gullybogan

Dear Reader,

It was a spooky phenomenon all right.

It was like some Cronulla-riots-style secret message had been texted out right across the Bogan Belt:

TONITE IS CURRY NIGHT! EVERY PROUD SON OF AUSTRALIA GET URSELF TO A CURRY SHOP AND EAT SUM CURRY! DO IT FOR AUSSIE! YUM!

Weirdly, i’d been thinking to myself how nice a nice curry would be at some nondescript point in the afternoon, and then, as we drove homeward bound and the solstice sun slipped down behind Melbourne, out of the blue, Princess says that she thinks it would be rather nice to have a nice curry for tea.

Spooky.

So we diverted the car and headed straight for our local curry retailers without further delay.

Even as i pulled into the carpark, though, i could sense something preternatural was occurring.

There were no carparking spots. Not one.

Not even one with a condom wrapper in it.

Well, there would have been one, but for the shambolic parking skills of some moron in a four wheel drive. He managed to park across two spots, since his ego wouldn’t fit into just one.

I had to actually drive around, looking for a park!

Unprecedented.

The queue for curry snaked out the door of the establishment and a little way down the street. Not an interesting or topical snake, like a cobra or something, just a dead dull snake. The kind that likes curry, but.

Inside, once we managed to finally breast the ordering counter, we discovered that the management was in as unprecedented a flap as the carparking situation outside had been.

I’ve never seen the guys at our curry retailers flustered, dear Reader, but flustered they were.

Something had clearly gone wrong. Or was still in the process of going wrong, even as we were ordering.

Maybe Gordon Ramsay was out the back, abusing the shit out of them for not having the sense to be serving rustic and simple Italian dishes, like Beef Rigatoni, or Chicken Rusticana.

Who knows.

Probably not, though.

More likely it was the curry feeding frenzy that we ourselves were caught up in.

What is it about the Solstice that turns common ordinary everyday individual Bogans into a curry-craving crowd?

It was the closest i’ve ever been to being a part of a Zombie cultural happening in my whole life.

[Sorry if i offend anyone's, you know, culture and all, referring to the Life Challenged by the vernacular term "Zombies" - i'm just trying to be hip and down with the street lingo, cat; can you dig it?]

Ppl in the curry retailers – actual diners – were getting up mid meal …

… and leaving …

Yep. Walking right out.

As they pushed past us mere walk-ups, they explained with tears in their eyes that they weren’t mad at the establishment or anything, but it was just that an hour was too long to wait for a butter chicken.

Even on Solstice Night.

They each, as they trooped out, promised to return again another time, and made sure that the maitre d’ knew their name, so that they could get glad-handed next time. Maybe some complimentary bondas, or something. Something gratis, anyway, to soften their painful memories of being impatient for their food.

Opportunistic bastards.

We paid cash, since that would save a few seconds, grabbed our grub – when it finally came – and ran for the car.

When we pulled out, there were three cars fighting over our spot in a dazzle of headlights and naval argot, the latter mostly involving the mating habits of the drivers of the other cars and their mothers.

Sadly, by the time we got home and decanted the curry into bowls, got into snuggle-on-the-couch mode, and lifted the first spoonful of the Desire of Ages to our lips, we found, dear Reader, that it was stone cold.

And there’s few things less cheery than a cold curry.

I’m sure you’ll agree.

Especially on the longest night of the year.

Yours,
Gullybogan