Bogue & Boguette Show 2019 Christmas Special

Hello? Oh hey Joel, how’re you going? Yeah, I’m just on a tram, just really hungover, while reading the latest episode of …

THE BOGUE & BOGUETTE SHOW!

(THE SCENE: The large sheltered barbecue area at the Ocean Glades Holiday Village caravan park – “You’ll Never Want To Leave!” A large assortment of residents are gathered at and around the picnic tables for a communal Christmas lunch on a humid, sweltering Christmas Day on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. BOGUE is wearing his apron with rubber breasts while turning half-scorched sausages and rissoles on the barbecue hot plate and BOGUETTE is carrying out a large bowl of creamy potato salad from her family’s mobile home nearby.)

BOGUE: Oi, darlin’! I thought you said you were gonna make something helfy and shit.

BOGUETTE: But this *is* helfy! It’s got vegetables in it. It’s got potatoes, and spring onions, and … umm … yeah, it is helfy!

BOGUE: All right, whatever you say.

BOGUETTE: By the way, did I tell you that Braiden got his HSC results in the other day? He got an ATAR of 72 point something. Pretty good! He’s just waiting on university offers, they’re due in January. He wants to do a mathematics degree at Western Sydney Uni!

BOGUE: Bloody hell, that kid. What has me dickhead nerdy shithead bruvva Ryan put in Braiden’s head since he’s moved in with him because there ain’t enough room in our mobile home up here? What, isn’t joining his old man on the roads good enough?

BOGUETTE: Listen! Braiden has always wanted to work wiv numbers ‘n stuff, you know that he’s always been good at maths. You should be proud that he wants to get off his arse and do sumfint wiv his life!

BOGUE: What? And bustin’ his gut in a ROOL job for ROOL men on the motorway construction site like me isn’t doin’ sumfint with his life? Fer fark’s sake. Before ya know it, the little shit will be drinkin’ soy cappuccino lattes and eatin’ vegan crap while bouncin’ from degree to degree the rest of his life bludgin’ off me tax money living in some stinky sharehouse with ten hundred other bludgin’ uni students in Newtown. It’s all Ryan’s fault, puttin’ stupid ideas into me son Braiden’s head. “Ooh, ooh, look at me, I’m Ryan, I’m so smart, I’m better than everyone else because *I* have a uni degree, and Braiden needs to have one too to make his old man look dumb!”

BOGUETTE: For bloody hell’s sake! Braiden is doin’ sumfint that he’s always wanted to do, he wants to work, he just needs a degree to do what he loves. So pull yer bloody head in and be proud of the fact that Braiden is following his dreams, because it ain’t bloody fair!

BOGUE: (rolls his eyes) All roit, all roit. Whatever you say, love. (Turns some more burnt sausages on the filthy barbecue hotplate encrusted with the sooty black patina of decades of barbecues)

(Retired public servant NICHOLAS and his wife PAMELA emerge from their caravan opposite the barbecue area. NICHOLAS is wearing a collared shirt and tie and trousers, Pamela is wearing an iridescent blue blouse with a pearl necklace and a large gold brooch.)

PAMELA: (stops NICHOLAS and straightens and tightens his tie and wipes his glasses) For goodness sake, Nicholas! Will you dress the part? It’s Christmas Day and you are a complete slob!

NICHOLAS: Pam, look around. Everyone else is in singlets and board shorts. Must I really need to wear a tie?

PAMELA: Yes! This is the most important day of the year! The least you can do is look the part.

NICHOLAS: I know, I know, but nobody else is–

PAMELA: It doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing! If everyone else was jumping off the Sydney Harbour Bridge, would you jump off too?

NICHOLAS: (sighs) Well, if you put it that way, I guess.

BOGUE: (bellows at the top of his lungs) All roit, all roit, everybody! Listen up! Ladies an’ gennlemen, yer you-beaut Christmas lunch is now ready! Two, four, six, eight, bog in, don’t wait!

NICHOLAS: All right, we are right here at the head of the queue. Yeah, mate, I’ll have two snags, a rissole and some fried onions thanks.

PAMELA: Nicholas! How dare you! “Mate”? Must you call everyone “mate”? Can’t you call the gentleman here “sir”? And “snags”? They are “sausages”, thank you very much.

NICHOLAS: Pamela, please don’t start. Not today. Please!

PAMELA: No, you straighten yourself up, young man! You were once a–

NICHOLAS: Yes, Pamela. Everybody knows. I was a DO 11.

PAMELA: –Departmental Officer Grade 11 at the New South Wales Department of Industrial Relations. You had–

NICHOLAS: Yes, Pamela. Everybody knows. I had four direct reports.

PAMELA: –not one, but FOUR team leaders reporting to you! You should at the very least act the part.

NICHOLAS: Honey, I am sick of acting the part. I’ve been retired for years now. Can’t we just relax and try and fit in? Just for bloody once? Jesus.

BOGUE: Mate, I’ve been meaning to ask you all these years. You and your missus are pretty posh. How the hell did you end up in a grotty bloody caravan park next to a swamp here in a pissant little town on the North Coast like Ocean Glades?

NICHOLAS: Well, it’s complicated and–

PAMELA: Go on, tell him!

NICHOLAS: Pamela, do I really have to?

PAMELA: Yes, you do. It was your stupid fault, not mine, so you tell him!

NICHOLAS: Well, when I retired at sixty, my particular public service superannuation scheme only paid out money in a lump sum, and I had to invest it somewhere. So I went to the Commonwealth Bank … and …

PAMELA: Go on, spit it out!

NICHOLAS: Well, I made an appointment with the Commonwealth Bank financial adviser, and he suggested that I put all the money into Storm Financial. Which then collapsed a few months later. I lost the lot.

PAMELA: See? It was your own stupidity that saw us land in this cesspit! And now you even go so far as to demand the right to dress like a slob like everyone else here?

NICHOLAS: Well, how was I to know that Storm Financial was going to collapse? And that financial adviser at the bank seemed like such a friendly, diligent young fellow. How was I to know that he was getting kickbacks from a company teetering on the edge of insolvency? If you can’t trust the Commonwealth, who can you trust?

PAMELA: But it’s not really the Commonwealth anymore, it was privatised decades ago! Typical public servant. No commercial sense whatsoever!

NICHOLAS: Oh, for crying out loud, pull your head in! I’m sick of it! Always needling me all these years, always demanding perfection, always bringing up shit about a dumb financial decision in the past that your constant whinging will never reverse. I’m bloody sick of it. I’m seventy now, just let me relax here by the water in the final years of my life with a bunch of pretty decent people, even if they aren’t as refined as you would like.

BOGUE: (breaks into laughter) Hahahahahaha! Mate! I never thought I’d see the day! Nicholas, standing up fer ‘imself. Good the fuck on you. Here, take this. (reaches down into his esky under the barbecue and grabs a can of Jim Beam and coke, cracks it open and hands it to NICHOLAS) Cheers, big ears! (raises his own can to NICHOLAS’s can)

NICHOLAS: Cheers!

PAMELA: Harrumph! (storms off back to her caravan in a huff)

(BOGUE and BOGUETTE’s oldest son, AIDEN who is now nineteen years old, smells the overcooked meat and emerges from his caravan after playing violent video games. He now has a jailhouse tattoo on his ankle, a rat’s tail hairstyle and a lean, serious look on his face. AIDEN collects his meat from BOGUE at the barbecue and as he tries to find a table with a spare seat, he passes his former foster mother ELLEN’s husband, MIKE, lying in a hammock grinning from ear to ear.)

MIKE: Hey, Aiden, hold on for a bit, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.

AIDEN: Ah, g’day, Mike. Merry Christmas. What did you wanna tell me?

MIKE: I’ve been wanting to say to you that I think you are a lying, perjuring little piece of shit, standing there in the court saying that my ex-wife sexually abused you. But what a favour you did to me and the world! I am finally free of that bitch! The world is finally free of that bitch! Woohoo! Thank you, Aiden. You’re a legend!

AIDEN: Hang on – did you say, *ex*-wife?

MIKE: Yes, the divorce papers have finally come through from the Family Court. It took a long while, it’s actually pretty difficult to divorce someone in prison, as you know the judge gave her a six-year stretch. She’s not having an easy time of it either from what I hear. The other inmates and the officers give her a hard time, she constantly demands to be let out and protests her innocence, she even writes letters to the Queen asking to be released. Hahahahaha!

