Once upon a time I wasn’t the type of person who got ripped off … It wasn’t possible I’m too proactive, always a jump ahead of the game. Or so I’ve been in my past lives.

Now, everyone wants to rip me off. It’s a condition of Neo-liberalism of course, something to be proud of it seems, something to boast about to your mates. Once the vendor of their swollen goods finds out that I have a condition – an autoimmune disease – and can’t chase them up I’m like an Emu with a hundred spotlights shining upon me. A target nailed to a cross.

I live in a little van, not because I want to, but because I have no choice. My condition says I must move as the weather dictates – either that or win a lottery & build a stationary bubble & imprison myself in it. Yes, it could be nice but the lottery win would need to be a big one … Anyway, when I purchased this van – my bubble – I got ripped off. A young fella, Ahmed was his name, when he realised I couldn’t shop around, couldn’t get on an aircon’d train & walk about the streets like others can, sold me a fantasy for a reality. I paid up front on his word – he delivered it (for an extra cost of course!) at 3am in the morning .. so I couldn’t check it out properly – them’s the breaks, the breaks I live with now. I get it serviced – a job I used to do myself – with me within, up on the hoist, overnight on blocks … And I pay whatever the ‘cost’ – and they always think, “Why is that old dude so pissed off?” One thing I havent lost is eyes that can kill.

However, life’s good, they say, it’s like it feels. My present beef, is postage & mail & mercy. (There’s an interesting story for those who care to chase it up – The Emu War in WA. That’s hope!) Once again I paid before receipt of goods. They’re in the mail – Lord how many times do I have to hear this! – and sitting about in the rain, in possibly the most unfriendy town I’ve been in (Narrabri), I’m waiting for mail I was told would take 24hrs, that I paid for a week ago, that I now find out wasn’t started on it’s journey til late yesterday – life’s good they say, it’s like it feels.

Of course, if the chap had told me that he didn’t have the goods in stock I may have bought them somewhere else .. I may not be sitting about in the rain like an Emu nailed to a cross in a searchlight. But he made his sale – and that is something to boast about.

“Is not truth the consecrated & single vehicle of justice? Is not the plain & simple truth worth all the cunning substitutions in the world?” – Godwin.