"Way to make a grand entrance!" in Adventures in paradise

I’d only juuuuust driven the hire car out of the carpark and onto the street, when, of course, there’s this ute on the side of the road and this HAWT AS FUCK guy gets out of it and peels his shirt off of his body.
I almost crashed the God-damn car right there and then!

I told myself to focus on the road and not the tanned adonis who I swear the universe deliberately placed right there in front of my eyes for me to see. He was tanned, toned AND young. Trust that to happen!

Luckily all was good and I didn’t wrap the car around a pole before I’d even gotten out of the first street :D

The drive was relatively nice. I’m sure that’s the same car I had the other time, although since then it’s racked up around 23,000km. The first time I had it, it had only done a massive 30km on the odometer.

I get into Toowoomba and pull into the Range shops to pick up some softdrink, like my Aunty asked. I check my phone and there’s a message from my mother, “Matt, can you pick up a bucket of KFC? It’ll save us the trouble of driving into town and I’ll give you the cash later.”

Okie dokie, so I drive down the main street, go through the Drive-through and order the biggest chicken pieces bucket I could find. Although they don’t seem to offer the bucket anymore so I got it in two big boxes in a brown paper bag. All good, off I went. I set my phone with my Aunty’s address and made my way there.

I parked on the other side of the road, grabbed my stuff - the softdrink cans in one hand, the bag of chicken in the other. I saw some of my cousins arriving at the same time, and they see the Sunkist and the KFC bag and my other Aunty says, ‘That’s your contribution is it, Matt?’ I laughed and said, ‘The soft-drink is me. This is my Mother’s contribution!”, referring to the KFC.

I walk up to the front door first, where the screen door is closed, and attempt to juggle the items so that I can get through the door.
Well, this went well.
I managed to open the door fine.
The soft-drinks wobbled and the weight shifted and I lost control. They hit the tiles and something in there exploded. Soft-drink sprayed all over the floor, causing me to also drop the KFC which landed with a thud IN said soft-drink puddle, but thankfully none rolled out of the bag.

I heard a voice say, ‘Way to make a grand entrance!’

At least some of my extended family members are funny.

Anyway, I managed to pick up and take the box outside and ripped it open until I found the culprit. Most of the cans were dented but only one had broken. I left it outside whilst my Aunty grabbed a mop and bucket and proceeded to mop up the mess I’d created haha.

Oh dear.

Turns out my parents hadn’t even arrived yet, so there I was with a few family members I knew and just had to make-do seeing people I hadn’t seen in like a year. Of course the older males were all watching the cricket.

Zzzzzzzzzz.

Anyway, I have to drop the hire car back off so I’ll write more later.

Edit: Okay, back.

Man, maneuvering that car wasn’t easy! I hate when all the cars are parked one bay away from each other and I have to squeeze in. Much easier when there’s a bit of leeway with two spaces. I ended up backing back out of one after realizing I was too close for comfort, and going back the way I came. Thankfully I found a gap spot and took the middle one so other people can deal with the tight squeeze situation :P

The lady who served me yesterday wasn’t as happy today :( She did say she’s off to Bali tomorrow though, and I said, “Lucky you!” but she still looked a bit annoyed about something. Oh well, car is back, fueled up, no issues and I didn’t slam into anyone or anything :P

Now to do it all again later in the week. Ergh. I’ll have it for longer this time, which will be a bit expensive but hopefully mum will reimburse me some of it, like she usually does :)

Of course, I took advantage of having the car last night and went and did my groceries at the 24 hour store, like I usually do whenever I’ve hired one. Just so much more convenient than having to lug it home like usual. I was in, out, car loaded, unloaded, fueled car up and took it back this morning, and I WASN’T late this time :D Woohoo! See, I can be organised. Sometimes.

The lady did say that they overbook cars by around 200 every Christmas. This now has me worried that I may not be able to pick up my car booking on Christmas eve, as planned, now! Hopefully it’s all good. I’d think they’d be organised and there wasn’t a note or any disclaimer that I saw saying ‘Booking may not guarantee car’. That, and I am paying a ‘Premium Location Surcharge’. Beats me why the city is a premium location (I guess anything that isn’t an airport probably is) but if I’m paying that, I figure it means they move the cars around to the locations they are needed for bookings. I dunno how it all works really. That city carpark is a little crowded though, but that’s to be expected. Main thing is, no damage!

