ALIENS STOLE MY CHEQUEBOOK

Ferengi on the starboard bow. No need to arm the photon torpedoes, they're just having a half-price summer sale on unobtanium. Damn those Ferengi. They think of everything. Not that they have anything to do with today's story - I've just always wanted an excuse to write .."Damn those Ferengi". Thanks. I feel better now.

.  . First however, a message from Ron Comic-Relief of Not Far From There, who tells us that Tony Abbot is an anagram of Boy Not Bat. Who I'm pretty sure  are playing the orange stage at the Big Day Out. And Ron, come on mate. Don't try and screw us around because spellcheck on this thing is crap. You owe us a "t".

Anyway. Yes. Sorry. Where was I ? Right. So sometimes I am required to collect delinquent accounts from people in the paint & panel-beating industry. Don't ask. We live in a multi-tasking world. Making ends meet and all that. At least since I got this fabulously well-paid job editing this blog I've been able to stop working the streets. I mean I've still got the legs for it, but I just can't deal with the hours.

 So. How do you get money from a reluctant panel-beater ? Well obviously physical pressure is out of the question. These people have tattoos on them of people with tattoos on them. They can bench press a 57 Chev. And that's just the girls.(I'd like to thank Roseanne Barr from whom I stole that joke: I have no idea where she got it from)

Anyway. More subtle measures are called for. I like to turn up in the Holden FQ ute with the naked picture of Karl Marx airbrushed on the drivers door & Engels "Revolutionary Bum" on the passenger side. And of course the 5000 watt stereo in full cry. I try to avoid anything obvious like the Ride of the Valkyries. This is accounting now not Apocalypse Now. I used to go with Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" but lately I've been favouring Anton "Superfreak" Webern. Nothing quite like it. Sounds quite normal for a couple of bars and then it's the consumptive man coughing  & the elephant whacking a bit of 8x10 teak against an empty water tank and it's all on for young and old. Nothing better for scaring the shit out of that third-year apprentice who owes you $110 for grey primer. So I rock up and spend half an hour or so just whining about my creatively-stifled childhood and how I could have been a truly great artist except that my parents were so damn nice to me. Bastards. Then I read them some of the poetry I wrote when I was twelve ... and that usually does it. Chequebooks appear. Hurried trips to the ATM are made.

In the unlikely event of further resistance, it's time to call Tony. Tony does an excellent Ozzy Osbourne impersonation. He rocks up, with the little round dark glasses and the industrial-strength fan going "f---ing hell Sharon what have got got me into this time?". Then he stands in front of the fan, hair blowing like a full-on seventies video clip and reads from Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations".  For as long as it takes.

The toughest panel-beater in the world can't take more than half an hour of this. They beg. It's pathetic.

Sometimes they pay us money they owe other people. Anyone. Just to get rid of us. Brilliant.

PS One of our operatives recently got a call to go pick up something towards a delinquent account. He was told to come over and pick-up a "f---load" of cash. You won't find this in your table of imperial or metric measures, but for the record a "f---load" of cash = $2600.  Now you know.