What I'd get up to on Fridays and Saturdays, with Oscar Buzzers.

This has no real plot; essentially it's just a loose chronicle of what I get up to on regular Fridays and Saturdays (I usually reserve Sundays for taking it easy, you see), but with my real-life friends replaced with some of you guys.

DISCLAIMER: Any negative depictions are in no way meant to be representative of the truth.

Friday, 11am. I’m about to go through the front entrance to my local town library to return some items when I see ESTEFAN coming out with some newly-borrowed books in his hands. I wave at him, and he notices me. “Oh hey, Jarred, what’s been happening?” he says to me. “Ah, just finishing off assessment, working, you know, the usual. What books did you get?” “Well, just these ones…” he holds them up to me. They’re The Complete History of the Walt Disney Company and the 2009 edition of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. “Fine picks, man, fine picks! You can always trust Maltin,” I say. “Oh absolutely. Well, Jarred, I’d love to chat, but unfortunately I’ve got a heap of study to do for next week, so I’ve gotta keep going. Sorry, Jarred.” “Hey don’t let me keep you!” I concede. We bid each other goodbye, and I venture into the library.

Once I’ve returned the two books and four CDs, I look at my watch, and realizing, I have time to kill, I decide to have a look through the collections for the millionth time. While I go around the aisles in the classical fiction section, I overhear two clearly well-read people having a discussion in the aisle in front of me about Austen and Dickens. Out of curiosity I peer through a gap between three books and they are AIDEN and MATT_THE_SCOT. I waltz around the corner to surprise them. “Hello, hello!” I say cheerfully. Aiden and Matt turn around. “Jarred! How are you!” Aiden exclaims. I tell her I’m fine, then ask her how she is. “What’s up?” Matt says to me, he and I shaking hands. An awkward silence ensues for about ten seconds, until I come up with an icebreaker: “What are you two doing here, besides, you know, finding stuff to read and listen to?” Aiden explains to me that she and Matt both arrived separately but they wound looking for stuff together after they learned they each have an appreciation for the classics (Aiden slightly more so). Matt asks me which author I prefer out of Austen and Dickens, but I say I don’t know because I’m not that cultured. After about ten minutes of talk, Matt politely leaves to avoid being late for work, and Aiden asks me if I’d like to have lunch with her at an up-market café which I’ve never been to. I oblige.

Not being as cultured as she at this café is not so confronting, however she does help me when I embarrass myself by struggling to pronounce the name of an exotic meal I like the sound of in front of the waiter as we order. Over lunch Aiden does most of the talking, and although many of the subjects she brings up are admittedly not overly interesting to me, her enthusiasm is engaging. In amongst this she tells me about a production of The Tempest happening tonight at the theatre in which she’s playing Miranda. I have no other plans so, as a show of solidarity, I tell her I’ll attend. After about an hour of conversation she has to leave for a dress rehearsal, and we each pay half the bill.

It’s now 12:30, and I walk along my local mall looking for things to do on my day off. I come across a busker, TYLER, playing a John Mayer cover on his guitar. I get out my wallet, take out a five-dollar note, toss it in his guitar case, put my wallet back in my pocket, kneel down in front of him, touch him on the shoulder and I say without any sarcasm, “Never stop chasing that dream, mate.”

As I go on walking through the mall, the first store that takes my interest is Jay Jays, a clothing store. I go in, and as I’m sorting through the men’s shirts on the $10 bargain table I see a familiar, like-minded guy doing the same. “KRENN?” “Jarred, how’s it goin’ dude?” he says, noticing me. “Well, I’ve got the day off work today so I’m just down here tryin’ to kill time, maybe buy some sh!t. You?” Krenn says he’s doing just that, too. In the women’s section on the other side of the store, Krenn and I both spot CARLEN and MARISA all on a shopping spree together. Both having picked out two outfits we like, we ask the girls to tell us if the clothes suit us, after we put them on in the changing rooms. Krenn’s first gets their approval, and my second one does. Mine is a black mesh shirt and dark green three-quarter pants. I decide to buy it, then the five of us go our separate ways.

Next I go to Sanity, a music and DVD store. As I look through the rock CD collection I turn around to find CHRIS and SONIA comparing and contrasting each other’s taste. Sonia notices me and calls out to me. I go up to them, say “Hello, how are things?” et cetera and they each ask me which of them has superior taste. I say, “Aw, geez, do I really have to choose? (pause) Sonia, you’ve got better taste in movies, but Chris, your taste in music trumps hers. I’m on the fence, guys.” For five minutes or so we have a similar discussion to the ones I just had with Krenn, Aiden and Matt, until once again we all have to keep going. Before I leave the store I go over to the manager, a very cool and knowledgeable guy named IBRAHIM, and ask if he has any copies of Help!. After doing a mainframe search he concludes he doesn’t so I put an order in for one, and as I leave I say, “Thanks, mate. Have a good one!”

That night, after the production of The Tempest, I meet back up with Aiden in the theatre foyer and I say she acted everyone else off the stage. She responds very fondly to this, but she says she can’t go out for the night because she has to rest and prepare for tomorrow night’s performance. I remind her here that I’m not trying to force her into anything. After five minutes of chatting, we each decide to part for now.