AIDEN: Hahaha! Heartwarming stuff. She can burn in hell.

MIKE: Too right. But man, what a relief that she is no longer part of my life at all! Nobody talks to her, except for our younger son. He has been totally brainwashed by all her religious Hillsong bullshit. Except for him, when she is finally released she will be totally, utterly alone and stone motherless broke. If I see her shivering on the streets of Sydney one winter’s night, and she begs me for help, you know what I’m going to say to her?

AIDEN: What?

MIKE: “Nuh-uh. You make your bed in life, you lie in it. Even if that bed is just a flattened cardboard box!” And if she asks for money, if I’m feeling generous that night, I might throw a five-cent coin into the gutter and tell that filthy dog to go and fetch. Hahahahahaha!

AIDEN: Mike, you seem like a pretty decent bloke. How the hell did you end up with a miserable butt-ugly cow like Ellen?

MIKE: Well, we married quite young. We were in love. She wasn’t so miserable and ugly back then. She definitely wasn’t religious. But a couple of years after we had our oldest son, she had a dream. Or maybe it was a psychotic episode. She reckons that she woke up one night to find Jesus Christ at the end of our bed, soothingly rubbing her feet, telling her that everything was going to be all right and commanding her to follow His path.

AIDEN: Man. What a psychopathic bitchface wh0re!

MIKE: Tell me about it. After that, she started going to church, then she got more and more religious. I never really believed in that Christian crap, but I just went along with it. You know, happy wife, happy life. We kind of grew apart mentally even though we still lived together. The only thing that kept us together was the kids. But they are both adults now. They’re big and ugly enough to take care of themselves, hehehe!

AIDEN: Not that Ellen was much of a Christian. She didn’t even celebrate Christmas. She wouldn’t even let me go back home to have Christmas with me parents and me brothers.

MIKE: She was about as Christian as my left pinky toenail. That’s to say, not at all. Just because you’re religious and go to church and make yourself out to be all high and mighty doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. I remember once, we were talking about homeless people, and she said that the homeless people who live down in Belmore Park near Central Station deserve everything they get and that they weren’t her problem and that her tax dollars shouldn’t go to helping them.

AIDEN: Hang on. I thought that being a Christian meant that you had to look after poor people and stuff. Like all them soup kitchens and nursing homes and other stuff that churches do.

MIKE: Not her. She was a fake Christian. Oh, and she loved rich people too. You could never criticise rich people in front of her, rich people are wealthy because God has blessed them and to criticise that wealth is to criticise God, rich people keep the rest of us employed and we should be thankful for their existence. What a load of bullshit!

AIDEN: What a cow! I went to a Christian school when we were still living in Penriff, the Holy Redeemer of Sacred Light Biblical Christian College. I remember them teaching us once in Bible study that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.

MIKE: Yeah, and every time you pointed out what the Bible actually says to Ellen, she would get angry and accuse you of twisting the Bible’s words and accuse you of not being a real Chris-tee-yarn. Then there was the whole abortion thing. She believed in the death penalty for all women who got an abortion. Even if the woman was raped. Even if the woman’s life was in danger. Even if a woman got pregnant against her will, the pregnancy was still part of God’s plan and to end the pregnancy is to rebel against God. She was insane, I swear.

AIDEN: Man. What a filthy, nasty, vicious old slag!

MIKE: Yeah. And then there was the way she would take all those foster kids in, like you, and all those autistic young adults she befriended. It wasn’t out of the goodness of her heart, believe me. She just wanted to brainwash other people into believing the same twisted fake Christian bullshit that she believed in. The way she treated the kids like you and the autistic people was disgraceful. Like, these vulnerable young people would call her up and talk about their problems. And she would answer the phone and say “Ooh, helloo, Brenton … ooh, that is SUCH a pity, Brenton …” She would pretend to be all nice and concerned about them. And all the while she would be rolling her eyes and circling her finger around her ear to show that she thought they were mad. And then she would go to others in that young adults support group and gossip about them behind their backs. She was despicable.

AIDEN: Yeah, I saw Ellen pull the same shit with other people too on the phone.

MIKE: Anyway, it’s all ancient history now. That self-righteous bitch is now out of my life!

AIDEN: So what have you been doing with yourself up here?

MIKE: Oh, I’m semi-retired now, I was eligible for my super not long after that stuck-up cow got arrested. The divorce settlement just came through too so I’ve got a bit more money from the sale of the house down in Sydney. I make a bit of money here and there fixing the computers that belong to all the little old ladies who live in Ocean Glades. This is the life! Cheap oysters, kayaking on the lake at sunrise, fantastic mountain roads to ride my motorbike on just a bit inland. So, how are you adjusting to life on the outside after being released from Parklea prison?

AIDEN: Yeah, I’m doing well. I start a new job next week, working with me old man on the Pacific Highway construction. I got me Bobcat ticket now.

MIKE: You’ll do well, mate. You’re a good kid deep down. I thought the same too when you became our foster child eight years ago. Just stay out of trouble, you hear me? No more stealing cars. You just lost six months of your life. Stay on the straight and narrow, and don’t go back inside. You hear me?

AIDEN: Thanks, Mike. Merry Christmas!

MIKE: Yeah, Merry Christmas to you, Aiden. And — (whispers) it’s OK. I will never, ever tell anyone that you lied through your teeth about my ex-wife on the witness stand. You hear me?

AIDEN: (chuckles and whispers back) Hahaha, thanks Mike.

(Most of the adults have finished their lunch, and BOGUE and sitting down with his two workmates from the road construction contractor, MATTY and JOEL, both of whom have also moved from Penrith to Ocean Glades to work on the Pacific Highway upgrade.)

BOGUE: So, the Pacific Highway upgrade is nearly complete. What have you fellas got planned?

MATTY: (looks pensively into his can of Jim Beam & cola) Dunno. Haven’t really thought too much ’bout it.

JOEL: I’m not gonna go back to Sydney, that’s fer sure.

BOGUE: Yeah. Too many bloody immigrants down there these days. It’s like,  you’re playing Spot The Aussie all day, every day.

BOGUETTE: (overhears BOGUE from a couple of picnic tables away) Oi! Stop being a bloody racist bastard!

BOGUE: But it’s true! I don’t wanna live in a city full of all them curries and ching-chongs. Up here on the Mid North Coast, it’s like rool Aussies. The rool Straya.

BOGUETTE: God, you’re a racist shit!

BOGUE: Yeah, and you’re a nosy bitch who should mind her own fuckin’ business! (turns back to MATTY and JOEL) Yeah, I haven’t thought too much about it either. But I don’t wanna move away from here. Ocean Glades is the life!

MATTY: Yeah. Even if we are just livin’ in a bloody caravan park. This is the life.

JOEL: Too right, mate. In Sydney I was up to me eyeballs wiv me mortgage on the four-bedder in Glenmore Park. I had to bust me gut with overtime, ten hours, twenty hours, even thirty hours a week, just to pay for the mortgage and the kids’ school fees. But up here, it’s more relaxed an’ shit.

MATTY: Yeah, you don’t have to worry about school fees, the public schools are good enough. No gangs an’ shit. And sure, we live in tiny little shoebox mobile homes. But look — I got the water fifty steps away from me front door. Drive five minutes, there’s the surf. Drive five minutes the other way, macadamia farms where you can buy macadamia nuts for less than half the price at Coles and Woolies. And all them beautiful mountains on the horizon.

BOGUE: Yeah. I wouldn’t swap it for the world. In Sydney I was just treadin’ water. But up here, I save so much money, I get to take the two kids who are still in school, Jaiden and Kaiden, to Bali and Phuket every year, I can afford to soup up me new twin-cab Hilux, I can do all the things I wanted to do in my life that you can’t do in Sydney.

JOEL: Too right, mate. Too right. No traffic up here either. You get out onto some of those back roads and you can just gun it. The coppers mostly stick to the main highways.

MATTY: Yeah, mate. Yeah. Not much traffic.

BOGUE: Not much traffic, but nowadays there’s so many cyclists on them back roads. They’re everywhere up here! The other Saturday I left home early to get to the highway construction site, and I got stuck on the back road behind all these cyclists. A whole bloody army of them in their poofy lycra shit. I tried to overtake them, but every time I tried to overtake them there’d be a bend with double lines and I’d have to move back over. I got so bloody frustrated and I went “Urrghgeugehugehlkgjdaflhkafdhjkerpkhhjagurruurgrhjughiheriugerhijerhkurrrghurghgeuerurgurhgurghugrhuhgrghuhghrkurrrrrrrrrrghnt!” I was honkin’ me horn and the selfish bastards wouldn’t even move over for me and me Hilux. I’d tailgate them and they still wouldn’t go any faster. Fuckin’ selfish bastards. No consideration at all.

