Today I went down to the Bay to sign up my dog for welfare. They said he's not eligible. I said he's lazy, unemployed, and doesn't know his daddy. He gets his cheque next week.
Just kidding! I left Rover outside while I visited the Bay's biggest office complex, Centrelink, which caters for our only growth industry: welfare. Not that I needed any; I worked all my life so people on welfare don't have to. All I needed was an official's signature on a German document.
I felt a bit like Mad Max as I sat there surrounded by a multitude of tattooed, metal-studded, and spikey-hairstyled applicants for any and all of the government's multitudinous and magnanimous hand-outs. I couldn't wait to turn my back on this dystopian place and regain my composure over a hot chocolate at the Coffee Club.
After which I treated myself to a few more books from my favourite bookshop: "The Birth of Sydney" by Tim Flannery; "The Getting of Wisdom" by Henry Handel Richardson; and "Outside of a Dog", a bibliomemoir by Rick Gekoski which promises to be a real treat.
