LivingSocial - The Breathalyser Edition

In the U.S. this week, everybody seems to be buying LivingSocial deals for Whole Foods.  Conversely, in Australia, pocket breathalysers are all the rage.  Given the choice between delicious organic food for half price or two pocket breathalysers to determine just how drunk one is after a marathon sundowner session (also known as how many beers can one drink while the work bar tab is still open), I would choose the Whole Foods deal with absolutely no hesitation.  I'm currently pondering when exactly I will wake up in a country that doesn't have major alcohol issues.  After living in Qatar where the only liquor store in the country required employer sign-off and a declaration of not being Muslim for a license that entitled one to purchase a fixed value of alcoholic beverages each month and Australia, a country that is seriously full of alcoholics, I'm ready for a change.

Australia Day

On Wednesday I had the day off from work in honour of Australia Day.  While none of my Australian colleagues could tell me what the significance of Australia Day is, apart from beer and barbies, I learned from Wikipedia that it’s the official national day of Australia.  The date, January 26^th, celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the subsequent proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia.  The First Fleet refers to the 11 ships that departed from Great Britain in 1787 to establish the first European colony in Australia; approximately 52% of the passengers were convicts.

There is some controversy around the celebration of Australia Day on January 26^th.  Some people, particularly Indigenous Australians, refer to Australia Day as Invasion Day or Survival Day, and stage protests at annual Australia Day celebrations.  Others view the date as strengthening the connection with Australia’s convict past, commemorating, “Britain's driving ashore of Australia's first white citizens in chains.”  Due to these reasons as well as a myriad of other arguments, including the fact that January 26^th falls during school holidays, proposals have been made to change the date that Australia Day is celebrated.  To date this has been unsuccessful, so on Wednesday I was able to partake in my very first Australia Day, full of barbies, flags, beach trips, beer and fireworks.

In order to cut down on antisocial behaviour, alcohol could only be consumed within designated zones during the Perth Australia Day fireworks extravaganza.  Additionally, alcohol consumption within these zones was restricted to a two hour period between 6:30 – 8:30 PM.  Adults over the age of 18 were permitted one bottle of wine, one six pack of beer, or one six pack of premixed drinks (per person).  Yes, you did read that correctly.  It was considered perfectly legal to consume one beer every twenty minutes for two hours, in a public, outdoor space.  And please don’t forget that the first barbie I spotted was at 7:00 AM so some people had been drinking for many hours before 6:30 PM rolled around.  Maybe H and I are getting old, but while we could see how one can easily drink three beers in an hour, maintaining that pace to consume an additional three beers within the next hour seemed a bit extreme to us.  We haven’t yet taken to heart the Aussie mantra I learned from a very drunk middle aged man during a free (and copious) tasting of very nice wine at a boutique vineyard in the Margaret River: “Work is for work and alcohol is to get pissed.”

How Was Your Weekend?

After almost a year in Perth, I’m starting to notice a trend in typical responses to the recurring Monday morning question of “how was your weekend?”  Please tell me if there is anywhere else in the world (apart from college campuses) where the responses would be as aligned towards over imbibing and hangovers as today’s responses were to my polite queries about my colleagues’ weekends.  Keep in mind that the average age of my colleagues is closer to 40 than 30…

• “Well, I had a few too many beers on Friday so I spent the rest of the weekend recovering, but you know, it was all in good fun.”

• “I got totally pissed on Saturday and boy was Sunday tough.  It was worth it though, Saturday was great!”

• “Saturday afternoon we had a barbi in the park and you know, after a few beers, I really couldn’t be bothered watching the kids for the rest of the weekend.  You know it’s tough keeping up with them all day when you’ve had a few too many.”

• “I hit the Coronas a bit too hard but what else are you going to do on a hot day?”

• “I was planning on going to Rotto (a local island) for the weekend but after Friday night’s happy hour, I couldn’t make the Saturday morning ferry.”

One of the few exceptions to the above was the head of my group who declared that she had, “found an amazing sounding diet pill from an infomercial over the weekend but then felt a bit like a drug dealer when she went out and bought mass amounts of it to share with all of her friends.”

Oh Anonymous Colleagues, I could overlook your fondness for carrying and using pocket breathalysers, your penchant for wearing heavy wool coats and thick scarves in 20 degree Celsius winters, your love of abbreviating words and adding “o” and “y” endings, and perhaps even your love of meat pies at morning tea, but I’m starting to think that you all have a few roos loose in the top paddock.

And on a sidenote, how can my one other Anonymous American Colleague think I’m Canadian, especially almost a year of working with me?  Perhaps she needs to lay off the alcohol as well, eht?

Bottoms Up for Classiness

Sometimes Western Australia is just so classy that I don’t know what to do with myself.  Take this conversation I recently overheard at my office for example:

M talking to A, a colleague who had just returned after a year of maternity leave, “So, what kind of birth did you have?”

A, “It was totally natural.”

M, “Wow, you’re brave.”

A, “Actually, I just got to the hospital too late for an epidural, I was begging the doctors for one.”

M, “Why were you so late, was it a quick labor?”

A, “No, my husband was drunk.”

Apparently the beer was just too tempting to A’s husband, despite her being nine months pregnant and bursting to give birth.

I told H about this conversation when I got home from work that day and he told me that I had already told him the story.  Impossible I told him, I had just overheard the conversation a couple of hours ago and I hadn’t talked to him since then.

Turns out H had heard a similar story at work, from yet another Western Australian colleague.  This guy was wondering if his wife had the right to be angry at him when he broke her no drinking during the last two weeks of her pregnancy rule.  He went out and got drunk one night during this period but she didn’t go into labor so he thought no harm was done.  She on the other hand felt just a little bit differently…