MATTY: Too bloody right. No consideration at all.

JOEL: Yeah, mate. Yeah. No consideration at all. They don’t even have to pay rego!

BOGUE: Yeah. They don’t pay rego, they don’t pay tax, they don’t pay nuffint. They just bludge off all them hard-workin’ Aussies like me.

JOEL: Yeah, mate. Yeah. Just a pack of bludgers. They got no right to use the road at all.

MATTY: Too bloody right! They got no right to use the road at all.

BOGUE: Yeah, and they’re a bunch of bloody poofters. You reckon any real straight bloke would dress up in all them fancy-pants ultra-tight lycra shit?

MATTY: Too bloody right! Just a bunch of poofters.

JOEL: Yeah, mate. Yeah. They’re all poofters.

(Everybody’s favourite crazy elderly morbidly obese conspiracy theorist NED suddenly appears riding a recumbent bicycle, lying back on the long seat slung between the front wheel and the back wheel, his backside close to the road. He rides down the narrow lane ringing his bell the whole time, and then pulls up next to BOGUE, MATTY and JOEL.)

BOGUE: What the fark? Ned! What is this shit you’re riding?

NED: (comes to a stop without getting up from the bike and speaks in his booming gravelly voice) Don’t you remember that conversation we had when you told me to get a different hobby and to stop obsessing about all them conspiracy theories and writing all them letters to the Prime Minister and to ASIO? Well, I’ve found a new hobby! I’ve bought this recumbent bike that’s perfect for fat bastards like me!

BOGUE: Hahahahaha! I meant, sure, you should get a new hobby. But I was finking like, fishin’ or bushwalkin’. Hell, even knittin’ is better than this crap!

NED: Don’t you call cycling “crap”! Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! This thing is a two-wheeled antidepressant. It has changed my life!

MATTY: Hahahahaha! Yeah, and changin’ the life of all the people stuck behind you trying to overtake you too. Makin’ them even more angrier an’ shit.

NED: They can bloody well wait! I paid me taxes for forty years working at the Nutella factory in Lithgow, I got as much legal right to use the roads as they do!

JOEL: Hang on … did you say “two-wheeled antidepressant”?

NED: Too bloody right I did! This thing has changed my life, and I only bought it a couple of weeks ago. I can’t describe what it’s like. The freedom of the open road, the breeze in your hair and on your face, the challenge of climbing a hill and doing it without collapsing, the feeling of total independence. It’s exhilarating! Them oil companies can go and get stuffed! Climate change can go and get stuffed! The idiot local mechanics who charge an arm and a leg who don’t even know how to fix a broken coil can go and get stuffed! The insurance companies can go and get stuffed! Roads & Maritime Services can go and get stuffed! I even do me grocery shopping on this, I got a little trailer that hooks onto the back of the bike. I’ve never felt fitter and healthier in me life, and I’m sixty-eight!

JOEL: I got sumfint to confess. Me GP has just put me on some antidepressants. Even though I love it up here, me wife leaving me a couple of years ago — well, it’s knocked me around. The pills aren’t really workin’ though. I’m looking fer sumfint else that will gimme a bit of a boost.

NED: Then get yourself a bike and come with me, I’ll show ya some nice roads to ride on around here.

BOGUE: Joel! Mate! Don’t do it! Do you really wanna become one of them cycling poofs in all that lycra?

JOEL: Well, maybe not the lycra, but … you know …. just some rides along the coast after work, maybe …

BOGUE and MATTY: Hahahahahahaha!

NED: Youse blokes can laugh at Joel here, but believe me! Since I’ve started riding, I’ve scarcely even thought about all that conspiracy theory bullshit. I can’t believe that used to be me life! Anyway, Joel, you’re welcome to join me on a ride. Then once you get used to it, you can join me on a ride around Australia!

BOGUE: Hang on … around Australia?

NED: Yes, mate! I’ve got it all planned. Once I get me fitness up, I’m going to go on a charity ride all around Australia on Highway 1. I’m gonna raise money for research into anal cancer. As you well know, me missus died a few years ago from anal cancer. And I’m going to get people to join me on the ride when I go through their area and raise even more money. I’m going to call my ride “Bikes For Bums”!

BOGUE and MATTY: Hahahahahahaha!

NED: You can laugh, mate, but just watch me! I’m going to do this! And your laughter won’t stop me! Oh well, I gotta keep riding! (rings his bell a few times and pedals off) Merry Christmas, everyone!

EVERYONE IN THE BARBECUE AREA: Merry Christmas!

 

Episode 88 – Tin Foil

A gramme is better than a damn episode of …

THE BOGUE & BOGUETTE SHOW!!!

(THE SCENE: 11pm on a weeknight at the Ocean Glades Caravan Park – You’ll Never Want To Leave! NED, the cranky old fart, is sitting in his grotty old caravan in a blue polo shirt which leaves half his gut exposed, khaki Stubbies and a pair of thongs. He is squeezed in between the seat and the dining table huddled over an ancient Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter banging away at the keyboard typing yet another angry letter to the Prime Minister accusing him of being in the pay of the CIA, the KGB, the MI5 and the RSPCA – a letter which, upon receipt, will be promptly appended to his bulging ASIO file that takes up over half a compactus shelf. As he is typing, a persistent and percussive knock sounds on his caravan’s flimsy fly-screen door, frightening the living daylights out of NED.)

NED: (in a voice that sounds like a rusty HQ Holden being torn to shreds by a tyrannosaurus rex) Oh, bugger off, can’t you bloody hear that I’m bloody well typing a letter!

BOGUE: And can’t you bloody hear that I’m bloody knocking on yer bloody door telling you to shut the f#$k up!

NED: Oh … it’s you. Hang on a minute, I’ll let you in. (NED tries to extricate his gut from between the vinyl bench and the formica dining table) Oomph … urrgh … oomph … urrgh … hang on, I might be a little longer … oomph … gruurgh … oomph … aargh … (finally wriggles free of the dining table) Phew! Made it .. hang on a minute, mate! (waddles over to the caravan door nearly knocking over the kettle and a pyramidal stack of unwashed dishes and saucepans on the kitchen bench and opens the door) Mate, come in.

BOGUE: (standing there in his favourite old Guns n’ Roses t-shirt and boxers which he sleeps in) Sure, but I can’t stay for long. You know, I’m like the only person in this whole farkin’ town who has this stuff to do called “work”, and I have to be up at six o’ farkin’ clock tomorrow to get to the Pacific Highway construction site, and you bashin’ that typewriter was keepin’ me awake an’ shit.

NED: But mate! This is important! You gotta read this letter. Here, look! (moves forward the paper release lever on his typewriter and rotates the platen until the page is free and shows it to BOGUE) You gotta read this, man.

BOGUE: Ned, you know how much I hate readin’ all your boring shit. But yeah, let’s keep you happy. “Dear Mr Turnbull, it has come to my attention that you have deceived the sovereign people of the Commonwealth of Australia. I have gathered scientific documentary evidence that your integrity is compromised through repeated contacts with the Illuminati including their representatives in foreign intelligence agencies and therefore I demand as a sovereign citizen that you hand in your commission to the Governor-General immediately ….”

NED: Yes, and here’s all the proof right here! Look! (points to a huge stack of “newspapers” published by Lyndon LaRouche-affiliated organisations sitting next to the typewriter)

BOGUE: Mate, why do you get involved in this shit?

NED: Shit? You think this is shit? This is the truth!

BOGUE: Mate. I mighta left school when I was fourteen because the teachers thought they could tell me what to do an’ shit, but even I can tell that this is all a load of crap.

NED: You think this is a load of crap? That’s what the Illuminati want you to think!

BOGUE: Mate, the Illuminati don’t tell me to do nuffint. I do me own thing.

NED: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

BOGUE: What? Callin’ me a blind c#$t now ’cause I won’t fall for all this crap, are ya?

NED: (shoves a few “newspapers” into BOGUE’s hand) Listen, go away and read these. It will open yer eyes and educate you and then you’ll see just how much you’ve been brainwashed by the New World Order.

