The Renaissance of Sadness

I'm driving around town today, working for my dad on the semester break. I have to visit the sixty plus service stations of a well known oil company around Melbourne. I have a map with each one's location marked by an insidious little red dot and when I get to one I have to fill out three forms then make a sketch of its layout. I thought that driving around by myself with the window down, listening to a few tunes and doing piss easy work would be a relaxing experience. How wrong I was.

I decide to start at the one furthest from my house, so the last one I do is the closest to home. I arrive at 8 o'clock in the morning. Rock up. Fill out the forms. Make a sketch. Leave. Too easy. The next one is only about a 5 minute drive away. Fill out the forms. Make a sketch. Leave. As I make my way to the third, it is at this point I realise something is wrong. I spot the giant logoed monolith looming on the horizon with its bloated prices and silly proclomations of nothing, and a gooey bubble of nausea fills my stomach and bursts. I would liken it to Satan blowing bubblegum from his arse.

I park the car and wonder about what has just happened. Maybe it was that off milk I've been drinking for the past week. Anyway, with some apprehension I enter the store and with squint eye request the sign in book. Fill out the forms. Make a sketch. Leave. Though as I left, the console operator spits a knowing smile in my direction that chills me to the bone. What the fucken hell was that? I get back in the car, have two cigarettes at once, turn the music up loud and centre myself. Hey! You're a cool guy, don't worry, everything will be OK.

The arrival at the forth is an experience I will never forget. It didn't have a giant corporate cock shooting out of the oil-stained concrete like the others. It is in an overcrowded suburban street where a giant corporate cock is inappropriate even for a multinational oil concern. It comes out of nowhere and the sight of it causes a wave of dread to wash over me like a tsunami of sewerage. I am stuck in an infinite loop of death from which there is no escape. This is the stuff of nightmares - travelling from one destination to another and discovering you've arrived at the same place from which you departed. The same international student asking you the same questions, the face-lacerating tedium of the red tape and the most cunting thing of all - the customers. I'd stab everyone of them mulitple times in the neck if I could.

I park the car then open the door and throw up everywhere. Have you ever seen the colours petroleum makes when it mixes with vomit? Beautiful. I make my way toward the den of impulse purchase and cold indifference, though the strain of the prolonged vomiting has weakened me somewhat so I am rather unsteady on foot. That coupled with the red eyes, the bulging neck veins and the string of saliva swaying from chin is no doubt a confronting sight for the console operator. I go about my business, crawling around the bowsers and crying and screaming at the customers filling their cars with the sweet vapour. At some point an offical looking person asks me to hurry up and leave, but a quick spit in his direction makes short work of him. I finish my dirty business and once again drive into the cyclonic, infinite loop, wondering where it will deposit me next. I know damn well where I'm going - the same place I've just been, but this it time it is going to be much worse (if that's possible). From now on I won't be wearing a seatbelt. Or a shirt. Grease me up you fuckers!!!

Luckily I'm getting paid handsomely to do this.