BOREDOM. It can do strange things to the mind.
Y'see it was earlier this year and this correspondent was midway through a brief sabbatical from this establishment.
As has been the case for what seems like two years, it was raining. Pouring in fact.
So that somewhat limited our options as to how to fill in the day. There nothing much on telly, not even the myriad of options available on PayTV. Technically, it was too early to retire to the pub.
In our younger days we would have had no hesitation in heading to a hotel but those days are sadly long gone. So for a few more hours the hotel was out of the equation.
We read the paper, both online and the print editions. It was the time when our treadmill was out of commission, so that ruled out completing some mild exercise.
Struggle Street, we noted while loitering on the lounge, was looking particularly shabby at the time. That gave us an idea - why not do some housework. We'd heard that it can be cathartic and if nothing else, it would certainly be a new experience.
We started our adventure by mopping the kitchen floor. The last time that happened John Howard was still the PM. Or it may have even been Paul Keating.
Anyway, it look 20 minutes or so and wasn't as satisfying as we expected, so that put an end to our foray into household duties. We can't recall what we did for the rest of the day, but we're sure we would have ended up at a pub at some stage.
For whatever reason we mentioned our mopping debut to a close acquaintance a few days later. Perhaps we may have embellished, as we are wont to do. So it came to pass that we endured another birthday recently.
We're not sure what inspired the choice of present, but our acquaintance deemed it a good idea to gift us a brand spanking new mop. One of those high tech squishy varieties, explaining that it would make the chore of kitchen floor mopping much easier.
This is a first in our 62 years on this earth. A mop. For a present. We were stunned. Speechless almost. A mop. To mop the floor. Imagine that.
Now it's only been a couple of months since we mopped the floor, so we figure it doesn't need to be done again anytime soon. How dirty can a kitchen floor get anyway? We would imagine it's a once-every-six-year task. So our new mop has yet to have its maiden voyage.
We oft wonder what we're going to do when we retire and that'll happen more sooner-than-later. Perhaps mopping could open up a new line of employment. We could venture into house cleaning, for we understand it is a lucrative sideline. We're sure we'll impress our new employers with a you beaut squishy mop.
Guess that'll be better than being bored.
