FRANKLY MR SHANKLY by THE SMITHS Story by Ralie Realtor

Ralie Realtor
Retirement (or something like it)
Brisbane, 6pm

…This position I’ve held
It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul…

Forty-eight and a bit years old. Male. Wife in full-time employment. Daughter finished the first of 4 years of university. 25 plus years working. Flow rates, pressures, pump and pipes, numbers, capital costs, operational expenses, dickheads for managers, naïve and raw graduates, and know-it-all-know-nothing clients. Might not be true for all. However, I reckon a lot of people would have gone through the same things whilst working. I can see a lot of heads nodding.

…I want to leave, you will not miss me…
…Frankly, Mr. Shankly, I’m a sickening wreck…

Tired. Burnt out. I want out. I don’t want to be here. I need something new.

What’s next? Retirement. Or a very sharp detour.

No solid plans. Wing it. Improvise. Until the money runs out. Or until I get bored doing nothing. Or when the wife starts screaming for me to earn my keep. I reckon the wife thing happens first.

I am jumping off the deep end. Into an abyss. I have not struck it rich from the lottery or from any shady, underworld dealing. I still need to support the wife support me and the daughter financially (the wife has allowed me to partially leech off her). It is not exactly riding off into the sunset. Just something like it.

…I want to live and I want to love
I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of…

Now, what is something like retirement. Not being a total bum. Earning money, little stress. Getting paid, enjoying the work. What do I like doing? What am I good at?

I like drinking (beer and single malts, and vodka, and gin, and rhum, and – okay, okay, I might be alcoholic). Bar tendering? Might be too difficult a temptation. Scratched off the list.

I like eating. American, Filipino, Japanese, Italian (I would include Australian, but can anyone tell me what is Australian cuisine). Low and slow, smoked meat. Pasta. Roasted pig, whole roasted pig. Litson or a rolled pork like porchetta. Sushi, Sashimi, Kobe beef, Matsusaka beef, Hida beef. Drools… Will I get paid eating? Not likely. Unless I become a famous food blogger. Option open then. Need a plan to get famous.

I like cooking. My friends like my American BBQ ribs and Kare-Kare (Filipino fare of oxtail, beef cheeks, and ox tripe with Asian greens stewed in peanut sauce). The family likes my carbonara. I get asked to grill meat at friends’ parties (they just don’t like the heat). I cook paella at home – been good most times. Cook and eat, hand in glove. This option might work. I’d need to get friends who has tasted my cooking to promote me somehow. Being the a-hole that I am, friends promoting me might not be straightforward.

… Fame, fame, fatal fame
It can play hideous tricks on the brain
But still I’d rather be famous
Than righteous or holy, any day
Any day, any day…

So, it seems fame is the key for making a living off eating and cooking. What to do? Run naked onto a cricket pitch? Take a selfie and shout like hell during a tennis match? Famous, not infamous. Will need some ideas on getting famous.

Sports!! Watching, not playing. The four major sports in North America, rugby union (All Blacks), rugby league, Formula 1, MotoGP. Not that much into MMA and boxing. Not fully into cricket (although the five-day Tests and drinking at the stadium while watching is tempting) but the limited overs versions are starting to grow on me. Football (the global football, and I will not call it soccer). How to make a living out of this? Write about it. Focus on the American scene and give insights to the Australian audience? But Aussies hate Americans – yet free-to-air stations are now televising American sports, so there must be a local audience.

…Oh, I didn’t realise that you wrote poetry
I didn’t realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry, Mr. Shankly
Frankly, Mr. Shankly, since you ask
You are a flatulent pain in the arse
I do not mean to be so rude
Still, I must speak frankly, Mr. Shankly…

Now, what am I good at? I meme/troll/annoy the hell out of people. I am an a-hole to a-holes (did you call me one?).

I don’t talk much. I write words with more sense (to me at least). Words flow from the keyboard much faster and smoother compared with the mouth. Maybe I am a shy and reserved person (no violent objections please). Maybe the www allows me to be anonymous and be an a-hole without getting into too much trouble. For whatever reason, written words seem to be more attractive to convey ideas.

I am at a crossroads, wanting to get away from the professional world but needing a fallback position for paying the bills. I have not decided anything except I will bail out, bolt, scoot, escape the daily grind. Confident? Nope. Hopeful? Hell yeah!

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know I will hold it by the balls! I’ll tell you later if the future kicks me in the balls!!