Somewhere out there, there’s supposed to be tension. Is there?
Waking late to our National Day I feel nothing but content. To live in a land such as this “girt by sea”, well in Tasmania we too are girt by sea so is Tassie doubly girt?
Its about bar-b-ques, sand and sangas. The haze hangs over the estuary, sea haze drifting skyward. To the west sails lazily tack down river in the sultry breeze. The dog needs washing, ilium’s pulled. Such a display for Christmas but only geraniums bloom for Australia Day.
It takes a while to realise that something is amiss.
“Daring, I think No2 toilet is blocked” I hear in bed from down the hall.
I’m the darling referred to here. I try to work out what it means to ‘think’ a toilet is blocked or not. I lie there wondering the state the toilet room. However, no panic seems to have set in, so no immediate need to disturb my Australia Day musings.
I wonder how I’ll handle the tension, widely reported in the press and radio and tv of the ‘Calls for Action’ and the blah blah blah of the righteous Left, Right, and self entitled. I’m so over it. I resolve to turn off the radio / tv at the very mention of rights / oppression / invasion. Looking around outside I can’t see or feel the tension of Australia Day, just the tension of a potential faeces flooded dunny.
Ambling down to the second toilet [how middle class is that, 2 dunnies], I’m amused to see the swirling waters just at the rim. No odour, no floaties, no paper, just a slow whirlpool. Was it going clock or anti clockwise I can conjecture from now? Mmhh, maybe something bendy but still. An old steel coat hanger’ll do the trick, but after much prodding and poking wearing those sissy too small kitchen gloves I’m covered I dunny water. After some thought [though no tension] I reckon this is a plunger job. What could be more Aussie than down to Bunning’s on Australia Day, get some dog sangas from the junior water polo barbie and a plunger of diabolical proportions.
Down it goes into the depths sealing the outlet and then rhythmically pumped back and forth, forcing a satisfying water pulse down the line. Though the level had dropped over the twenty Bunning’s minutes there was still enough left to splash around and up the sides, then into my gloves.
While pumping Anne goes get an auger from Bunnings, how we love to support them, so that when she returns even further deeper surgery can be inflicted on the throne and S-bend. But it comes up clean, clean nothing on the turny swivelling tip all, and I’m feeling tension now. Australia Day tension and not a red black and yellow flag in sight. The plumber bill however hovers over me like a cloud. This could take ages and they charge by the 1/4 hour.
Vinegar and baking soda is a remedy of old. How better to ease the tension, read a book while chemistry weaves its magic in the bowel. In they go equal aliquots of both until the fizzing takes away the indigestion like pain. Overnight majik is wrought. A flush and the water sinks to its design level, Australia Day tension is over.
The Hobart Chinaman 