“Holy shit. I must have planted myself on that last night in my drunken stupor, talk about using the force!” she said out loud. “Wow, I need to quit drinking alone.”
Kylie turned on the shower, closed the door and gently washed her body. She remained standing the entire time and even made sure her feet didn’t touch the drain. After all, she had been branded enough for one weekend.
Dried and dressed, Kylie looked in her fridge for something that had some nutritional value. She grabbed the eggs and a tomato then opened the freezer and found her vegetarian-friendly soy-based Not Bacon. She poached some eggs and cooked the Not Bacon and the tomato in a frypan and once cooked, decorated her plate making a smiley face with all the food.
Feeling much better than when the weekend started, Kylie washed up and had an early night. She set her alarm for 6 am so she could go for another ride to Pallarenda before work the next day and start a new habit.
At 7.45 am the garbage truck collected the rubbish from all the wheelie bins in Kylie’s street. She was on her way to work just as the truck pulled up at her apartment but decided to make a U-Turn around the roundabout at Gregory Street and The Strand and take a new route to work, heading back up Gregory Street to the traffic lights at Warburton Street where she stopped for a red light. “Today is the start of my better life in Townsville,” she said to herself as she waited for a green light.
Meanwhile, back at the garbage truck, the automatic arm had miscalculated the grip on Kylie’s wheelie bin and not grabbed it as tightly as it should have, resulting in the bin being wrestled in mid air as it slipped down from the initial grab point. The top rubbish bag holding the three-piece crumpled-up Wish Lischt was flung against the top corner section of the garbage truck skip bin, loosening the tie on the bag, the three pieces of crumpled paper were forced out of the rubbish bag and caught by the stiff sea breeze coming from the Strand towards the traffic lights where Kylie waited. The list remained in its three part entirety, still crumpled but floating effortlessly with the wind and landed on the first car waiting at the traffic lights in the opposite direction of Kylie.
Still waiting at the lights, Kylie vaguely noticed a piece of rubbish in the air land on the windscreen of the car diagonally opposite her. She watched the windscreen wipers come on and some water being sprayed onto the paper, making it cling to the windscreen, before the wiper blades moved it over to the driver’s side window. An arm appeared from the now open window, grabbed the rubbish and threw it inside the car on the empty passenger side floor.
Kylie watched it all unfold and laughed. “Ha, what are the odds of that happening? That sort of thing would normally only happen to me! It’s a great day for me already!” she said feeling her luck had finally changed.
Have A Go
Part of Kylie’s job was to pick up bread and milk for the team at the Port Office. She normally fit it in with her lunch break and the regular mail pickups from Head Office which was located four kilometres away in the Townsville CBD. After the loneliest weekend she had ever experienced, Kylie was determined to do something proactive. The first step was to check the notice boards at Woolworths when she dropped in for bread and milk. As she scanned the board, a short lady with short coppery hair, reached up to pin a new flyer on the noticeboard.
“Are you interested in coming down for a practice session?” asked the woman, who was wearing a Woolworths uniform.
“Oh, maybe?” Kylie answered, taking note of the woman’s fit and athletic build.
“Here, take some flyers, I have a couple spare, take them to work, see if anyone is interested in coming down?”
“Okay thanks. What is it exactly, this...Out Rigging?”
“Oh, it’s a Hawaiian style canoe that has six people in it, all sitting behind each other, and it has an armour which is a side arm that stabilises the canoe. It’s heaps of fun and very, very social!”
“Social hey? Now I’m interested!” Kylie said smiling.
“Oh yeah, when you compete in Outrigging Regattas during Racing Season we go away for the weekend, once a month for about 6–8 months. We have the best time!”
“Sounds great, but I’m not very athletic, I mean, when it comes to sport I have low expectations and I meet those expectations!” Kylie said.
The lady laughed at Kylie’s candidness. “Look we don’t play for sheep stations, there are people with various skill levels so we cater for everyone.”
“Well, that’s good. Because I have a mantra which is: Sleep in, Turn Up, See What Happens,” Kylie said.
The lady burst out laughing. “That’s classic but you may need to change the sleep in bit because as well as training in the afternoons after work, we also train on Sunday Mornings.....on the water at 5.30 am.”
“Flamin’ WHEN?” Kylie said.
“5.30 am on the water, so we meet at 5.15 am. You might need to invest in an alarm clock but believe me, it will be worth it!”
“Righto. Wow, that’s rude! I know I can get up that early, I get up for work at 4.30 am sometimes.” While Kylie was learning how to operate the Ship loader, her additional shifts started at 5.30 for 6:00 am dirt on board the vessel.
“There you go! This is way more enjoyable! Plus you get to see the sunrise over the water. It’s absolutely magic!” she said emphasising the glory of watching the ocean sunrise with her hands.
“Righto. Thanks, I’ll have a good think about it.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot. I’m Shooters.”
“Pow Pow,” Kylie said with her fingers imitating pistols. “I’m just Kylie.”
“I’m sure there’s more to you than Just Kylie. Hopefully we’ll see you at training and find out Just, what it is!” she said. “I’ve got to get back to work but come down after work by 5.15 pm on a Monday or a Wednesday. On the beach out the front of the Watermark on the Strand. Okay?” she said walking off backwards to remain in eye contact.
“Righto,” Kylie replied. “I’ll have a go, see what happens!”
“Yeah, That’s the spirit, come down and have a go,” Shooters said as she slipped back behind her counter.
“Rogerhhh,” Kylie said to herself, folding up the flyers and putting them in her handbag. She grabbed a trolley and quickly stacked it with the items she needed for work, paid for them using the company card and then headed towards the Town Office to pick up the mail.
As there were no other females working at the Port Office, Kylie took every opportunity to get to know the people in the Town office. She would walk around the open plan set up to say hello to the other employees, crack jokes and ask them how their day was going, what they had planned for the weekend and general questions that showed she was interested in finding out more about them. She found that people always enjoyed talking about themselves and even if it was a short chat that only focused on them she always left feeling energised after engaging with other people. She was also hoping to find a female friend she could call on after the work day was over to share a coffee or a movie with. Unfortunately she hadn’t cracked the friend market as yet and was still heavily reliant on the E.T. stance of religiously desiring to ‘phone home’ each night to stay connected to her lifelong mates and her family.
“Ah Kylie, when you are free, I’d like to see you for a moment please,” her boss said as he walked past.
“Uh-oh,” said Kylie playfully.
“Oh