I don't know if it's something about me or what, but people seem to have this need to bail me up at work or in the street with these incredibly confusing long-winded rambling narratives of things that are happening to them. Sometimes I'm afraid to ask "How are you?" because it could mean half an hour of bewildering details ranging from cousin Bob's pus-filled hernia disaster to what colour thread should they get to fix the shirt that aunt Mabel made Jim for Christmas last year or was it his birthday and the dog got out because Carl didn't close the gate after he finished fixing that leaking tap which buggered up the washing machine Lisa just bought and the dog ate it.
Today's bail-up was from poor Hazel, whose entire family has become embroiled in a classic small town sniping war. This kind of stuff goes on all the time, it's worse than high school - it would make great reality TV! I am completely confused about what is actually going on, but here's what appears to be the gist of it. I think.
Hazel's husband John was working with Evil Debraun, a very strange woman in town who is apparently hated by everyone. For some reason she is in charge of something to do with allocating maintenance work for the government housing (this is big business in Meeka, where aboriginal tenants destroy their houses on a weekly basis). Patreen, Hazel's daughter from another marriage (I'm already confused), had her husband Damien (who is DJ's dad but not Jack's...or something) working for John and Evil Debraun via some kind of complicated family business arrangement (mental note: never work with other people). Then Patreen's daughter Melisse turned up with 2 year old son Toby and some guy who may or may not be Toby's father (Melisse looks like she's about 16, he looks like he might be about to enter puberty any day now). Oh and Bandit and Woody (dogs).
Naturally with 108 people and dogs living in one small house everyone got along just fine and ha ha ha ha ha ha...oh dear. Well from what I can gather, some sort of family disagreement took place concerning the business arrangements (gosh didn't see that coming) and they also discovered that Satan Spawn Debraun was avoiding paying her invoices to them. Thankfully they had spare sirloin strips hidden away from the truck rollover to live on.
Anyhow, Demon Hellion Debraun responded to requests to pay up by taking out restraining orders on the whole family except John! Apparently this is a hobby of Beezlebub Debraun; in fact, if you have not had a restraining order taken out against you by her you are not officially a local. Melisse had been in town three days at this point. Hilarious. For some reason John decided to side with Devil Debraun and moved out, camping in Gubby's back yard (?), reducing Hazel to a sobbing alcoholic wreck for a week.
The restraining order requires that if Imp Of Azkaroth Debraun comes into the supermarket etc while any of Hazel's family are in there, they have to leave immediately - drop the lot and go. So now apparently Beast of 1000 Names Debraun is stalking Patreen & co. around town deliberately in order to stop them from doing their shopping and stuff. This means the miners that Patreen is feeding are going hungry (remember, I am telling you the simplified version of all this) and the family can't do their food shopping. Patreen has applied for a hearing to challenge the restraining order, the supermarket owner and the management of the mine company are getting involved, John has moved into Ripper's garage, half the family are hiding out at the aged care hostel and Princess Of Darkness Debraun is cruising the streets looking for them.
So that's another side of small town life here in Meeka for your edification. I'll keep you all up to date, as soon as I finish taking out my own weekly restraining orders; I find it's easier to do them in bulk lots.
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