yay! a fez… oh. wait! huh?… a fez?!
so sometimes you walk to the post office in the morning full of anticipation. you have been waiting for those ceedees or book your ordered for ages. or, it has been a while since the new “you”. or it is the kind of morning which you think would be perfect for receiving an acceptance letter from the abc/ best australian stories/ meanjin/ southerly/ heat for that story you wrote in defiance of the advice that you should never write about children or pets or your grandmother. and sometimes you walk to the post office thinking it’s the kind of day for receiving a very dull bank statement or a water bill. or that credit card bill you have been dreading. or an unexpected speeding fine. i always cheer myself up whenever there is nothing in my postbox except a letter from kay hull, that at least there are no nasty bills that i wasn’t expecting. never have i walked to the post office (or driven there) thinking : maybe someone will send me a fez.
even when i opened the post office box this morning to find a letter from kay hull and one of those red and white cards that cause a little flood of expectant neuro-transmitters saying there is a parcel has arrived i didn’t for a moment consider that someone might have sent me a fez.
i though about the old camera that i found on ebay a few days ago and bought. a balda camera, hopefully identical to the one my father gave me and which i lost, it is hard to see from the picture. surely that hasn’t arrived yet! the box was the right size, but when it was handed over to me i knew it wasn’t a camera. it was suspiciously light. the postmark and the writing on the box didn’t give me a clue either. it took a fair while to get the box open and then there it was. i peered through the small opening i had managed to make in the box : a tassle … that red colour … the round top … it can only be … a … it is! it’s a fucking fez! why and, more puzzlingly, who would send me a fucking fez?
ah just like that. it was the gristle. he likes me. maybe he thinks i would look good in a fez. or maybe he thought the fez would look good on me. or maybe it is a priceless prop from one of his shows. i think i remember a fez on someone in that steve martin play he did. or maybe it’s the fez tommy cooper was wearing when he died on stage and everyone laughed. or maybe he thinks that if i wear a fez when i am critiqueing my students’ work they wouldn’t be upset and take out a complaint against me if i said their work was crap. maybe. maybe not.
i wait until i get home before i try on the fez. it’s been around that fez. it looks pretty good on me. i quite like the idea of maybe sometimes wearing the fez. but what would be a suitable occasion? maybe when i turn 50. that is when i could wear the fez.
other than that it was a normal morning. except i made a lamb rogan josh before breakfast which i don’t usually do. this is to eat later of course.
