Rory’s Rumblings: “Nobody Came To Pick Me Up From The Bus Stop”

It’s a vicious paradox, I have an easier time writing the more uncomfortable I am. Which is a problem here at the Quik Pro. Stab‘s hooked up a sick rental. I’m being wined, dined. Sharing a bunk bed with Jake the Intern, which is sadistically enjoyable due to Jake’s well-founded fear my heft will exceed load and leave him crushed beneath my slumbering form.

The creaks and cracks with every shift of my body is nerve wracking, he says. I believe him. I’m sure the snoring and farting doesn’t help matters either.

It’s not all loaves and fishes. My ride failed to show at Robina Station, left high and dry and utterly clueless as to where I was going. But for the grace of god, and the random appearance of Brendan Buckley, himself on the tail end of a forty hour trek from Europe, I’d likely still be there. Affecting an accent, sharing food with the mynahs. A cautionary tale become legend.

Morgan claims it was all a simple miscommunication. Sure.

“I’ll be there at 11 am.” So confusing.

Maybe I was being metaphorical. Maybe it was a riddle. Maybe Morgs was still fucked from the night before and left me twisting in the wind while he struggled to paddle his way out of the Snapper keyhole.

But it all worked out, as my life seems to, and I once again learned that my high-strung nature is pure cost, no reward.

There are no kangaroos. I knew that was the case. But a large part of me yearns to see them hipping and hopping across creation. Stopping traffic, stealing watches. Humanoid pests with handbags installed serving no purpose but to amuse me.

Media credentials at WSL events are effectively worthless, without fail. Maybe there’s an awning to huddle beneath. But it doesn’t get you access, won’t help you score an interview. You’re left feeling unwanted, unappreciated, worthless. 

It all makes sense if, as was explained to me, you understand that the WSL does not truly want to be a governing body so much as a media outlet. Which makes me the competition, and vice versa.

While I’m typically pissy if I don’t get a lanyard, or bracelet, announcing to the world that I’m a media dork, I’ve never encountered a situation where they are as worthless as at Snapper. 

The Rainbow Bay Surf Club overlooks the point. It’s air conditioned. The price of beer is cheaper than back home on Kauai. They have a smoking section! It’s pure fucking heaven and if I lived out here I’d never leave. My skin would grow dry and cracked and leathery. I’d find a home among the pokie addicts. Playing keno all day, eating roast dinner at night. Sucking down Balter until my American accent was as incomprehensible as their slurred bogan.

For now, I’m chasing leads, looming behind Morgan while he accosts pros during their run back up the point. Mercilessly teasing Jake the Intern despite the fact that I truly, truly, find him endearing. Dreaming of kangaroos and counter-clockwise toilets and constantly bumping into pedestrians because my brain can’t accept the fact that I should be walking on the left. Pondering the lanky blonde hair and near absence of chin that makes certain men look so uniquely Australian. 

Donning fins and swimming wide of the contest area and watching a teeming mass of humanity fail to have any fun at all.