BOGUE: (dismissively throws the “newspapers” onto NED’s bed) But I don’t want to read ’em. I got better fings to do. Loik, workin’ to make sumfint better of meself and raising me four kiddies and rootin’ me missus and drinkin’ wiv me workmates.

NED: Oh well. Stay ignorant then for all I care. Live in yer little bubble. Be one of the sheep!

BOGUE: But I don’t get it. I know I’m not very smart an’ stuff, but let’s just say that what you keep banging away about is true. Say that the CIA is controllin’ everyfint by putting fluoride in the water or that the ABC is run by secret Muslims working for the Illuminati. So what? What can we do about it? We just gotta live life what we can.

NED: But we can do sumfint about it! We can write letters and we can educate people about it and–

BOGUE: And you really fink the politicians you’re always writing these fings to (points to NED’s letter on the dining table) read the letters? Yeah right. The pollies have all got other things to do like takin’ bribes and goin’ to boring-arsed meetings. Their staffers read people’s letters and just throw it into the bin.

NED: Well. Someone’s gotta do sumfint.

BOGUE: So, Ned. Tell me. Why do you get involved in this conspiracy shit?

NED: (sits back down and looks glum) Dunno, really. I guess it just developed over time. I got retrenched from me job at the Nutella factory in Lithgow about ten years ago – the only job I ever had – and we moved here to the coast for the warmer weather, and I was bored out of me wits. Then me missus died about three years ago. She had anal cancer. What a bloody horrible way to go. Cancer cells eating away at your clacker and spreadin’ up the digestive tract. She could barely hold a thing in towards the end. And ever since she fell off the perch, I’ve got nuffint to do and all the research I’m doing into the Illuminati fills in the days, I guess.

BOGUE: All the other old farts in town find shit to do. Lawn bowls, darts, billiards, bingo, I even saw this geezer the other morning goin’ for a jog at the crack of dawn and he must have been at least eighty in the shade.

NED: Yeah, but I can’t do any of that. I got diabetes real bad. And I have to go to Port O’Reilly Base Hospital every week for dialysis. Me kidneys are playin’ up.

BOGUE: Well, maybe if you got off yer backside and started doing a bit of exercise, your diabetes and kidneys wouldn’t be so bad. And you might lose a bit of that flab too.

NED: Oi! Like you can talk!

BOGUE: Yeah, I know I’m a bit heavy and stuff meself. But at least I do crap. I lift plastic barricades full of water on the roadworks, I drive Bobcats, dig ditches, pour concrete kerbs. I might be carryin’ a bit of weight but at least I keep active. No reason why you can’t start doin’ that shit too.

NED: Yeah, maybe. I’ll think about it. Anyway, it doesn’t seem like you’re interested in the next bit of research I’m doin’. I’ve got explosive proof that Barack Obama wasn’t born from a woman but is a freak genetic experiement from a test tube. This is going to bring the whole One World Government down!

BOGUE: Yeah, and it doesn’t seem like you’re interested in me advice to get off your fat arse and start doing sumfint better with yer life. I gotta get some shut-eye. Night, Ned. And if you start bangin’ that typewriter again any time after ten o’clock from now until kingdom come, I’ll personally come around and throw all them garbage newspapers onto a big bonfire and the whole of Ocean Glades will come to the party!

THE END

 

Episode 87 – Punishers And Straighteners (Part 2)

Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé avec …

THE BOGUE & BOGUETTE SHOW!!!

(THE SCENE: Easter Saturday afternoon at Ocean Glades Holiday Village – You’ll Never Want To Leave! PETE, WAL and KEV are sitting at a plastic outdoor table with cans of XXXX Gold on them outside one of the caravans. A New South Wales Police patrol car is parked nearby and standing near the table are a MALE COPPER and FEMALE COPPER interviewing ELLEN and AIDEN.)

ELLEN: (points at AIDEN) Here he is! Here is Aiden, the young hewligan who was trying to kill me!

AIDEN: I wasn’t trying to kill her, officer. It was self-defence. Honest!

PETE: I can vouch for that, sir. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that this bird ‘ere was runnin’ around chasing this fine young gentleman ‘ere and smackin’ him!

WAL: Yup, I saw it wiv me own eyes too, officer!

ELLEN: Liars! You’re oonly lying abart me because that ungrateful little scallywag Aiden’s been running around filling your heads with lies abart me and turning everyone against me, and because you are nothing but idle loofers who hate decent upstanding Chris-tee-yarns like me!

MALE OFFICER: All right, all right, let’s just get to the bottom of this, shall we? (gets out his notebook) OK, Ellen, now please give us your version of events.

ELLEN: I had oonly just arrived here with my husband on our Easter holidays, and I was searching for the toilets when I happened upon this young rascal here – he used to be my fawster child in our family’s arse-holed in Sydney – and for noo good reason he started firing at me with his slingshot! Here, look at all these bruises! (points to the bright red welts all over her body that look exactly like the King Of The Mountains jersey in the Tour de France)

FEMALE OFFICER: Hmm, and how do you explain yourself, young man?

AIDEN: (looks downcast and evasive and shrugs his shoulders) It was self-defence. Honest!

FEMALE OFFICER: And where’s your slingshot?

AIDEN: I don’t have one.

ELLEN: Nonsense! Look at his back pocket! Search him! I see it right here!

FEMALE OFFICER: All right, fess up, Aiden. Where’s the slingshot? Turn around!

(AIDEN turns around and shows the slingshot protruding from his rear pocket of his shorts)

FEMALE OFFICER: (retrieves the slingshot) Hmmm. An offensive weapon. What are you doing carrying one of these around?

AIDEN: Target practice. I just like to do target practice in Jack’s Swamp next door.

MALE OFFICER: Target practice, huh? You wouldn’t happen to know anything about all the dead birds that the Ocean Glades Landcare group have been finding in the wetlands, would you?

AIDEN: Nup. I don’t know nuffint about that. I just shoot at Coke cans and plastic bags and stuff.

MALE OFFICER: That doesn’t change the fact that you have an illegal homemade offensive weapon, and it doesn’t explain all these bruises you’ve inflicted on this lady here. You want to explain yourself, young man?

(BOGUE storms out of his nearby mobile home in his thongs and boxer shorts and Guns n’ Roses t-shirt, slams the screen door shut and marches down towards the police car)

BOGUE: (points his finger at the police officers) Oi! What’s going on wiv me son ‘ere?

FEMALE OFFICER: Sir, it appears that your son Aiden has gotten himself into a bit of trouble. He was firing this slingshot at this lady here.

BOGUE: Oh — you, Ellen! What are you doing around here, bitchface?

FEMALE OFFICER: Oi! Language!

BOGUE: Sorry. I’ll rephrase that, officer. So, Ellen! What are you doing around here, you f#$king bitchface?

MALE OFFICER: Keep that up and we’ll have you up on disorderly conduct! Anyway, your son is under questioning here for possession of an offensive weapon and for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

BOGUE: What? What the fark? You should be out there catching the rool criminals! Not little boys like me Aiden here carrying a bloody slingshot.

MALE OFFICER: Sir, these are serious offences and your son must be held to account for them!

BOGUE: What, you don’t go after the rool criminals, like the PE teachers at Ocean Glades High School, teaching Aiden and all the other boys in his Year 9 PE class that  it’s OK to become a massive poo-jabber!

MALE OFFICER: Sir, I told you the last time you barged into the cop shop over that, it’s part of the personal development curriculum. No law has been broken!

BOGUE: Well, there should be a law against that. Fancy that, school teachers being paid with MY taxes telling me kids that it’s OK to go up other boy’s bums!

FEMALE OFFICER: In any case, sir, that doesn’t justify why the complainant here has bruises and welts all over her body.

AIDEN: (shrugs his shoulders) I told you, officer. It was self-defence.

FEMALE OFFICER: It was self-defence, was it? So tell us, what were you defending yourself against, exactly?

PETE: Didn’t we tell youse, that she was chasin’ him and smackin’ him? Aiden ‘ere’s the finest young bloke you’re ever likely to meet, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, chief.

ELLEN: You’re lying and you knoo it!

(MIKE emerges from his caravan and sees the police with ELLEN and the others, and strolls over)

MIKE: Officers, mind if I ask what’s going on here? I was wondering where my wife was.

MALE OFFICER: Sir, do you know this boy? (points at AIDEN)

MIKE: Yes, that’s Aiden, he used to be our foster kid a couple of years ago, and that’s his father.

