That apartment in Elizabeth Bay [see below, portents and dooms:: part two], it tried to kill me.
I woke up one morning surrounded by haze and realised I'd slept through my alarm by a couple of hours. Then I realised my gas stove had been leaking all night and my studio apartment was full of gas. I leapt up out of bed and flung open the sliding door to the balcony and opened all the kitchen windows (there weren't that many).
After taking my first gulps of fresh air in several hours out on the balcony, my first reaction was to panic that I was late for work. I was only twentyone/twentytwo and it was my first ever job, so give me a break.
The thing is though, I was suffering from gas posioning. I had a shower and got changed for work, with the gas still lingering lovingly in the studio apartment. Then I threw up and shat myself and had another shower, and then made it halfway to Kings Cross train station before I spontaneously shat myself again on the street. So I went home and had another shower and got changed again.
Even after all this, I actually went to work. The thought of spending the rest of the day in the shitty studio apartment that nearly killed me, with the crazyfucker on the groundfloor and the lift going up/going down all day just didn't seem worth it.
I got to work about four or five hours late and they weren't very amused. I told them what happened and they said, "Drink some milk, it's a good remedy for gas inhalation."
This probably explains my aversion to the corporate world in more ways than one.
The next time I locked myself out of that studio apartment in Elizabeth Bay I got the fuck out of there. More than likely, I quit my job at the same time and went overseas.
instead of saying: a decade later, I still turn up for work several hours late and move apartments and quit my jobs. But gas is one of the only drugs I don't inhale on a regular basis.
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