9:30pm. I meet up at the movies with BRIAN, MIKE and DUSTIN for a late screening of My Bloody Valentine. As it turns out, the film is about as scary as a litter of labrador puppies. However, instead of walking out, we each decide to stay for it all as we’ve already paid for it: Brian pretends to be asleep, Dustin plays with his phone, and Mike and I laugh at all the people in the theatre with us who scream. By the end, none of us apologize for picking the film because none of us want to admit to picking it. I ask them if they want to go out for drinks, but they all have to work in the morning. I respect that, so we bid each other goodbye.

Now, it’s 11:25pm, and as I’m walking back through the mall to the nearest bus stop, a person’s hands cover my eyes. I stand still. “Guess who!” the American voice says. I turn around, and it’s STARBUCKS. Happy to see him, I go, “’sup, dude!” We high-five each other. I notice he is wearing a black golfers’ cap on his head. “Ferris Bueller would approve, man,” I say. “Darn tootin’! That’s why I bought it!” he laughs exuberantly. “Say man, I’m on my own now and looks like you are too – wanna go get some coffee from my namesake?” I tell him I don’t drink coffee, but I could definitely go for some doughnuts. Half an hour later, he and I are sitting in Starbucks, he with a cup of coffee and I with a tray of iced doughnuts and a cup of tea. He mentions briefly how there are so few Starbucks outlets in Australia as opposed to America when suddenly PAT and his girlfriend enter and go over to the counter. They haven’t noticed us yet, so I lean over to Starbucks and whisper in his ear (in a mock Rick Springfield singing voice) “You know I wish that I had Patrick’s girl…” He chuckles understandingly. Pat and his girl now receive their order, and turning around to leave for the door they now notice us. They then go over to our table and greet us. For the next hour or so, the four of us sit there discussing alternative rock and the frustrations of dating from the perspectives of both genders. At around 1am, all of us feeling very tired, we bid each other goodbye and go our separate ways to get some shut-eye.

Saturday, 11am. I arrive at the beach where I meet up with MATTY, KIM and his girlfriend. After an hour-long swim followed by lunch, Kim and his girl understandably want some time to themselves, so Matty and I decide to have a look around the nearby rockpools. We get to the top of a five-metre high rock wall, when we see a lone figure sitting there like a statue on the edge of the cliff, presumably just taking in the scenery. “MITCH?” I ask. Without facing us, he simply says, “Hello. (long pause) I love this spot. It’s so utterly serene… so unspoilt.” Matty asks, “Been for a swim yet, mate?” Mitch says no, there are too many people down there. “Ah don’t be so antisocial, it’ll be good for ya, trust me!” Matty says encouragingly. After Matty and I nag and nag him for a few minutes, he relents, and joins us on the beach. After another swim, we all come together for numerous games of beach volleyball. By now it’s 4pm, the lifesavers are closing up and we all decide we’ve spent enough time in the sun for one day.

That night, at 7pm, I arrive at the pub, where I meet JOSH, ROBIN, EOGHAN, NATE and MATTY again. I tell them they’re in my neck of the woods now, so it’s my shout. We enter to find WAGGY and TYLOSAUR on stage as a comedy duo doing a gig. Some of the audience members are crying with laughter. We order dinner for ourselves and form a group for the pub trivia contest. With our combined brain power and competitive streaks, we easily blitz the field. After that, we all go wild: Josh and Nate tear up the dancefloor, Eoghan works the karaoke machine, Matty and Robin verse each other in dozens of games of pool and pinball, and I alternate between all these activities.

At midnight, we decide to move on to the nightclub down the street. Whilst going there, we pass a Subway outlet across the street. I tell the others I’m going to get some cookies for a midnight snack. As I leave the store with my cookies, I see ERIC sitting by himself at one of the sets of tables and chairs with a large drink, reading the newspaper. He looks like he wants company so I go and sit across from him. “Eric! Why so downbeat all the time?” For the next few minutes he rants about societal problems like homelessness, prostitution, and drug and alchol abuse until I interrupt him with, “Eric, me and the guys are hitting the clubs right now. Why don’t you join us?” “He says, “That’s exactly what I was waiting for you to say.” We get up, leave and rejoin the others.

Twenty minutes later, we finally get in to the club. The song currently playing is Billie Jean. As we enter the main party room, a familiar-looking guy is getting down on the dancefloor: ALL_ABOUT_DAVE. I shout out his name so he notices me, and when he does he walks over to me and we high-five each other. Then, we verse each other in a dance-off, however we decide to end it after one song because we’re both so drunk that we keep crashing into each other. For the next four hours, the eight of us sit in the main bar lounge upstairs and engage in a long discussion about everything from our favourite shows as kids to our most guilty film and music pleasures. Now it’s Sunday, 4am. The club is closing, so we all finally bid each other goodbye and head home. Once I get back to my place, I open the front door, go in, go into the kitchen to get an ice-cream bucket just in case, go down the hallway to my room, and I crash onto my bed. Content with the activities of the last two days, I’m out like a light.