FEMALE OFFICER: Well, he just happens to live in this caravan park now where you’ve just arrived on your Easter holidays, and it looks like he’s gotten himself into a spot of bother. See all those bruises on your wife’s body? That’s from Aiden firing marbles at her with this. (lifts up the meanest looking slingshot on the North Coast)

MIKE: (tries to suppress a giggle and a wry smile, not very successfully) Chortl– umm, I mean — err — umm — oh dear. Oh deary deary me. We can’t have that — chortl– umm, we can’t have that now, can we? Snort snort– oh no. We can’t have that now at all.

MALE OFFICER: And this young man has yet to explain his actions. So, Aiden, you want to tell us why you fired those marbles at Ellen?

AIDEN: Because … umm … because …

MALE OFFICER: And because what?

AIDEN: (starts bawling crocodile tears) Because … because, officer … boohoo … she used to do things to me when she was me foster mum … real bad things, officer … boohoo …

MALE OFFICER: (notebook at the ready) Real bad things, eh? Like what?

AIDEN: Like … things she shouldn’t do … oh boo boohoo …

MALE OFFICER: C’mon mate, give us more details.

AIDEN: Like … boohoo …. she used to … oh booboobooboohoo … she used to strip me naked and bend me over her knees while smacking me bottom and singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ …

PETE: See, officers? We told you that she was smackin’ him!

MALE OFFICER: Shut yer trap, you old mong, and let Aiden say what he’s gotta say!

FEMALE OFFICER: (puts one arm around AIDEN’s shoulders and pats his head with her other hand) Awwww Aiden, you poor thing!

MALE OFFICER: (scribbling away) And did she do anything else to you?

AIDEN: Boohoo … boohoohoohoo … Yeah … She used to get a rolling pin … and do real bad stuff with it. Like, put it in places where she shouldn’t of …

FEMALE OFFICER: Awwww, Aiden, that’s just terrible, you poor little baby …

ELLEN: You lying little ne’er-do-well, Aiden! How dare you insinuate that I would ever dew such a thing! I doon’t even oon a row-ling pin! Officers, you can search my entire arse-holed from top to bottom, you woon’t find a row-ling pin anywhere!

AIDEN: And … and … boohoohoo … now I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder an’ shit, officer … and … and … boohoo … and when I saw Ellen come round the corner, I got real bad flashbacks and … and … I couldn’t control meself, officer … I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt her! Boohoo, oh booboobooboohoo ….

BOGUE: (lunges towards ELLEN) Urrghgurhgurhgurhgurghrhgrhgrkurrrrghnt! You paedophile bitch!

MALE COPPER: (grabs BOGUE and pins his arms behind his back) Listen, mate! You shut up and just let us deal with it, you hear me? Let us get to the bottom of this!

(AIDEN stops crying for a split second and pokes his tongue out at ELLEN while all the other adults aren’t looking, and then resumes his crying)

ELLEN: Look! Look! Aiden is lying! He just pooked his tongue out at me. That proves that he’s lying!

AIDEN: Boohoo … oh boobooboohoo … I didn’t poke my tongue out at her. She’s just makin’ it up to make me look bad … oh boohoohoo …

MALE COPPER: So, Ellen, how do you respond to Aiden’s allegations?

ELLEN: Ooh, noo! It’s absolutely impossible for me to ever dew such heinous things!

MALE COPPER: And why is that?

ELLEN: Because I’m a Chris-tee-yarn!

PETE: I woulda thought that that would make you even more likely to tamper with little kiddies, you disgustin’ old perv!

MALE COPPER: Didn’t I tell all of youse to just shut up and let us deal with it! So, Ellen, would you like to accompany us to the police station to make a statement?

ELLEN: Ooh, goodness, noo! I’ve done nothing wrong.

MALE COPPER: Love, these are very serious allegations. It would be in your best interests to comply with us and come to the police station for questioning.

ELLEN: Mike! Mike! You have to help me here! Tell these officers that I have no case to aaah-nswer.

MIKE: Help you? Why would I want to help you? You’re a child abuser. I can’t believe it. My wife, touching up little kiddies we took in as foster children. That’s it. I’m separating from you.

ELLEN: Noo … noo … noo. Ooh, goodness, noo. But Aiden’s lying! Honest!

MIKE: It’s too late, Ellen. In twelve months’ time I’m filing for divorce.

ELLEN: You’re divorcing me? But we’re not allowed to get divorced.

MIKE: And why’s that?

ELLEN: Because we’re Chris-tee-yarns!

MIKE: No, Ellen. We’re not Christians. You’re a Christian.

ELLEN: What … what … you mean to say that … that …

MIKE: That’s right. You’re a Christian.

ELLEN: But … all those sermons we went to at Hillsong on Sunday mornings. All the Bible study groups we attended. All the church camps we organised together. But … but … you’ve got to be a Chris-tee-yarn.

MIKE: No, Ellen. It was all bullshit I only went along with to shut your f#$king mouth and keep you happy. I’m over it.

ELLEN: But … but …. (hyperventilates) Noo … noo … noo … it’s impossible … this is a nightmare … it’s got to be … noo … noo … tell me this is just a hallucination … please … noo … noo …

MALE COPPER: (locks his arm into ELLEN’s elbow and gestures towards the patrol car) Now, lady, just come this way, we’ll take you in for questioning and give you the opportunity to make a statement and–

ELLEN: (pushes MALE COPPER away violently) Get your hands awf me, you filthy brute! I’m not boogan criminal scum like these filthy old alcoholics here! Look at them! Sitting there drinking without even wearing shirts. How obscene! You should be arresting them for indecent behaviour instead!

PETE: Awww, come on, don’t deny that you were pervin’ on us earlier on, you hoity-toity bitch!

WAL: Yeah, your eyes were poppin’ out of yer head like they were on springs, I reckon! You wanted a piece of this real bad. (flexes his bicep and points to it)

MALE COPPER: For the last bloody time, shut yer traps, you old farts! (drags ELLEN to the patrol car) Ellen, I now advise you that you are under arrest and anything you–

ELLEN: (kicking and screaming along the gravel driveway) Noo! Noo! You will let goo of me this instant! I have done nothing wrong! I AM A CHRIS-TEE-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARN!!!

 

Episode 86 – Punishers And Straighteners (Part 1)

And I’m on my knees looking for the answer, are we human or are we reading …

THE BOGUE & BOGUETTE SHOW!!!

(THE SCENE: A bright sunny Easter Saturday afternoon at Ocean Glades Holiday Village – You’ll Never Want To Leave! An ever so gentle sea breeze is wafting over the caravan park from the adjacent sewage treatment plant; the tide is out turning the lagoon into one giant mud flat; and dump trucks reversing at the garbage tip across the main road are beeping away.

Into this tranquil tableau arrives a clapped out old Holden which pulls up outside a holiday rental caravan. AIDEN’s former foster parents MIKE and ELLEN emerge from the car.)

ELLEN: (sniffs the air) Ooooh my goodness, what a dump! This place doesn’t look anything like how it did in the NRMA Accommodation Guide. Or smell like it, in fact.

MIKE: (opens the boot to retrieve luggage) Come on, honey,  let’s just try and enjoy ourselves.

ELLEN: Noo, I doon’t see why I should have to try and enjoy myself! You knoo that I’ve always wanted to go on a mootorbike camping holiday through the Swiss Alps. Or at the very least the Torres del Paine.

MIKE: Honey, you know we can’t afford that right now.

ELLEN: (carries her make-up bag into the caravan while MIKE lugs a heavy suitcase behind her) Well, whose fault is that? I doon’t see why I should be punished just because you’re too lazy and improvident to get a proper well-paying jawb.

MIKE: Now now now, what about Matthew 6:20?

ELLEN: I doon’t give a f%&$ abart that right now! The fact is, is that you’re my husband and you’re suppoosed to be providing for me. I mean, Patti’s husband down the street just took her on a luxury Carribean cruise.

MIKE: And do you really want to spend your holidays surrounded by rich people?

ELLEN: Oooh, but I just lurve rich people, they keep the rest of us employed!

MIKE: And what about Matthew 19:24?

ELLEN: Didn’t I tell you that I doon’t give a flying f$%& abart that shit right now? Didn’t you hear the pastor during the sermon at Hillsong last Sunday? Gawd bestoos prosperity on those who deserve it, soo it’s obvious that you’re not being a dutiful Chris-tee-yarn and praying hard enough!

MIKE: Yes, dear. You’re right, dear. I’ll pray harder in future, dear.

