FROM MY DESK- 2008 (Another instalment)

Look, I’ll be up front right from the start. Your humble colleague (i.e. me!) is not really a ‘spooky’ type of guy. By that I don’t mean that I’m not ‘strange’........... some of you have already given me that label. Rather, I don’t really believe in premonitions, parallel universes or the Loch Ness monster. However, events that confronted me over a 24 hour period on last Friday and Saturday have given me some cause to wonder. 

It all started when R--- and my good self attended a drug education TAD session on last Friday at Nirimba. I actually ran into someone who was in my same ‘unit’ at Sydney Uni way back in the seventies. We reminisced, swapped hazy undergraduate stories, compared career battle scars and celebrated late middle-age/ early old-age type stuff. I thought nothing more about this until............... 

Saturday A.M. The Princess and I decided to make a dash into the city for something to do. Don’t get me wrong.... we’re really exciting people normally...... it’s just that........ aw, forget it! As is our usual routine following detraining at Town Hall, we did ‘coffee’ together and then split up. I headed towards JB HiFi for CD reconnaissance. Upon arrival, I whisked straight by the ‘Alternative’ aisle and planted myself in the ‘Dinosaur’ section and began plastic flipping. I’m very good at this. As I made my way through the A’s to the Z’s– this normally takes me about 45 minutes– I noticed some new stands had been erected. Being an inquisitive kind of 53 year old, I approached these stands only to discover that they were housing new digitally recorded 180 gram vinyl albums. Wait! One of these ‘new’ albums on display was In A Gadda Da Vida (Iron Butterfly)...... the very first album that I bought back in the...... you guessed it...... 1970’s. Only difference was that when I bought said album in 1970, it cost me $5.95 in Palings whilst this guy was retailing for $45.99 but you also get free MP3 downloads with the purchase. Spook gauge is now activated. 

I rendezvous with the princess an hour later in the Food Hall at DJs......... incidentally, a place where I worked in the seventies on Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. Anyway, we’re walking around and I observe two young ladies at the Panini Bar in flared jeans. The needle on the gauge is now in the red zone. And the piece de resistance! As we’re travelling home, I spy ‘The Skull’ on a platform at Central. Spook gauge in my pocket is burning.... have to remove it from my apparel with tongs. 

To be honest, I’m not sure what all this means.... other than the fact that I’m getting old and may well be hallucinating. However, I swear on a stack of bibles that no stimulants were involved..... only the flat white alluded to above. Upon arrival back at the ranch, I hit the old word processor and composed a letter to Santa. Not so strange when you consider that I only found out that Santa didn’t exist in 1972 when I was 18. But that’s another story.