A city slicker in the country

My wife Lib has had a hard year, she is tired, stressed and hasn’t had a good laugh for quite a while. So we are in Bright for five days of cycling, walking, running, eating and drinking. This should help Lib chill out, as it is our way of relaxing. Because as some of you know, I sometimes think relaxing, is the new lazy.

We have rented a little cabin on the river, it is all we need; walking distance to town, so we don’t need the car.

I have brought my little coffee pot with me, so I don’t have to buy coffees all the time. The trouble is, the trivets on the stove are too big and my little coffee pot keeps falling over. I tried using the rack from the grill, but it wasn’t made for direct heat and it ended up looking like one of those wire puzzles that you had to undo as kids. So we went to the shops and I bought a diffuser. It didn’t melt or warp, which was a good thing, but it diffused too much heat and it took twenty minutes to boil one teeny weeny, shot of coffee. Seeing that was too wasteful, we went back down the street to a different store: the camping store.

We walked past the camouflage hunting gear, the inflatable dinghies and the solar powered GPS, fish finders.

The woman being served at the counter before me, was telling the shop owner about the timber worker that was fatally bitten on the arm by a deadly snake near Orbost. She said it was tragic, but what can you do? The owner agreed as he took another bite out of his beef jerky.

I sidled up to the counter and said;

“Hi, my little coffee pot is too little for the stove and keeps falling over. Do you have a little rack that would help it balance? ”

I thought it was a fair query.

I heard Lib burst into laughter, pointing and yelling “what a wanker” as she fell backwards into the inflatable dinghies. The owner coughed up one bit of beef jerky and a smaller piece blew out of his nose.

He was obviously a caring, sensitive gentleman at heart, as he did show concern as Lib was in fits of laughter, all tangled up in the inflatables dinghies. Even more so, as the increase in static electricity had set off the fish finders. We pulled Lib out, turned off the fish finders and waited until she stopped laughing. I tried to explain about my little coffee pot and the big trivets again, but it was no good. Lib dragged me from the shop laughing her head off.

She said it sounded so funny; the little city slicker with his own little coffee pot asking for help in a hunting and fishing, Rambo style shop.

I’m glad I’ve made her laugh.

So to continue with my manly theme, we went into a thrift shop and I bought this little chip frying basket for $4.00. As you can see it works a treat. Lib keeps thanking me for making her laugh, which is fabulous. We are getting special treatment in town now too, with people pointing at us.

I was a little concerned about my manhood, but Lib says ‘real men are doers Al’; they can build things like you do.

Lib always says nice things.