ELLEN: Good! (leaves the caravan to retrieve more belongings and sees BERYL, VAL and SANDY sitting at a plastic outdoor table outside a caravan opposite while chain-smoking Horizon cigarettes) I’ll be back in a minute, Mike, I just have to give these people a piece of my mind. (puts her hands on her hips, squints and pouts even harder and stomps across the row to the three older women) Excuse me, but are you aware that you are smooking?

BERYL: No shit! This fag musta fallen from the sky and landed in me mouf already lit.

ELLEN: Doon’t get smart with me! Aren’t you aware that smooking is a filthy, disgusting habit?

(VAL glares at ELLEN for fifteen seconds then silently blows smoke rings in ELLEN’s face making her cough)

SANDY: And what’s it to you, love? Do you see us runnin’ around tellin’ other people that being a stuck-up hoity-toity bitch is a filthy, disgusting habit?

BERYL: Yeah, go away and mind your own business!

(MIKE sneaks up behind ELLEN and circles his right index finger around his right ear to indicate that ELLEN is mad)

BERYL, VAL and SANDY: Haw haw haw haw chortle chortle snort snort! Haw haw haw!

ELLEN: You dare laugh at me when I’m trying to tell you something for your own good? Well, guess what! When I see you three in a cancer ward with tubes stuck down your throots unable to speak soo much as a single word while gasping your very last breaths, we’ll see who’ll be laughing then!

BERYL, VAL and SANDY: Haw haw haw haw!

ELLEN: Ooooh, that’s right, it’s Easter Sunday tomorrow, I have to ask someone where the nearest Church is. (stumbles around and sees PETE, WAL and KEV sitting at another outdoor table nearby drinking cans of XXXX Gold)

PETE: Oi, you’re looking a bit lost there, can we help you?

ELLEN: Yes, you can. My husband and I have just arrived and we need to knoo where the nearest Church is.

WAL: Church? Yeah, I fink there’s one in town. Between the bottlo and the skate park.

ELLEN: How excellent! Which denomination?

WAL: None of them. It’s been boarded up fer years!

ELLEN: And that’s the only Church?

PETE: Naaaah, the Cafflick church is still open.

ELLEN: Oooh, goodness, noo! I would never even think to worship in a Church with thoose idolatrous Mary-worshippers! Soo do any of you attend Church?

KEV: Farkin’ hell, she even pronounces it with a capital letter!

WAL: Nup, nobody ’round ‘ere goes to church, lady.

ELLEN: My goodness, does anybody in this town have any ree-lee-jee-yon?

PETE: (raises his can of XXXX Gold to ELLEN) Love, this is our religion, right ‘ere!

KEV: Bloody oath!

ELLEN: (wags her finger at the three older men) Well, I’m here to tell you, and you will listen, that you won’t reach Paradise by worshipping beer, let me assure you of that!

WAL: But love, we’re already in Paradise!

ELLEN: (sniffs the air) Ewwww, if you insist. But don’t you want to be in Paradise for eternity? The only way to get that is to believe in our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ and follow his path of righteousness!

(MIKE lurks in the background and puts his thumbs in his ears, wriggles his fingers back and forth and pokes his tongue out)

WAL, PETE and KEV: Haw haw haw haw chortle chortle snort snort! Haw haw haw!

ELLEN: You dare to mock me while I am preaching the Word of Gawd? Well, when you three are being consumed by the lake of fire in hell for all eternity while I am sitting in the Kingdom of Heaven watching you while deriving great pleasure from the cries of the damned, we’ll see who’ll be laughing then!

WAL, PETE and KEV: Haw haw haw haw!

ELLEN: Ooooh, now I have to goo to the little girl’s room. I must try and find it. (wanders from row to row looking for the ablutions block. As she rounds one corner she encounters AIDEN who is carrying a slingshot after killing six different threatened species of migratory bird listed under the Ramsar Convention in the neighbouring mangrove swamp)

AIDEN: (looks up and gasps) What are you doing here?

ELLEN: (gasps) Noo, I should be asking what YOU are doing here!

AIDEN: (in a stern, booming voice now that his voice has recently broke just after his fourteenth birthday) What, have you come to take me away again or sumfint?

ELLEN: Ooh, goodness, noo! You made my life a living hell for months on end. I was hooping I’d never see you again as long as live, you mischievous rascal. Now get art of my sight!

AIDEN: Nuh-uh. You get the f#$^ out of me sight right now, bitch. You’re on my territory now, you ugly slag.

ELLEN: (puts her left hand on her hip, wags her right index finger, and squints and pouts so hard it looks like her face is about to collapse in on itself) You listen here, buster! Art of the goodness of my oon heart I fed you, I cloothed you and I got you ready for skewl every day for all those months in order to demonstrate to you Gawd’s Chris-tee-yarn love – not that it ever does any of you filthy little heathens any good, talk abart casting pearls before swine! – and this is how you treat me? Shame on you!

AIDEN: The goodness of your own heart? Hahahahahahahaha. Don’t make me f#$^in’ laugh, bitch. You only take in all them foster kids and disabled people because you get your rocks off controlling people who can’t stand up fer themselves. Isn’t that right, you dogface?

ELLEN: How dare you impugn my nooble name with such base motives. I am a Chris-tee-yarn!

AIDEN: This is my territory, I’ll do whatever I f#$&in’ want, bushpig. So, are you ever gonna apologise? For all them bad things you done?

ELLEN: Apologise? To you? Never!

AIDEN: Oh well, you’ve given me no choice now. (raises his slingshot loaded with a marble, takes aim and flings the marble towards ELLEN, hitting her in the stomach) That’s for makin’ me do all that Bible study bullshit even though I told ya I didn’t believe in that crap, you stuck-up cow!

ELLEN: (turns around and runs) Aaaaah! Aaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaah!

AIDEN: (gives chase while aiming again and hitting ELLEN on the shoulder) And that’s for making me go to those boring-arsed Liberal Party meetings and folding and stuffing all that political advertising bullshit into envelopes, you filthy wh0re!

ELLEN: (runs around a corner) Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaah! Somebody please help me! Aaaaaaaaah!

AIDEN: (takes a shortcut between two caravans, comes face to face with ELLEN and fires again, hitting her in the neck) And that’s for refusing to give me any food even though I kept telling you I was starving – maybe one slice of wholemeal bread without butter if I was lucky, you tightarse bitch!

ELLEN: (turns around and runs) It was for your oon good! Young people eat far too much nowadays!

AIDEN: (fires again while giving chase, hitting her in the ankle) And that was for not even letting me make a phone call to Mum on Christmas Day to wish her a merry Christmas and tell her that I love her, you heartless slag!

ELLEN: Well, people like that are a bad influence on you!

AIDEN: (pauses to fire just as ELLEN is rounding another corner, hitting her in the soft tissue at the base of the back of the skull) And that’s for not even letting me Mum give me my Xbox because you’re a stuck-up Bible-bashing bitch!

ELLEN: (rounds the corner and picks up her pace out of AIDEN’s sight) Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaah! Somebody, please help me! Aaaaaah! (sees PETE, WAL and KEV drinking outside PETE’s caravan) Please! Please help me! This filthy young brat is chasing me!

PETE: (looks to WAL and KEV) Blokes, do you hear sumfint?

WAL: Nup, I don’t hear nuffint.

ELLEN: (panting and wheezing) Please, you must help me, my life is in danger!

KEV: Nup, I heard nuffint either.

ELLEN: (runs across the aisle to where BERYL, VAL and SANDY are drinking) Please, please dew let me hide in your caravan, this hooligan is chasing me and trying to kill me!

BERYL: (sticks her fingers in her ears and sings) La-di-dah, la-di-dah!

VAL and SANDY: Giggle giggle giggle giggle giggle!

ELLEN: Christ, it’s no use trying to persuade you people. (runs towards the end of the row in the direction of the office, but is blocked by AIDEN. ELLEN tries to U-turn but falls over and trips into the gravel. AIDEN reaches her before she can get up, puts his left foot on her stomach and pulls the catapult back loadec with a marble)

AIDEN: Say sorry, you snivelling sl#t!

