Category: aluminium platform

I’m never driving from Brisbane to Melbourne again. Not even if ten thousand angry, rabid rabbits are chasing me. Not even if my life depends on it. Rabbits, you can just take me. I’ll accept my fate without complaint.

That was the worst drive of my entire life. By now I’ve listened to all my music several times over and burned through all my podcasts. I should have bought some audio books or something. I’m exhausted and extremely bored. At one point, I decided to start counting how many 4×4 aluminium canopies I could see on the road, like my own. It would have been a fun game, if not for the fact that I didn’t see a single other car on the entire trip. Somehow my final count was sixteen, but I’m pretty sure it was just my own ute canopy that I spotted, over and over again.

I think the only thing that stopped me from going literally insane was the fact that my job is super important. I’m not sure what this equipment I’m delivering is for, but I’ve been assured that it is of the utmost importance. After this stop, I’m off to Adelaide, then back to Melbourne. I’m sure I’ll be able to count plenty of ute canopies near Melbourne, so my game should be slightly more entertaining at least.

Alright, so I do have to address the elephant in the car. Last time I posted, I said that I wouldn’t be like a politician, dodging questions about how I am making these blog posts without any internet. Well, that’s exactly what I did, and I feel like I owe you all the truth now. So here it is. I’m going to say it. Get ready for this, because it’s going to blow your minds.

Actually, I don’t think it would be fair to just drop this all on you right now. I think I’ll have to dedicate a whole blog post to this topic. It’s really not worth waiting for, though. In fact, it might be better if you all just forgot about this, because it’s not even something you’d want to know about.

I swear, the street performers in Melbourne are the best in the world. I’ve been to India, China, Albajeria, all around Europe and to the big cities in America, so I feel I’m qualified to make that kind of statement. Objectively, they’re just awesome, and SO unique. There are a lot of snake charmers in India, so it gets a bit old once you’ve seen someone doing it for the eighteenth time that day. Albajerians are all into their physical feats right now, so breaking bricks, dancing on their hands, benching actual benches full of tourists…and it’s nice, but there’s not so much creativity involved.

Whearas in Melbourne you can get anything. I was sitting eating my lunch in Fed Square and just watching a guy in overalls setting up a quality Melbourne ladder platform. Alright, pretty ordinary stuff. And then he climbed right up onto the platform and started doing circus acrobatics. Nope, he wasn’t a tradesman…he was just using a set of aluminium platforms in his performance, and doing an amazing job of it. He steadily took them off during the performance, revealing a glitzy costume underneath that had people spellbound. It’s like the work ethic of Melbourne tradespeople meets the city’s arts scene in a glorious blaze of colour and life, and I was thoroughly entertained during my lunch break!

So that was random. Now I’ll have to cast a suspicious glance at anyone I see setting up planks and trestles, because they could be secret circus performers who are about to do amazing feats like climbing up them using only their feet or balancing with their entire body horizontal like a flag. The core strength, seriously…I’ve never seen anyone do that sort of thing with an aluminium trestle ladder. And I certainly hadn’t seen someone doing a handstand on top of a piano and playing it with a set of reeds stuck in their mouths. And then there were those two guys doing stand up comedy in armadillo suits. Oh, Melbourne. You’re so creative.

-Amelie

Darn wharfies. I am one but I Still think they’re dumb as dingleberries. The guys I work with, seriously, you couldn’t trust em to count to ten. That’s labouring for ya. Kills brain cells. More brain cells than beer or anything else combined, I reckon. Also a lot of them didn’t finish school. I dropped out in year ten myself but my Dad was a professor so at least I inherited a bit of cultural capital.

This one guy I’m working with a t the moment, Jezza, he’s the guy who drives the forklift and crane down at the shipping yard, he’s really pissing me off. What he does is he adjusts the height of the aluminium platform just to annoy the heck out of me. He’s knows I’m too short to reach up there so that’s why he always raises the height. He reckons it’s cos he can’t reach it with the arm of his crane but that’s all crap if you ask me. He’s got it out for me this guy. It could have something to do with the hot new wharfie who started up the other week. I took her out for e bevvo after our shift a few Fridays ago and then later learned that she was his sister! He wasn’t too happy about that.

I’m thinking of just getting some new work platforms that are the right height for me, ones that you can’t adjust. Our boss said we’ve got some extra money in the budget to get more equipment and that. I’m going to get the new aluminum ladders and platforms approved while there’s still money in there, before old mate has time to apply for additions to his crane. The old sod’s going to get a nice surprise when he finds there’s no money left to get his gear stick fixed or his forklift services. Let him suffer, I say.