Bang the Tin Slowly

A rainy day at the roadhouse. It's all quiet until someone thinks they see flashing police lights in the front parking bay. Raelene and I do a quick staff check to see if half our workers have bolted on foot into the outback bush but we don't seem to have any outlaws on the team at the moment. Disappearing Employee of the Week Award goes to Bridget, who had someone ring us to check us as a job referee after working here for only five days. Our feedback of "She disappeared during the night without warning" may not have been the glowing employee recommendation she was hoping for.

Our unwritten code is that if you don't lay claim to your room for 48 hours, you lose squatting rights, so Duncan and I have snatched back our old room (there is no democracy in the wild). I bought barrel locks at Bunnings in between fighting with Duncan over louvered gas vents so he's going to barricade it for us. No more camping behind the biocycle poo tanks! In our world, this is like moving into a posh suburb.

Ahh, the chance for a lovely afternoon nap in a quiet, private room, lulled to sleep by the sounds of Duncan BANGBANGBANG and the electrician NAH YA NEED A FUCKIN FIVE EIGHT FOR THAT ONE MATE doing god knows what in the main BANGBANGBANGSMASH building. The delicate flowers of the bush SLAMBANGBANGBANG have brought out all these pretty little SHITFUCKBANGBANGBANG honeyeater birds and WHACKSMASH THIS BASTARD'S ARSED TO SHIT we are starting to see sulphur crested BANGBANGSCREEEEEEEEEEEESMASH cockatoos and emus HOW'S BLOODY FREO AGAINST THE SAINTS MATE WOTTA RIPPER which we will apparently see in big numbers when MATE spring YEAH MATE comes to the BANGBANGBANG roadhouse.

New indentured slaves are arriving tonight so there is fierce hand-to-hand combat going on for rooms. The sulking Irish backpacker, who has fled here from Hamelin Pool, is feigning crippling diarrhea as an excuse to stay barricaded in Room 13, but Duncan is lurking with a keen eye and if she comes out to use the loo he'll be in there nailing it shut as his new man-cave. Raelene, being the stalwart old hand and revered as a godlike being by the rest of us, is probably safe but I notice she's keeping one eye out the kitchen window for anyone loitering with suspicious armloads of bedding near her room. Room 10 is New Guy Room because it has scary electrical problems and is directly in line with the row of diesel generators, so your only hope of getting any sleep is to drink enough vodka to kill off the part of your brain that can hear things, with the catch being that you are too drunk to respond to the TV catching fire.

The cloud cover has cut off our satellite TV reception. The men at the roadhouse, deprived of their nightly sports coverage, will be forced to resort to excruciating time-passing activities such as showering, engaging in conversation etc.