ELLEN: Never, you–

(AIDEN lets go of the catapult, sending a marble hurting to the back of ELLEN’s throat)

ELLEN: Cough cough cough splutter splutter cough cough! Hoiiiiiiick! (coughs up the marble and spits it onto the gravel) Ookay, ookay, I’m sorry, all right? Please just let me goo, I never meant to dew all those bad things to you, I thought I was dewing the right thing, I’m sorry, ookay? Please, let me goo, I promise not to dew anything bad again! Boohoo, ooh boobooboohoo …

AIDEN: Apology accepted, f#$%face! (takes his foot off ELLEN allowing her to get up)

WAL: Hahaha, good on ya, Aido, you showed her!

SANDY: Yeah, you taught her a lesson! She had it comin’!

ELLEN: (downcast, dawdles back to her caravan while sobbing) Boohoo …. Boohoohooo … I doon’t understand why noobody likes me. Wherever I goo, everybody always seems to turn against me, and I doon’t knoo why! Somebody must be running around filling everybody’s heads with lies abart me and turning everyone against me! Oh boobooboohoo!

TO BE CONTINUED …

Episode 85 – Go To The Ant

It’s a God-awful small affair, to the girl with the mousy hair, but her Mummy is yelling no, because it’s time for …

THE BOGUE & BOGUETTE SHOW!!!

(THE SCENE: A Friday evening, shortly before sunset, at Ocean Glades Holiday Village – You’ll Never Want To Leave! The dim lanterns lighting the rows and driveways are slowly sputtering on. The three sixty-something men WAL, PETE and KEV are teasing the three sixty-something women who always gather together across the row, BERYL, VAL and SANDY.)

WAL: Oi, Beryl, are youse sheilas comin’ out with us to the bowlo for Fridee night drinks or what?

BERYL: Yeah, hold yer horses, mate, we’re comin’ along.

KEV: So, Sandy, you gonna come dancin’ with me tonight? I might be sixty-one now but I’ve still got it in me!

SANDY: What have you still got in you, last night’s Viagra pills?

(genial laughter all around)

KEV: Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want. I know I still got a lot to offer to the sheilas around here!

VAL: Yeah and the last time you took me on a date out to bingo, you got yerself pissed as a parrot as per usual and I had to catch the courtesy bus home, ya bloody drongo. Now, Pete here, he can teach you a lot about what to offer sheilas, and gettin’ plastered on a date ain’t one of them!

PETE: Ahh, flattery, flattery will get you nowhere, my sweetheart! Now, let’s see if the New People wanna come along. (PETE goes up to BOGUE and BOGUETTE‘s caravan and knocks on the foldable screen door of the annexe)

BOGUE: (gets up from watching his portable TV on top of a milk crate) Yeah, what’s happenin’, champ?

PETE: C’mon, come out with us tonight. Every Fridee night we walk down to the bowlo for Fridee drinks and darts, and the bowling club’s courtesy bus drives us back home when we’re too legless to walk. You and yer missus wanna come along?

BOGUE: Yeah, I’d love to go out and get smashed, but the kids …

KEV: Naah, mate, like anyfint’s gonna happen to the kids around here. They’re big and ugly enough to look after themselves.

BOGUE: All roit. (shouts into the caravan) Oi, honeybunch, blokes across the row just invited us down to drinks at the bowlo. You wanna come?

BOGUETTE: Yeah, but I’m cookin’ tea for the kids now, and–

BOGUE: Blah, they’re big enough to finish the cookin’ for themselves. It’s only spaghetti and meatballs. (turns to AIDEN sitting in the corner of the annexe with his portable DVD player) Oi Aiden! You take over the cookin’, yer olds are goin’ out with the other fellas here down to the club.

AIDEN: But Dad, I was watchin–

BOGUE: Don’t answer yer old man back, you little shit. Y’unnerstand? You finish stirrin’ the pot and strainin’ the pasta an’ shit and serve it up to yourself and yer brothers. Now!

AIDEN: Yes, Dad. (goes into the double-wide mobile home’s kitchen)

BOGUETTE: But honey, can we just wait five minutes? I haven’t even done me nails yet this week and–

BOGUE: Oh, fer fark’s sake, woman. Do you fink anybody out here in the bush gives a toss about how good your nails are? Haven’t you noticed people doing their groceries in boxer shorts and thongs yet?

BOGUETTE: Yeah, but, I’m not like–

BOGUE: Oh, live a bit, woman, stop being so fussy an’ shit. Anyway, let’s go. It’s only the bowlo. So, fellas, who else is comin’?

VAL: Oh, the entire bloody caravan park.

KEV: Yeah, we gotta escape the clutches of the bloody tyrants who own this joint. (does his imitation of JILL, complete with spidery fingers stroking the fingers on the other hand) Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-s. You’ll be making no noise after 4pm, you hear? Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s. No noise. You don’t want any … trouble now, do you? Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s.

BOGUE: Christ, how do youse people manage to live here for years with that bossy bitch and her dickhead hubby?

SANDY: Yeah, it’s what you get used to, I guess.

BERYL: Community, mate. You can’t beat the sense of community here. We all look out for each other an’ stuff, y’know? Like, nobody will even fink of going anywhere near your kids tonight, or any stuff you might have.

(The group walk out of the main driveway and onto the darkened two-lane road leading into the village of Ocean Glades just over one kilometre away. The road, lit only by one ancient street light every two hundred metres or so, is fringed with very tall subtropical trees full of screeching koels, rosellas and king parrots. They meet others waiting for them out the front and continue their way)

WAL: Oi, youse people haven’t met the New People yet, have you? Anyway, everyone, this is Greg and his missus Kelly, they’ve just moved up from Sinny, he got a job on the roadworks on that bypass what the government’s buildin’.

(ARIEL, a spaced out-looking girl in her early twenties with long, flowing, curly auburn hair, striking almond eyes, freckled cheeks, wearing a black skivvy and a brown tie-dyed skirt, walks up to BOGUETTE and stares at her face)

ARIEL: (in a soft, dreamy voice) Hello. I detect that your base chakras are out of alignment and that your crystal quantum energy qi levels are declining drastically. Could I interest you in some of my very own medicines that will restore the four humors of your body and bring back your sense of balance between you and the cosmos surrounding you?

BOGUETTE: Umm … well … sure … I guess? Teehee!

PETE: Oi, don’t listen to Ariel here, she’ll never stop shuttin’ up about it once you show a bit of interest.

WAL: Yeah, he’s almost as bad as Ned.

NED: (on his electric mobility scooter about twenty metres behind the group) Speaking of which … wait up! Wait up for me! (NED catches up to the group) Farkin’ hell, do youse bastards ever invite me out any more? None of you even knock on me door any more to let me know that you’re going!

KEV: Yeah, it’s because once you get a bit of piss inside ya, you start going on and on about all that political bullshit that comes runnin’ out your mouth.

NED: Speaking of which, I read today, honest to God, it’s the truth, but I read today, that the CIA and the Gestapo were in collaboration to knock off JFK.

PETE: You drongo! The CIA and Gestapo were enemies, mate. Enemies!

SANDY: Now me knowledge of history isn’t perfick, but didn’t the Gestapo lose the war in World War II, like, twenty years before JFK got shot?

NED: That’s what you think! That’s what the government want you to think! All you people, you’re a bunch of sheep, you fall for the government’s propaganda hook, line and sinker! When you done the research that I’ve done, then you can come and tell me that what I say is bullshit. Where’s the proof that it ain’t bullshit?

(Two nineteen-year-old curly-haired vacant-eyed stoner surfies in the group, blonde ZAC and ginger TODD, come up to BOGUE)

ZAC: Yeah, and now you know why none of us ever knock on his door to let us know we’re all headed down to the bowlo?

TODD: Yeah. Fancy believin’ that kinda crap. Oh by the way, I’m gonna get lucky tonight at the bowlo. The star sign column thingo in today’s Daily Telegraph said that my dreams were gonna come true.

(An older, impeccably dressed couple, NICHOLAS in semi-rimless glasses and impeccably parted silky grey hair and Tory blue tie, and PAMELA in perm and pearl necklace, are quietly bickering among themselves)

PAMELA: My dear Nicholas! Why didn’t you put your tie on straight?

NICHOLAS: But I did put my tie on straight. Actually, you put it on for me.

PAMELA: So why is it crooked now? Give it to me here … (stands in front of NICHOLAS, bringing him to a halt, while she fidgets with the tie) How did the tie go crooked?

NICHOLAS: I don’t know, my dear. I don’t know.

PAMELA: You weren’t trying to take it off again, were you?

NICHOLAS: No, my dear, I wasn’t. I still don’t get why I have to wear a tie anyway. Do you ever see anyone else in this town wear a tie, even the doctor who visits the clinic twice a week? It’s just the bowlo.

