77. The Man Who Couldn’t Keep His Arm Straight

While I was drawing this, I looked up to see a woman dressed in an Hawaiian shirt, dark blue track pants and white rubber sandals staring down at me.
“Hello,” I said to the woman, taking my headphones and smiling up at her.
“Wait,” she said, holding up both of her arms, like she was a televangelist praising Jesus, “is that an Australian accent I hear in that hello?”
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I lived in England for a long time so it’s not so extreme,’
‘I lived in Bundaberg, mate,’ the woman shouts, and laughs.
I laughed, too, asking her how she came to live in Bundaberg.
‘I married an Aussie,’ she told me, ‘We were married for 8 years. I gave him a hit of acid on a beach in Indonesia…and then I married him, my own fault really.’
We both laughed.
“But he couldn’t keep his arm straight,’ the woman said.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I see.’
The woman laughed and clapped and shouted -‘SEE! you know what I mean. I knew an Aussie would know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ I said, nodding my head, ‘I know exactly what you mean.”
‘I gave him an ultimatum,’ she said, frowning slightly, ‘Me and the kids or the booze,’
‘Oh, dear,’ I said.
‘He gave it up for a while,’ she told me, ‘but he went back to it,’
‘Shit,’ I said.
‘I didn’t want to lose everything,’ she told me, ‘I have a nice house in the Canyon.”
I didn’t say anything, I just nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I had my dogs there but I can’t get anymore animals because I have vertigo and asthma.’
‘Oh, dear,’ I said, ‘that’s not good.’
‘No,’ she said shaking her head, ‘It is not good.”