Australia: Occupational Hazard

The current selection in my roster of books is called Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures - a memoir by three UN workers on peace keeping missions to export democracy and restore peace in war-torn countries in the 90's. The authors are my new heroes (move over Britney!) as they dodge bullets, UN bureaucracy, and other occupational hazards to save lives. Every morning on my train ride to work, I am transported to a dangerous and alluring world of massacres and genocides. Sometimes I even drift off into my own literary fantasy while staring blankly at the pages of my book.

Time is present day. Location is some remote town in Africa. Along with fellow foreign aid workers, we are dressed in our UN uniforms and have secretly opened a relief camp to provide food and medical help for survivors of a genocide mission. "Roger Roger. This is Persimmon 321 [my code name]. Is this Currylicious 69 [Justin's code name]? We have an emergency situation. Cupcakes are running low. I repeat. Cupcakes are running low. I did not mean to finish off the last dozen but they were mocha with cinnamon frosting. We need to replenish. STAT. I mean, ROGER. I mean, OVER! And bring some milk, too. Persimmon out!"

"We are now approaching Flagstaff station," interrupts the female voice on the intercom and I am snapped back into reality. As I head into the office, I find myself in a war zone of my own. Working conditions are subpar. The kitchen is the size of a koala's butthole with appliances older than your momma. Our floor is undergoing construction so we are sniffing in sawdust on a daily basis while exposing our ears to constant cacophony of hammering nails and tripping over metal cranes. Our occupational health is hazardously jeopardized. Then I receive a new laptop and am told it is my responsibility to assemble it together with my monitor and docking station. Not only do I have to carry all the equipment by myself, I am on all fours attempting to connect cables and such. This is way outside the perimeters of my job description. My piano hands are not intrinsically meant for such heavy lifting and manual labor (they are made for writing and piano playing and occasionally jerking off Currylicious 69.) Nonetheless, I am armed with my Clark Kent glasses and a laptop on a mission to improve The Bank's business process and increase their bottom line. Just what every wide-eyed idealistic girl dreams of in saving the world one Australian dollar* at a time.

*At the time of this entry, AU$ 1 = US$ 0.958.

Aussie word of the day:
Stumps: slang for end of the day
Example: Deliver those cupcakes and milk to the base camp by stumps!
Note: Stumps is a cricket term meaning the end of the day's play.