Shampoo Read Free Page B

unpack, I
just sighed. Not much I could do now!
    I so need to move.
     
     
     
    8.26pm
    I think all I’ve done for six months is eat
Cheetos, sip Coke, and watch Bo and Hope get together on DOOL after
like, two decades apart.
    I’m so bored. I need a social life
again.
    I’d like LOVE again. Not sure if I’ve ever
really had it properly, or been truly loved back.
    Now that’s just sad.
     
    Saturday 20 May 2000
    3.55pm

    So the Honda Civic TRULY died this week. With
me stranded on a roundabout at Venner Road. I decided then and
there, it was loan time. I have to have a car to get to
work.
    And I decided on an Holden
Commodore.
     
    (best car on the planet!!)

    All the warehouse boys have Holden
Commodores…the girls have pretty feminine cars, Festivas and
Barinas and weird, ugly bubble cars…
     
    Benny, a white VS Series II ute…Little Jon, a
silver VK
     
    (love the old VK’s),
     
    Lachlan, a mustard VG ute, Matt, an emerald VP,
gosh, too many to list…there’s an old turquoise VB (in immaculate
condition), another VN
    (I say another CAUSE I NOW HAVE
ONE!!!!),
    another VP, a VR…
    and on the other side of the car park are the
bosses’ cars…all BMWs and Mercs and Jaguars.
    But I’m not interested in them. I only have
eyes for the Holdens.
     
    (and more specifically, Commodores)
     
    I have a bit of a love affair with them,
actually.
    Really, it’s Dad’s fault. We were raised
constantly being told, “There are two types of people in this
world: Ford people and Holden people. Pick who you are, and run
with it.”
    Plus I was born in Elizabeth, South Australia,
home of the Holden factory. The whole suburb was Holden mad. Holden
boot parties every late arvo out the front of houses and in
driveways. I remember my dad and all his brothers with their hotted
up Toranas, standing around, drinking.

    (Uncle Keith still does it)

    So of course, when I needed a new car from the
Civic of Nat’s dying, I went straight to the Magic Mile at Moorooka
yesterday arvo to check out Commodores. Fell in love with one SO
BADLY, took it for a test drive, and roared around the block to the
caryard guy laughing nervously.
     
    (my first roar around the block in a Commodore.
Will never forget it. Best moment of my life)

    Then I begged Dad to come look at it, cause I
didn’t want to get ripped off or buy a dud. Dad grumpily drove it
round the same block I had, with the exact same leadfooting as his
daughter, then said, “You just want a Commodore cause of Dan and
all his mates.”
    I was shocked. My own father doesn’t know me
very well, if he doesn’t know he’d brought up a little
revhead.
    I just hadn’t had the opportunity to BE a
little revhead yet. I only just got my license not even a year ago,
after 35 driving lessons.

    (yes, 35)

    And I never even SEE Dan’s mates!
     
    (except Evvy. But I didn’t even KNOW he has a
Commodore! All I saw was his weiner. As we were being arrested. Not
his car. But I couldn’t exactly tell Dad that.)

    “ You’re always raring to go with
life, Karina,” he continued his (attack) lecture. “But then you get
knocked down, each and every time. Sometimes you just have to cool
it.”
    “ Oh like I have for six months,
lying in bed, recovering from a broken back and multiple surgeries?
With no friends and nobody around me?”

    (and after I’d just had the crap beaten out of
me by my stupid ex, I thought, but Dad hates to talk about anything
like that. Or anything, really. He just likes to joke around and
escape reality)

    Dad hates when I talk like that, too. He takes
it as a personal affront against him, like he’s failed me, he
hasn’t been supporting me or around me, he’s a workaholic and would
rather be working than by his daughter’s side.
    When I wasn’t even talking about
him!
    “ Not to MENTION, on your FIRST
OUTING OUT IN A YEAR, you wind up IN PRISON – ”
    “ That was a COMPLETE
MISUNDERSTANDING, I TRIPPED!!”
    Dad snorted. “Tell that to the
judge!”
    “