A lovely little catch-up between a group of mates soon went south as the cold bevvies went down a little too easily in the sweltering March afternoon.
Given the sweaty conditions early in the evening, the group decided to skip their usual order of parmis and steak sandwiches and decided to get something light. A fatal move making room for several more drinks.
By 6:10 pm, Rob and Tahlia had decided to pick up their cars in the morning. Stepping things up with a coupla EXpresso martinis in honour of the joyous fun they were having.
Tim, Simone, and Ben weren’t far off, eventually breaking free from the mid-strength shackles they’d promised themselves to indulge in some piss they actually wanted to consume. It had all the hallmarks of a ripper late-mid-week sesh.
By 6:20 pm, the mood had turned peak jovial with the old mates laughing how they were ready to cop a bit of a hangover because they didn’t plan to do anything at work on a Friday anyway. By all accounts, they were living la vida loca.
By 6:25, Ben had side-chatted Tim with a proposal to start up that podcast they had always talked about, “is there any other podcast with two Aussie dudes talking about general current events?”
They were onto a winner. As for Simone, she had bailed Tahlia up in the toilets to test the waters on whether she’d be interested in dropping her current professional career to start up a lashes business with her and travel the world just lashing and queening. Obviously, it was a yes.
By 6:45 pm, Rob was rabbiting on about crypto and everyone was trying to ignore the gamey main course of cooked blockchain that he was trying to shove own their throats. That’s when the drinks stepped up a notch
By 7:00 pm, the clearest sign of all that the group were passed the point of no return occurred when Tim proclaimed loudly,
“How good would it bet if we’re all back at Uni, smashing piss on the balcony and getting ready for a big night of Thursday night Clubba. I’d be 2 bottles of Passion Pop down and you just know Ben would have had something shelved up his arse”
Simone hit back,
“Remember that time we all did shots of Bacardi 151 and Ben tried to fight a bouncer. He got chucked down those stairs like an absolute ragdoll. What a loser”
Tahlia wasn’t one to slack on the memories either adding,
“I reckon I put the hotdog man’s kids through uni. Wasn’t the only sausage I was stuffing down that night either, ay”, It certainly wasn’t.
The nostalgic hit was too much to bear. All prior conversations quickly melted down into the crucible of pining for the past. Slurred memory after slurred memory was shared of the good times and the existential pain they experienced by existing in a different era of life.
Tim jumped up to demonstrate some of his old moves on the Clubba dancefloor while Tahlia gave an animated reconstruction of how she’d move effortlessly across the sticky floors to avoid toey AFL players from grinding up on her.
It was obvious the intense reminiscing was taking both a physical and emotional toll on the group. Only an urgent injection of a meatbox could fill the void that remembering such good times tore in their hearts.
Come to think of it, a meatbox on Thursday night was probably another pretty good sign they’d overindulged. As of 7:45pm, there were no regrets.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?
