Snobbery, Sydney Style

I should have known.

From the second I walked through the door, I had them picked.

It was the way that their heads just didn't move.

You can tell a snob by their reaction when someone walks into a room. The snob is the one who doesn't look up to see who it is.

In this case, there was a table of them.

The incident?

A good mate of mine's family owns a holiday house 4 hours north of Sydney in a pristine lakeside location. His girlfriend's friend happened to have a birthday and my mate was generous enough to open up his house to all their girlfriend's for a weekend away. I got the call up to keep him company over the weekend.

Somehow, though, he was a visitor in his own house. And to add insult, an unwelcome visitor. It was as if he'd intruded on a girls weekend in his own home.

Which brings me to a new endangered species of homo sapiens.

The snob (aka, socialis wankerus)

I've often been out in Sydney and wondered about the psyche of the individual who is seemingly incapable of and completely disinterested in meeting new people. I've never understood such sociopathic behaviour, which I believe is one (large) step removed from defecating on someone's garage floor.

Well, the social wanker now has a group of faces and names.

Have you ever seen a person invite everyone to a party, only to be excluded from the party?

Have you ever tried to include yourself in a conversation, only to have the entire conversation walk away from you?

Have you ever met people who are more than happy to tell you how wonderful they are, but never ask you a question about yourself?

If so, then you have come face to face with a Sydney Snob.

I mean, it started off OK. We all sat down to play a good old fashioned drinking game, with playing cards. Shouldn't be an issue, right?

Well, this card game more closely resembled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Line down the middle of the table, both sides talking feverishly amongst themselves, with very little communication and interaction.

Let me say this. There are certain facts in life and one of them is that playing a drinking game with a group of people is a 100% guaranteed ice breaker. One of the most disturbing results of this weekend is that it completely breaks my definitions of the laws of nature. What I once believed to be truth is now a tattered wreck.

Same went for cooking. You'd imagine that with 2 groups of people sharing a kitchen, it would be impossible to avoid bumping into one another and possibly asking a question, or, dare I dream, have a conversation. Once again, apparently not.

My highlight of the weekend? Twofold.


The SuperBitch

The model cum actor. Otherwise known as the SuperBitch.

Me - "What do you do?"

SuperBitch - "Oh, I'm a model and an actor"

(This is snob-speak for 'I'm clearly way too good to actually be in your presence, let alone talking to you')

Me - "Oh yeah, what have you acted in?"

SuperBitch - "Well, the last thing I did was this feature length film called 'Something you've never heard of', it was made by 'Some guy you've never heard of' and had 'Some soon to be washed up actor you'll never hear of' in it."

This last sentence was said as she was walking away from me and closing a big glass door in my face.

SuperBitch had no cause to speak to me for the rest of the weekend ... that is, until I picked up a disposable camera that was lying around and took a photo.

"Hey, that's my camera."

"Oh. Nice camera."

"Stop taking photos with my camera."

"OK, sorry. I've only taken one photo"

"No you haven't, I've been watching. Give it here (takes the camera) ... Look, there's only 9 photos left."

"Yeah, and there was 10 when I picked it up."

"No there wasn't."

------- FAST FORWARD 20 MINUTES ---------

"I can't believe you took photos with my camera."

"For the last time, I only took one photo."

"No you didn't, I was watching you. What do you think I am, stupid?"

Big mistake.

"No, I don't think you're stupid. I think you're intellectually challenged."

SILENCE.

"That's just not funny. I'm going to bed."

Within 2 minutes, the lights were out.


What happens on tour, stays on tour.

Courtesy of shared sleeping space, I woke to the female equivalent of the boys locker room on Saturday morning.

See, owing to the fact that I was invisible to these girls, they proceeded to have the conversation that they would have had had I not been there.

And I discovered the following.

"Chris* has a clit ring. She was told to wait 8 weeks before having sex, but fuck that!! Apparently, it's fantastic."

"Well, Gina* just got her nipple done. I had to hold her leg the whole time. She said it was so painful."

"Wow. When she breast feeds, does that mean that it's going to go everywhere?"

"Why?"

"Well, she's got 3 holes now"

"No, it's like under the nipple"

"Oh."

"Hey, speaking of breasts, did you hear that Lisa* is heading off to Thailand to get her boobs done?"

"Yeah, apparently the hospitals there are really good"

"Yeah, but you hear stories about people who have terrible jobs there."

"Hey Amanda*, how are you feeling now that you've come off the pill?"

"Oh, I'm OK. I've been taking it for 8 years now, so I feel different now I've come off it. You should speak to Erika* about it though. She's came off it after 5 years and she hasn't had a proper period for about a year now."

"How does she feel now though?"

"Well, she's obviously upset because of the damage she's clearly done to her body. Like, when she was taking it, she was clockwork to the day. But now, she just can't have a proper one."

* names changed to protect the identity of Sydney Snobs.

I will never ever complain about waking up to an alarm.

I don't understand.

So, the police did not agree to come round and fingerprint or DNA test the pile of steaming turds in my garage. As such, it was time to remove the evidence.

This was done through a highly complicated process involving

1. A bed sheet (pre-stained)
2. A broom
3. A bucket of disinfectant
4. A fan and
5. A bottle of Pot Pouri spray.

The broom unfortunately didn't make it. Condolences have been sent to the mop.

There are still several aspects to all this that I find confusing.

