling neatly forward into his own grave: stone, cold dead.

  Of course, he’ll still be bludging on someone else to throw the dirt in on top of him…but at least he’s doing a little to protect the country from the ravages of demographic change.

  Once a person is deceased, a lot of people might say: ‘Fair enough. He’s worked hard—time for a rest.’ But here’s the point: do the dead have the right to lie there, sponging off the rest of us, just because they’ve passed into some other ‘special category’?

  Given the demographic challenges we face, that may be a luxury we just can’t afford. Consider the buoyant stone-fruit industry in the Riverina and its urgent need for more scarecrows. It’s perfect work for a dead person—not too arduous and yet still a real contribution to our booming economy. It also doesn’t need to be full time—just a few days a week will do. The government is not without compassion: the Treasurer understands that once a person is dead he may wish to take things a little easier.

  Of course, all these calculations change once you start listening to the longevity experts. Several of them, with an air of quiet confidence, now claim that humans will soon live to the age of 300—an idea that leaves the Treasurer rubbing his hands together with glee.

  Admittedly, if we all live to 300, everything will have to change. At the moment, a twenty-first birthday party comes about a quarter-way through life; under the new system, we’ll have to hold it at age seventy-five. The gatecrashers, as usual, will be slightly older than the birthday boy or girl—a rampaging group of thrill-seekers in their mid-eighties, with a taste for rum, Mylanta and mischief. Meanwhile, the midlife crisis will be put off until age 150, with hoards of sesquicentenarians driving sports cars, attempting skydiving and making crazy career shifts. Half Australia’s dislocated hips will come from bungee-jumping 180-year-olds.

  Age 100 will no more deserve a telegram from the Queen than age thirty-three does right now, and children will live at home until they are at least 120. (‘Clean up you
r room, Batboy. I’m sick of coming in here and finding your dentures on the floor.’) It will also be hard to exert parental authority when you are aged 290, and they’re just behind at 270. (‘I think I’m old enough, Dad, after nearly three centuries, to come home when I damn well want.’)

  That’s why we’ll have to make some changes. Age sixteen will be far too young for your first kiss. You’ll want to remember that delicious moment for ever, so safer to put it off to age sixty and give your memory an even chance. Losing your virginity should be put off until at least age seventy. That way you can play the field for a good decade, before settling down with that someone special for the next two centuries. The first kneetrembler can happen when you’re ninety, by which time your knees will be trembling of their own accord.

  The first century of your new marriage may well be the toughest. After a time, you may experience the seventy-year-itch and want to play the field once more. Who could blame you? You’re only 170 and have just been fitted with your third set of new hips. Naturally, you’ll want to test them out.

  But how are our bodies going to cope? Already mine is like a map of past accidents and errors of judgement. Through careful prodding, I can still locate the outline of a Mars Bar I thoughtlessly consumed in 1992. A close inspection of my cheeks shows the pinkish bloom of too much Australian shiraz. I have three deep scars on my thigh from a sporting accident when I was twelve, and a dodgy knee from a misguided attempt at ballet a few years later.

  Here’s my point: had I known I’d have to make the vehicle last another couple of centuries I may have been more careful.

  There are other problems. Your music collection will be spread over twenty-seven different formats, of which LPs, CDs and iPods will only be the first. Hollywood, always keen to push the age difference as far as possible, will feature love affairs between various ingénues and Harrison Ford, who, at this point, will be 280 years old. The Rolling Stones will be playing at the Enmore Theatre in the year 2254. On the roads, the majority of drivers will be over ninety, and the law will be forced to bow to majority opinion. All motorists will be required to wear a hat and have their left indicator blinking permanently.