You know what I did this summer?

TWELVE per cent of Australians are out there having fun.
I know this because six per cent of the population is unemployed and another other six per cent is at university.
And if you haven’t already gone into cardiac arrest, I’d like to explain.
You see, I have a full-time job. I sit in a small departmental office and write papers that nobody reads, about subjects that nobody is interested in. (In my office, to ‘circulate’ something means to throw it in the bin).
But my friends are all students, unemployed, or have casual jobs. And believe me, they’re out there having a blast.
I spent this summer with my right hand surgically grafted to a mouse. I spent it manacled to a desk 20 floors above sea-level having conversations with the animated paper clip on my computer screen.
I spent this summer contracting new and resilient strains of influenza because my hypothalamus couldn’t reconcile the 15 degree temperature difference between inside my building and the street.
Where were my friends? Where were the students and the unemployed of my acquaintence? The beach. The pub. The cafe. David Jones. At home on the lounge watching Oprah.
(How come university students get eight months off over summer in any case?).
It’s not that I begrudge them a good time. What I have a problem with is their lack of understanding at my situation.
Going out boozing every night and getting home in time to watch televangelism on the box is fine if you can get up at ten, fresh as a daisy, and do your four hour shift in a call centre. But I have a workplace agreement that requires me to have had an argument with a dodgy elevator by 9am Monday to Friday.
I can’t afford to turn up to work looking like I’ve had the biggest Sunday night since God first kicked off his shoes, put on his best mesh shirt and turned Heaven into a nightclub.
But what I really begrudge is that as I’m the only one with any money, it’s always my round.