Sunday, January 22, 2012

the train sessions’


She took me in her arms and kissed me.
I woke up and immediately looked up my phone dictionary. To "sass” means to be unnecessarily cheeky or rude. I’d learnt a new word.
Yesterday in the heat I was working at my other job as an outsourcing councillor on the Melbourne train system. I had a session on the Epping line later. My clients on this line are so sardonic. It was between Rushall and Croxton Park that two hipsters sat opposite me. They were not companionable. They kept to themselves. Hipsters who are so hip they abhor other hipsters. I sat and listened. It’s my job, its what I do. These two weren’t my clients.
Eve, the female hipster sported a grown out pixie-cut, evidently she had been to the Apple shop near Flinders Street and had an appalling shopping encounter. She was incensed: ”The first half of the 2000s will be remembered as the era of being duped by designers. All style no substance. I will never buy a Macintosh product ever again."
Eve adjusted the strap on her appliqué Apple computer handbag.
I made an unasked contribution to the conversation. “It will be remembered as the age of forgetting; we seem incapable as a species of making sense from mass murder in Africa, and the Middle East. The first half of the 2000s will instead be regarded as a time of wasted opportunities. Nobody will give a fig about fonts or designers. You most likely didn’t even read the appropriate manual.”
There was a metaphoric stew brewing.
Eve, the female hipster flew into a rage: “Woah. Zing. You don't even know what my problem was, or how I behaved or whether or not reading the manual would have helped. Everyone has a job; I spend all day dealing with customers (at my job, in hospitality...) and don't turn into an a-hole like you.”
Adam” Oh boy sassed!
They stood up smiling at their quick wit. There was no time for a retort. I turned away, reduced to a public pest. The children of the age of light and IKEA descended to the Northcote platform. As if to say, we haven’t finished with you yet.