PAMELA: But Nicholas, you were a Departmental Officer Grade 11 in the Public Service! You had four team leaders report to you! You really should act the part.

NICHOLAS: Yes, dear. I really should act the part. (sotto voce) Even if I have been retired for four bloody years now … God, help me …

(The group enter the Ocean Glades Bowling Club, an unassuming 1970s single-storey brick building with ceiling-to-floor windows and a wide verandah overlooking the pock-marked bowling greens and the fishing fleet bobbing up and down in the oily, dark khaki harbour full of oyster leases. They make their way into a large room with carpet that looks like a hundred five-year-olds ate a hundred packets of Smarties each and vomited it all up, with pokies clattering away in the corner and a cover band doing a sound check before launching into a horrendous rendition of The Bee Gees’ greatest hits.)

BOGUE: (walks up to the middle-aged blonde BARMAID with more make-up than the David Jones cosmetic counter) G’day love, can you grab me a Canadian Club and coke, sweetheart?

BARMAID: Canadian … Club? What’s that?

BOGUE: Y’know, it’s like whisky, but whisky from Canada. It’s different sorta. Comes in cans, pre-mixed.

BARMAID: Oh, pre-mix? Yeah, we got Jim Beam and coke, and–

BOGUE: Jim Beam? I gave up drinkin’ that shit, like, last year. Nobody drinks that stuff now.

BARMAID: Well, the only pre-mixes we got are Bundy and coke, Jim Beam and coke, and Smirnoff Double Black Ice. Oh, we got some UDL vodka and cranberry too …

BOGUE: Naah, I’ll have a beer instead. You got Corona?

BARMAID: Hmmm … XXXX Gold, Tooheys New, Carlton Draught, Cascade Premium Light …

BOGUE: Ahh, bugger it. I’ll have the Jim Beam then. (tenders his money) Thanks, sweet’art.

(the group all fetch their drinks and sit back down)

BOGUE: (to WAL, PETE and KEV) So, fellas, what do youse blokes do for a crust?

WAL: A crust? Naah, we’re all retired.

BOGUE: What? No way have you hit retirement age yet.

PETE: Well, we’ve retired.

BOGUE: So, what did you used to do then?

KEV: I was on the Fire Brigades for twenty-four years.

BOGUE: Only twenty-four?

KEV: Yeah, I got pensioned off ten years ago after doin’ me shoulder in.

BOGUE: Yeah, and what about you, Wal?

WAL: I was a signalman on the railways for twenty-eight years.

BOGUE: Twenty-eight? Is that all?

WAL: Yeah, well most of us got retrenched. With me payout eleven years ago I bought the caravan, and … well, the rest is history!

BOGUE: Yeah, and what about you, Pete?

PETE: I was a security guard. But had enough of it. Chucked it in, oh, eight or nine years ago now. Been on the dole since then.

BOGUE: But you’re all young enough an’ shit to work, you’re not on the age pension yet.

WAL: Blah, life’s too short to work. Why bother busting your arse and givin’ yourself a heart attack just to make other people richer? (raises his can of XXXX Gold) Cheers, everyone! Here’s to not working!

NEARLY EVERYONE: Cheeeeeers!

BOGUE: Hmm, these young whippersnappers over here should be workin’. So, Zac, So, Todd, what do you do for a crust?

ZAC: C-c-c-crust?

BOGUE: Yeah, what do you do for a livin’?

TODD: Livin’? We live to surf.

BOGUE: Yeah, that’s great, mate, but what do you do for, you know, work?

ZAC: W-w-w-work?

BOGUE: Yeah, you know. That shit where you get up every mornin’, do shit you don’t really want to do, but you gotta do it so you can get paid for it?

ZAC: Nup. Don’t work.

BOGUE: Christ, I don’t believe it. I’m livin’ with a pack of dole bludgers. Christ, does anybody here work!

ARIEL: Well …. I wanted to open up my own herbal therapy and homeopathy shop in Byron Bay once …

BOGUE: Yeah, well why didn’t you?

ARIEL: Well …. I was driving up the Pacific Highway in my Volkswagen Beetle when it broke down, full of everything I owned. And I forgot to renew my NRMA membership the week before. And I didn’t have the money to get the car towed or repaired, so I just left it there on the shoulder … and I’ve been here ever since.

BOGUE: Yeah, and how long’s that?

ARIEL: Oh … about four and a half years ago now.

BOGUE: So are you on the dole too?

ARIEL: No, I’m on the pension.

BOGUE: Wow, you must have aged pretty quick. I could have sworn you were about twenty-free or twenty-four.

ARIEL: No no no. I’m on the disability pension.

BOGUE: Why, you look pretty helfy to me.

ARIEL: But I have bipolar disorder and schizotypal personality disorder.

BOGUE: Fark, schizos out here too. Christ, I can’t get away from schizo nutjobs, even here in the bush!

ARIEL: No, not schizophrenic. Schizotypal!

BOGUE: Same shit, different smell. So, Nicholas, what did you do?

NICHOLAS: I’m a retired public servant.

BOGUE: Oh, so in other words, you’ve never worked a day in your life either.

PAMELA: Excuse me! I shall have you know that my husband Nicholas worked very, very hard all his life to provide for me and my children. He performed rather well in his studies at university and he was climbed his way to a position of great responsibility. I’ll even have you know Nicholas here reached the level of Departmental Officer Grade–

NICHOLAS: Yes, yes, everyone knows. I was a DO 11.

BOGUE: Yeah, worked hard my arse. Try comin’ out onto the roadworks with me, liftin’ up barricades and scoopin’ up dirt and gravel an’ shit in Bobcats forty, fifty hours a week in the burnin’ hot sun and freezin’ rain and hail and gales an’ shit. Then I’ll teach all youse bludgin’ c#$ts what hard work’s all about.

BOGUETTE: Honey, do you always have to make a scene like this–

BOGUE: Urrghgurghrughkurrrghnt! Don’t farkin’ tell me what to do, bitch! I’m sick of workin’ my arse off, paying massive taxes an’ shit, overtime, night work, the whole lot, only to see all the dough I make from MY job which should all be MINE goin’ to bludgin’ p#$%ks like these people here!

NED: Oi, you listen here, New Fella. You criticise all of us for bein’ bludgers an’ shit, but the fact is, there are no bloody jobs around here. None! Me missus before she died, well, she worked in the video hire place-slash-fish shop for two afternoon shifts a week … that’s all she could find!

BOGUE: Well, I found a job here easily enough, even from Sinny. What’s your excuse?

NED: Yeah, and when the bypass is finished late next year, what are you gonna do then? You’re gonna find yourself stranded here with no other job waitin’ for ya, and then you’ll be one hundred miles up shit creek without even a matchstick let alone a paddle, let me tell you!

BOGUE: In that case, me and me missus and me boys will just move back to Sinny.

VAL: Oh, you’ll never move back to Sinny.

BERYL: Yes. New People … NEVER move back to Sinny.

BOGUE: Bullshit! Once me contract’s up, I’m movin’ back. No way do I want to spend the rest of me life with a pack of good-fer-nuffint bludgers like you! C’mon, honeybunch, let’s go back to the caravan park.

BOGUETTE: No, I want to stay! People here are a bit laidback an’ stuff, but these are good people and I’ve already made friends. Why should MY night be cut short just because you always get yer bloody knickers in a knot over dole bludgers an’ shit?

BOGUE: Fine, have it your way then. I’ll walk home meself. Screw you leechin’ parasite shitheads! Screw youse all! (storms out of the bowling club in a huff and a puff)

SANDY: (puts her arms around a sobbing BOGUETTE) Don’t you worry, sweet’art. Some New People … well, they just take their sweet time adjustin’ to the pace of life around here an’ stuff. Don’t worry. He’ll come round soon enough. There there now …

THE END

(Yes … I know this episode was a long time coming … and I do have some cracker episodes coming up, all stored in my brain, ready for the moment when I find the time and mental energy to type it all up and proofread it and edit it.

Unfortunately it won’t be for another month or so as I’m heading off overseas for a bit. I’ve decided to redirect my admittedly humble and not terribly highbrow literary and satirical skills to a whole other genre – travel blogging. You’re welcome to follow me on my Magical Mystery Adventure at the following blog: http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/regionalreverie/1/tpod.htm

Bogue & Boguette will see you all when I get back! — R.R.)