Blue Monday

Posted by : Selma

Had a bad case of Mondayitis this morning. My head was aching so much and my throat was so gritty I almost could have sworn I had a hangover;except for the fact that I gave up drinking a year ago due to the chicken in the microwave incident.

If you have seen the Mr. Bean movie you will no doubt remember the scene where Bean tries to cook a chicken in a microwave. It explodes. After a very nice bottle of Australian Semillon and three shots of tequila I thought I’d try it for myself. Let me tell you, the chicken doesn’t exactly explode as implode into every little microwave crevice in a pulpy, waxy, fatty goo. The smell is reminscent of a combination of unwashed socks and wet dog. The texture is chicken skin putty.

I couldn’t clean that microwave without gagging, so I put it out in the laneway at the rear of my house. This is usually a fairly safe bet for furniture removal but in this case, the semi-raw chicken-carcass-filled microwave stayed in the laneway for THREE WEEKS. In the end, I had to give the garbos a case of beer to take it away.

So drinking and I are no longer friends. Mondays and I are heading down the same path which is more than likely due to the new girl at work than to a forgotten flirtation with a bottle of wine. Rachelle (don’t forget the second ‘l’ and the ‘e’) is the new girl. Niece of the boss man. Blonde, great body, 19, with a pathological aversion to work. “This is just a fill-in job for me,” she informed me this morning at precisely 9.02AM. “I’m going to win the next series of Australia’s Next Top Model,” which is like the American version, only with kangaroos. I nodded, the Boomtown Rats ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ running on a loop in my head as she answered her mobile phone for the fourth time in-between applying her lipstick.

“I need that research on the stock market downturn by 11, Selma,” the boss man shouted from his office. “Rachelle can help you.” I work for a small local daily in Sydney. Our circulation is small but consistent. It’s not The Wall Street Journal but it pays the rent. The other journos I work with are efficient, intelligent, articulate. Rachelle’s eyes began to glaze over as I tried to explain about the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the Dow Jones takeover. However, she did perk up when I told her that as well as owning Dow Jones, Rupert Murdoch also owns My Space.

“I have a My Space page,” she said. “My last entry was about a wet T-shirt contest I entered. My boobs looked so good you would’ve thought I’d had implants.” HhhMmmmm. The morning was going from bad to worse.

By 11, I had the research requested. Rachelle had drunk three cups of coffee, filed her nails and played with the index card holder on my desk. “What’s the Dow Jones again?” she asked for the eighth time. By this stage, beating her to death with a ream of paper was looking very attractive. As she simpered in her uncle’s office, throwing in the keywords hedgehog funds, Down Jones and submarine mortgages, I retreated to the safety of a strong cup of coffee and an email from a friend outlining 23 Terrible Songs About Mondays.

http://www.lunchboxing.com/feat_group63.shtml

My favourites are Number 8 – I Got Electrocuted (On A Monday) and Number 20 – It’s Sunday Evenin’ (And I Hope I Don’t Wake Up Tomorrow.)

Glad to know I’m not the only one.