Severe Foot-in-Mouth Disease on the First and Last Ever 'Eleven Parks to Parkes Mechanical Snowboard Tour' 2013
PART THREE
I pulled in to Parkes at about 7.30pm, which gave me an hour to set up the gear, check-in to my room, and get some dinner and a couple of beers into me before starting the operation. The pub was called the Cambridge Hotel, or the Cambo, pronounced Caym-bo. It was situated right at the start of town, as soon as you hit the main street, so I didn't have any trouble finding it. The entry is literally just a door in a huge blank wall, so it's not the most inviting joint, but as I walked in I felt quite comfortable and welcome. Like I said, Parkes isn't one of those unwelcoming shit-hole towns with pubs that literally stop trading when unknown customers walk in. The locals were all friendly and approachable, and some of the chicks were pretty cute too.
I spoke to the publican and got the gist of what the night would be all about. He wanted me to run the snowboard from 9 to midnight. I'd been under the impression that he wanted it from 8.30-11.30pm, but I didn't give half a shit. As long as it was only three hours and I wouldn't have to stick my hand in my pocket I'd remain content. I set my shit up in about fifteen minutes and got settled into my room
upstairs. My room was literally just a room and a bed with a small fridge and a window. All I need is a bed and a window really. I rolled a joint but decided not to smoke in the room just yet. I didn't want to fuck this whole gig up before it even started. I chose to smoke by the van, parked round the back of the pub. It was cold but not as cold as I thought; cold enough for nobody else to be out in the alleyway while I smoked my weed alone.
I didn't really care if people thought I looked stoned. I doubt the guy would tell me not to bother with the ride he'd just paid a grand and a half to order from Sydney. I ordered a beer and the surf n turf, on the house. As a nice gesture, the publican gave me the $26 surf n turf which came with some squid as well as prawns, as opposed to the $22 surf n turf I ordered, which didn't have squid. I appreciate this type of generosity. Not only did it make me want to perform a good
service for the guy, it made me realise that this would probably be a cruisey-arse job. This thought was confirmed when he came over with another beer for me (didn't even have to order it) and a little piece of paper for me to get the girls to sign whenever I ordered another beer. I smiled as I slipped it in my pocket, thinking about just how much I could exploit this situation.
After dinner and a couple more beers, I went to go sit by my ride. The place was still pretty dead, most people sat inside watching the footy, but it was about 8.45pm and I thought I'd give anyone an early go if they wanted. That type of shit always gets you in a clients good-books.
I sat there, drinking my beer, doing fuck all, until a bunch of local boys wandered over with youthful, liquored-up enthusiasm.
“Phwoar, mate! This free?” about five of them asked me in their upwards inflected, country drawl.
“Yeah boys, go for it. Just gotta sign this waiver first.” I handed the most eager of them the pad of injury waivers.
“Aww! Sign ya life away, eh?” he said.
Having worked at the company for over four years, I've asked many, many punters to sign this injury waiver, and I can tell you with absolute honesty that on every single goddamn one of those jobs, I've had at least one dull-witted gimp-faced clown come back with, “Sign ya life away, eh?”. I'll often get it multiple times per shift as different groups of people approach the ride at different times, and there is always one fucking comedian in every group.
“Yeah mate,” I replied. “Go for it.”
Surprisingly, the boys passed around the sheet and all signed it before taking turns on the machine for the next half hour. They got really good too. I was pushing them a bit, but giving them pointers. Eventually, a couple of them got to the point where my skills at the control box couldn't knock them off. This is when I had to start challenging them with tricks.
“Spin 180 mate,” or, “do a grab”. Stand backwards or straight is a good one that always puts them on their arse. We were all having fun until one of them asked that inevitable question.
“Why don't you have a go champ?”
“Yeah I want old mate to have a go!”
“You must be really good at it, eh?”
“Go on mate, get on there. I'll control it... How do ya do it?”
So I showed the boys how to control it and jumped up. I was kind of nervous actually. I hadn't ridden one of these things in a long time. My legs felt not-so-fresh from drinking and skating, but when he turned the knob and the board started to gyrate under my feet, I knew that my long-term muscle-memory was going to see me through this. He cranked it up to full pelt, and I rode it out like a pro – even chucking in a bit of a stalefish to please the ladies. Most adults quickly come to realise the fun part is falling off, so once you've mastered standing on the thing, there's only one thing left to do. After hanging a little five off the front of the snowboard, I used one of the
upward thrusting motions to launch myself at least two metres into the air, landing stylishly on my back on the cushioned, inflatable surface behind the board. The crowd even gave a little clap. Even I was impressed with myself. I don't think I've ever lived up to somebodies preconceived expectations before, let alone exceeded them. I was stoked, but tried not to show it. I just went back to sit next to the bloke who was quite happy controlling my ride.