For starters, the size of the pile. I find it hard to believe that anyone who needs to steal is capable of eating enough food to produce a pile that big. I mean, stereotype suggests that the person who took my bike was either a whacked out tattood ex-convict with more holes in his arms than an acupuncture patient, or one of the many permanent residents of Sydney's streets. Either way, you imagine that they can't just produce piles like that on call.

Which means one of two things.

Either this sicko waited until he had to do a crap before finding something to rob, just so he could go to the bathroom. Or...

He hung out in my garage until he had built up his unholyness to release upon the world.

Either way, we're talking about the mind of a criminal genius sociopath.

And, I realise that this is kind of an obvious question - so obvious, I initally forgot to ask it.

What did this guy wipe use for toilet paper?

The only items I can think of are as follows.

1. The bike.
2. The fan.
3. The spare phuton.
4. The clothes drier.

You know what? I'd rather live in ignorance on this one.

Apparently this kind of thing happens all the time. Supposedly the number 1 calling card at a robbery is the insides of the robber's stomach. Apparently, if you ever get robbed, you should throw out your toothbrush.

Personally, I understand this kind of behaviour when associated with vengeance. An age-old tale about 2 mates of mine and a dare involving the contents of a stomach and a shaving stick, but that's a whole other story.

What I don't understand is such vitriol aimed at an indiscriminate target.

"I'm going to crap on your floor. Not that it's you ... it's me. It's not personal - you're a great person, it's just, I'm going through a tough time now and this is something that I need to do for me"

The scary thing is, to that extent, I can see a bit of this kind of person in me. In fact, there's probably a bit of this person in everyone.

I blame the lack of an outlet for sick and depraved people in Australia. I mean, if we had Jerry Springer in Australia, there'd be a forum for whackos to get together. They'd realise that no matter how screwed up they think they are, there's always going to be some midget out there who's cheating on his sister with his uncle.

Holy Crap!!

I feel violated.

For two reasons.

And I’m not sure which is worse.

My bike has recently disappeared from my garage.

Which is not to say that it has been ‘stolen’, per se.

See, I believe in God. Or at least, I believe in the existence of a higher power. A lot of this has to do with the fact of God’s existence being drilled into my head from an age where my bullshit-meter was ill formed.

I mean, let’s face it. At the age of 4, when someone tells you that there’s this all powerful, all seeing, all knowing being, what else are you meant to believe? At the age of 4, everything is massive. Playground swings feel like they’re going really fast. Monkey bars feel really high. Your parents look like giants. And when these giants tell you that there’s something out there that’s bigger and better than them, you tend to listen without applying a great deal of critical analysis.

Notwithstanding, in my older, slightly more cynical state, I’ve attempted to apply more logic to this question. Is religion a pure human construct, designed to deflect the answers to questions that seemingly have none? Perhaps it is a tribal mechanism that allows us to satisfy an overwhelming human urge of belonging?

It is fair to say that there appears to be an inverse relationship between those who apply science to explain the unanswerable questions, and those who have absolute conviction in faith in a superhuman as being the source of their origin.

Which brings me back to my bike and its Houdini performance.

Technically, I’m sure there are perfectly good scientific explanations for my bike’s disappearance. It may have entered a localised black hole and been transported to a parallel universe. There may have been some sort of interruption in the space time continuum. Perhaps it merely spontaneously combusted.

However, to my knowledge, there is no bank of scientific research into the metamorphosis between bicycle (2 wheeled vehicle) and human faeces (a pile of steaming turds).

To the budding scientists out there who have just been inspired to write a Nobel winning thesis, I ask that you find some way of turning the pile of excrement on my garage floor back into my pink and yellow Malvern Star, as this bike has significant sentimental value for me.

To those of you still reading the excrement spewing forth from my keyboard, I believe that there is no scientific explanation for the conversion that took place in my absence and can therefore posit that God is responsible for what can only be defined as a miracle.

Of course, some of the crazier readers might try and argue that there was some form of human intervention in my garage. They would revert to an obvious social stereotype and suggest that a person or persons unknown (possibly homeless, deranged, on drugs or in need of drugs) entered my garage, relieved their bowels and made a fast getaway on my bike.

To those people, I ask the following.

Did God drop the ball by not including a commandment “Thou shalt not take a crap on thy neighbour’s floor”? I would have assumed that this was an automatic; to be assumed; inherent in human existence. Clearly this person does not believe in social order whatsoever.

And herein lies my conclusion.

That is, God is an all-seeing (mechanism for maintaining law and order in society) and all-powerful (able to answer all questions unanswerable) social fabrication. Not only does belief in God give us comfort in our own existence, it saves us from the existence of those around us.

Have you ever watched 2 professional sporting teams, where all the players on the field, prior to the game, stop and pray? Every time they score a goal, make a tackle, hit a home run or score a basket, is an occasion to stop and pay respect to God. And when they’ve won, it was because God gave them the strength and talent to win.

In sports, 50% of all teams will end up losers on a given day. I can guarantee that 50% of all sporting teams would not describe their religious attachment as atheist or agnostic. Nor will you ever see a sportsperson in a post match interview say “Well, we tried our hardest on the day, but I guess God didn’t like the lamb we sacrificed last night”

So, here are the hard facts.

In life, there will be people faster than you, stronger than you and in general better than you. In life, there will be people worse off than you, less socially integrated and with a lower sense of morality.

My bike is missing and there is shit on my floor. And I’m pretty sure it’s not Holy shit.