Anyway, back to the family Christmas get-together. Quite a few of my rellies were there, and my cousins. A lot weren’t as well, so I guess they came up with good excuses early enough to avoid it.
I was as bored as I thought I was going to be. I did have a lovely coversation with an Aunt-In-Law about their new place they are now living in after the sale of the farm. Apparently it sounds incredible from how she describes it. She even told me she’d love to be working in the job I’m currently doing now that she and her husband are semi-retired. Just something to do really. Goes to show it’s all about perspective.
Which is more than I can say for my 87-yo Grandmother. When she asked what I was doing these days and I told her, she got this disappointed look on her face when I told her I was back there.
You know what? I didn’t even care. It’s not like I didn’t expect that from her. She’s not a bad person. She’s just old. And not with the times. I mean for fuck-sakes, she doesn’t even know I’m gay (that I’m aware of), and I came out back in 2002!

Anyway, the food was amazing. There were some very talented creations. The KFC I’d brought was scoffed up in no time, so I guess no-one cared that it had been rolling around on the ground earlier :P

I was there for around the 4 hours. My sister and her husband are always the first to make an excuse to leave at EVERY family gathering, so when they did, I made my excuse also. I said I was leaving at 3pm, and I did. I said goodbye to everyone, gave the family members I like a hug and a kiss for the girls. I shook hands (ERGH) with a few of the guys, and realized my handshake for one of my uncle-in-laws (who is the size of a brick shithouse) was WAY too gay compared to his LOL.
Oh well, I didn’t care. I was out of there. Whoever doesn’t know I’m a flamer by now is CLEARLY deluded beyond belief. And let’s face it, gossip gets around fast in my family so they’ve probably all known for a decade and are just too chicken-shit to bring it up. Religion will do that to you.

Drove back, and it was pretty nice. The trip didn’t seem that long, probably because most of the roadworks have finally cleared up. There’s only really the one lot on the Centenary Highway where I had to sit at 60km. I did see one radar on the way back, but it was on the other side of the road and I was going over by like 2km so hopefully he didn’t nab me because they are usually complete assholes around Christmas trying to get the revenue raising push before the end of the year.
I remember one year when I had my own car, I got done at 2AM ON CHRISTMAS MORNING. I mean, who the fuck doesn’t have a life that badly that they need to hide in the dark and do that. I was pretty fucking furious back when that happened.
Luckily I had the cruise control on a lot of the way. It stuffed up a bit on the way back, but I pulled into a servo to get some water and when I drove off again, it was working fine again. Weird. Anyway, love cruise control. I could almost nod off and go to sleep if it weren’t for the whole crashing thing :D

Got back to Brisbane around 5pmish, so still had a while before work. I didn’t want to rush and go in early, so I just went in on time. If I went in an hour early, that would have meant working over 5 hours, which means you need to take a lunch break, so it wouldn’t have really been worth it for the extra 30 minutes pay.

I was SO tired at work though. Man. I had been awake for 20 hours by the time the shift finished, and I had had only 3 hours sleep before picking the car up. And after work, I did my shopping as I mentioned so that I was organised for this morning. Phew.

It was a busy day, but everyone in the family was relatively friendly. I was surprised my dad and his brother were chatting away fine considering last I heard they had that huge fight over money to do with the sale of the farm. Whether they came to an agreement or not I dunno. I might ask mum when I’m out at Pittsworth over Christmas. She likes to gossip haha.

Dad surprised me by saying he’s “looking forward to it” when I said I’d see him again in a few days. Dunno if I believe him. Surely he has to grow up at some point over 12 years. Although, knowing him, he’d probably be assuming I’m over my ‘phase’ and back to dating chicks now LOL. I swear to God, my family… grabs neck

I told mum I’d probably spend both Christmas night and Boxing Day out there. How I’m going to survive two nights back out in a country town at my age, I dunno. To think I did it for 18 years in an even more isolated area. Man.
I’m positive I will be the only gay in that village. The closest Grindr guy is usually 80 kilometers away and looks like a dropped pie. I didn’t even bother checking yesterday. Couldn’t really be bothered.

Describe yesterday as meh. Family don’t really change. Just all get older, really. At least my grandmother didn’t ask when I’m getting married, again LOL. Phew.

Last updated December 21, 2014