“I'm gonna go take a piss mate. You got this?”
“Yeah brother,” he said. “This is easy as!”
Filled with confidence in my new, unofficial staff member, I went off to the toilet. I knew that if he was still controlling the thing by the time I got back, I was in for a sweet ride.
In the bathroom blokes chatted to each other while they stood cock in hand. Country boys definitely don't mind a bit of a chat at the urinal, and as I stood there pissing on the wall another fella came up behind me.
“Can I jump in there champ?” he said, motioning with his elbow towards the tiny, half-man gap between me and the wall.
“No worries,” I said, and moved over about an inch. He squeezed his way in to a proximity that makes it impossible not to see cock-flesh in your periphery.
“You're the snowboard bloke ay?” he asked. “Jeez, you got a sweet job ay?”
“Yeah mate.” My mouth began to move, but my brain wasn't working. “I'm actually getting paid to stand here right now with my cock in my hand.”
I just mentioned how country boys don't mind a bit of bathroom banter, but if you happen to directly refer to the fact that you both have your dicks on your hands as you stand almost on each others toes, things tend to get a bit fucking weird.
The both of us stared at the wall in front of us, as did the three other boys squished into the urinal. Flyers urging young people to avoid binge drinking and taking drugs before driving adorned every wall. I was the first to finish peeing, and quickly left without washing my hands. I needed a beer to wash the taste of foot out of my mouth.
The bar was slightly more packed then before. A sexy brunette in Jim Beam gear walked around handing out shots. I nodded to her as people who are working at the same event usually do, but she couldn't have known I was 'the snowboard dude' so I have no idea what she would've thought of that. I avoided her anyway. If she happened to be the hottest chick I'd come into contact with that night I didn't want to ruin my chances at the very beginning.
​
The girl at the bar signed my paper for my beer and I headed back out to the beer garden. There were three guys standing on the snowboard. The deck was bent at either end by their weight and looked like it was about to snap at any second. As I walked up to it they all fell off into a pile, and everybody pissed themselves laughing. All the boys eventually got over it and headed up the road to “the pub where all the chicks went.” Soon after I realised why they'd been so complacent when I'd asked them to “sign their life away.” They'd signed Superman and Spiderman and Austin Powers and Homer Simpson. The usual names people write on the waiver when they're trying to be funny. What's funny is that nobody ever reads those things and it's a mere formality that legally means nothing. The page was wet and my pen was gone, so I put the waivers away. Sometimes you can just tell if people aren't going to sue you if they hurt themselves, and out in Parkes that night, I was pretty damn sure this was the case.
In the boys absence, a group who'd been sitting behind them moved towards me. At first a women had a go, she fell off, her friends laughed. Then her boyfriend had a go and the same thing happened. As his mate was wobbling around up there I asked his pregnant girlfriend if she was keen for a go.
Sometimes people are a bit too thick to understand the sarcasm in your joke and then assume that you're the dumbarse and react accordingly. This chick didn't get my sarcasm, and says to me, “But I'm pregnant!”
I was about to tell her I was joking, which is something I hate telling people, usually because they're too stupid to realise I'm joking, but then I noticed the cigarette burning away between her fingers. So, before any synapses could fuse themselves together in my brain, I said, “You're already smoking anyway!”
I said this in the jovial type of way that you'd tell a fat person that they couldn't run a marathon, so my remark came off like a bunger in a blocked-up dunny can. Again, nobody had any idea what to do or say. I tried to laugh it off, but nobody else laughed, so I just focussed on controlling the snowboard, like it's really difficult. Finally, her boyfriend placed his schooner down on a table and jumped up in his matching navy-blue, Adidas tracksuit. This broke the ice, and when he fell off everyone laughed and it was normal again. Until the bloke stumbled off the inflatable and knocked over a beer on the floor. It was about a third full, and had been sitting there for a while.
“Aww, shit. I've spilt me beer,” the guy laughed.
“Shit buddy. That sucks,” I laughed too.
“Aww, no. Wait. This's mine 'ere.”
He picked up his real beer. “Sweet,” I said. “It was just some other dumbcunts!”
I'm not adding these italics as I write this. This is actually how I said it, with the emphasis on the word other so that it as obvious to the both of us that I was indeed calling the man a 'dumbcunt' to his face. It merely confused him, but for a second it looked like he was going to decipher my cryptic insult and plant one his trainers firmly into my nuts. I was fortunate this time that these people were immensely stupid. If the pregnant lady smoking durries didn't alert me to their cognitive abilities, I definitely became aware when she came up after they had all left and literally asked me if she actually couldn't have a go because she was pregnant.