If you are my friend, especially one particular friend I may or may not call Gauri, you may have already heard this story. It’s a love story. I’m a little proud of it. It’s quite nice. I think it’s well-written if I say so myself which I do. If you want to read it you can, feel free. Otherwise, sorry, because I’m going to put it in here. Enjoy if you want to. Otherwise, don’t. I think I’ve made that clear. I AM VERY SELF-INDULGENT.
Does anyone even read this? HELLO OUT THERE-there-there-there! Apparently not, hence the echo. Said in a Winnie-the-Pooh voice because it’s a quote from Winnie-the-Pooh. Yay.
It’s called Barbecued Beef Sausages for reasons that will become apparent once you read it all and get to the love story part. J It’s based very loosely on a true story. Once I was on the bus and smelt like tomato sauce. That’s the true story bit. The rest I made up that day. What can I say? I am inspired by odd things, ie. a toilet, dodgy wedding dresses, a boy on the bus etc.
Barbecued Beef Sausages
I get almost all the way to Norton Street before realising that I smell like tomato sauce. Not, “I feel like tomato sauce” or “I look like tomato sauce”, but that sweet, tangy stench of the aforementioned condiment is all over me. My hands, face, hair, arms … what was I doing this morning? This is humiliation like I’ve never experienced. Who wants to sit next to a girl who smells of the local hamburger shop?
The empty seat next to me remains empty with glaring blatantness as the usual frustrated public transport patrons start queuing like sheep waiting to be shorn at the back of the bus. I break out in a clammy sweat. I avert my now-dilated pupils to the street rushing past. My heart skips a beat as the bus stops at a traffic light and a line of fancy peak-hour office cars forms beside us. A well-tailored businessman grabs the steering wheel tight as his nose twitches in my direction. Bouncing energetically at the traffic lights, an early-morning jogger and her shaggy Golden Retriever lift their noses in the air. As the light turns blessedly green, the Retriever gives an inconsiderately loud bark and attempts to leap after the bus. The jogger lies spread-eagled, face-down in a puddle.
The sickening scent of my accidental perfume haunts me for the rest of the day. At recess I’m on canteen duty and I take the opportunity to grab a pie off a year seven, dig through the layers of pastry and smear the meat on my wrists and neck in hope of creating some delicate balance of flavours.
The year seven starts crying and runs away.
My classes are filled with opportunistic jokes directed at my sexy scent.
‘You going for a job at Pieface?’ Queries one comedic colleague.
‘What did you do to the perfume companies for them to take revenge like that?’ Asks one hilarious homeboy.
‘Don’t look now, but Billy’s coming at you with a fork and pepper grinder.’
The day, somehow, goes downhill from there. I am licked, poked, jeered at, laughed at and generally marginalised all day. The gardener thinks it necessary to turn a hose on me – the scent does not fade. It seems I will be forever cursed, forever shunned by the daisy-and-toothpaste scented society. At lunch I sit by myself and cry tears of gravy. I feel alone and ashamed and so very stench-self-conscious.
My hose down appears to help the meat-pie smell but the tomato one remains as I sit down on the bus on the way home. Once again, the adjacent seat is painfully barren, an expanse of sticky blue plastic stretching into infinity. The man sitting in front of me sneaks a peak at what the source of that peculiar smell could possibly be. Seeing me staring homicidally back, he shuffles uncomfortably in his seat before getting up quickly and moving to the front of the bus.
‘Fine!’ I want to shout. ‘I smell like tomato sauce! You are wondering where my twist-top and easy-squeeze grip are. You want to know my salt content, and how many calories I contain? Too many for you, you lot of prissy pompous bus …BITCHES!’
But I don’t say that. I sit on the blue plastic and wait for the next round of humiliation, which materialises in the form of a pokey-looking high school boy. Ew, high school boys, is my first thought as the weight balance shifts on the seat. My mind is still murderously boiling away when a mouth-watering smell captures my attention.
Barbecued beef sausages. It’s … enchanting! Salty, spicy, the gourmet variety. I turn my head slowly and my green eyes meet with a dazzling pair of brown ones.
‘Tomato sauce …’ he whispers.
‘Beef sausage …’ I reply.
This boy, this pokey high school boy, is my barbecued delicacy soul mate! I am overwhelmed with joy and the blinding aromas of love. We get off the bus, together, arms entwined.
‘You won’t believe the day I’ve had,’ the boy sighs. I sigh with him, and our breath mingles with complimenting flavours. And suddenly I don’t mind that I smell like a hamburger shop anymore.
Because condiments conquer all!
THE END
It’s true though. They do. Condiments are pretty spiffy.
Love you like a pork chop. J
