Elbow Room

A somewhat sly smile passed across his face, ‘Interesting’, he thought to himself, and mused awhile. One of the locals had gone around to one of the meth houses and had stood outside the window and said aloud to the occupants inside, who were consuming vast quantities of various drugs and sizeable portions of alcohol, “Yes, some tomato sauce on cardboard would be nice”, and made his way back to the safety of his home. It was a bold move and he really couldn’t be sure if it was a local or some blow in from another town, whoever it was made him smile. So he played along and heard one of the occupants say, “Yes, haven’t had any tomato sauce on cardboard for a while, used to eat a lot of it, though I was, putting on too much weight”, and his friends made such sundry comments as, “Yeah, where we gunna’ get some cardboard at this time of night”. How he was able to hear these comments is any ones guess but he chimed in with a, “Tomato sauce on cardboard with grated cheese and anchovies, very tasty”, pretty soon, apparently, there were a few people, meth-amphetimine addicts, consuming vast quantities of cardboard, with tomato sauce, and one desperado had some six month old cheese which he roughly chopped and actually had some anchovies to put on top, I did suggest they use the griller and place the cardboard delight down on the bottom level. ‘They must have some sort of portable device that they’re using to carry the comments around town to each other’, he thought to himself, so he continued on with the general banter, “Yes, you would have the waiter carrying over a tray of Plastic Bag with a drizzle of soy sauce, to the meth heads table and placing it down in front of the couple with the waiter handing it to the female and saying ‘Bon Appetite’, and the boyfriend saying to his girlfriend, “Wrap your laughing gear around that, darlin”, and of course, served with a glass of Kerosene Shandy. He heard a few laughs and began to elaborate on the subject, “You could have the Masterchef grand final where the 8 meth addicts showcase their favourite dishes, tomato sauce on cardboard with grated cheese and anchovies, plastic bag with a drizzle of soy sauce, car tyre steaks, maybe throw in some chicken plastic bag, which I heard was available from the supermarket in a value pack.”, he did hear some comments such as, “How do you mix chicken with a plastic bag,” which still remains unanswered to this day, though some said it would be a rather elaborate process, quite complicated. Whether it be true or not, several chaps were taken to hospital suffering from an overdose of cardboard, which they had consumed whilst down at the cardboard recycling skip behind the supermarket. Pretty soon, cries of outrageous delight echoed across the town, the solution had been found, and the locals served up, to their tormentors, a veritable plethora of outrageous lies, glasses of kerosene shandy, methylated spirits strained through a loaf of white bread and fly spray and nugget, shaken, not stirred, in a plastic bag, which he remarked upon, quite casually to the walls, was a connoisseurs delight and added, “Me mate knocked up a dose of fly spray and nugget one night in a plastic bag, when we were at a party”, this brought on some serious doubts about the persons sanity. At one stage of the night he held a conversation with an unknown passing stranger outside in the darkness, perhaps a meth head, maybe on LSD, who knows, he didn’t really care, it sounded like a bit of fun, so he kept chiming in with a few comments to add to the general discourse. “Some people eat cardboard every day, it’s a food staple”, he added, “Cardboard can’t be a food staple”, the voice intoned enquiringly, “It is if you eat it every day”, he replied, he also told the story where one of the bogans was at a party one night at his mates place, skulling 20w50 from a four gallon drum that was slung over his arm with the host saying to him, “Can’t you get a glass”. And so the laughter carried on through the night, buoyed by persistent cries of such things as, “Have another pipe, full to the brim, time for a drink”, and other such suggestions, which when made to the impressionable mind, were carried out by the deluded, deranged individuals who had been terrorising the town. They ate dirt from the backyard, sipped kerosene shandy, and other such noxious after dinner drinks for the delusional, they were handed out with a hearty, “Wrap you’re laughing gear around this, sunshine”, some residents dotted about the landscape howled at their neighbours, telling them outrageous lies which caused panic and distress and made them consume more drugs and alcohol, causing their eventual, displacement holiday to a hospital where they could recover.