Back in 1997, I had a phone call. It was from someone I call the Chicken Man. I had not thought of him in decades, but a recent article about welding and a photo of a man holding a sign made me cast my mind back to that time when, one afternoon, I got asked a very important question:
" Do You Know How do you cook a Roast Chicken? "
It was an ordinary Saturday when the Chicken Man called me. I was bored and was feeling a bit down in the chops. Recently divorced., my social life was nonexistent and I was not into online dating.
Don't get me wrong: I love men and I adored being gorgeous. But the idea that this would be the focus of my life and very existence seemed somewhat vapid and - well - a waste of time. My Saturday afternoon had no expectation of romance or a fun night out.
Men tended to think that I was a dizzy blonde, because, back then I was not bad looking. Cute, short, slender and rather pretty, I tended to get my fair share of appreciative attention from blokes who, quite frankly, didn't have two brain cells to rub against another.
And so it was, about just after midday, sitting in my small apartment, pondering what to do for the rest of the afternoon, the phone rang.
In the olden days, people used to have things called landlines. It was before the invention of things called mobiles or " cell phones. " These ancient contraptions were wired into the wall of a house and no one knew who was calling before they picked what was known as a " receiver " and spoke into the mouthpiece and inevitably said
" Hullo? "
The voice on the other end of the telephone replied quickly.
" Oh, thank god you're home! Do you know how to cook roast chicken? "
I replied " Yes, I do. "
Pause.
" Brilliant! " he replied.
I stood, at my telephone, conveniently located in my kitchen and waited for his reply.
" Why do you want to know? " I asked.
"Because Jenny is coming over for dinner tonight and I reckon I have a chance. All I have to do is nail the dinner. "
And so it was that I started to tell him about how to cook a roast chicken dinner.
After about 5 minutes, he said " Thanks so much Maggie. I really appreciate you helping me out. "
I replied " I'm not Maggie. I'm Shaydee. I think you dialled the wrong number. "
Silence.
" Oh shit. "
"It's Ok " I replied. I'm not doing anything else so I'm happy to help out. "
And so it was that i spent an afternoon talking to a complete stranger about how to set the table, what wine to serve, how to put the knives and forks in the right places and on and on it went.
During our talk about the best way to roast potatoes and what makes the best chicken stuffing, he told me that he was a bricklayer.
He had been since he left school at 15 and he was now in his mid-thirties. His back was starting to play up. His body was starting to feel the pressure of 20 years on the building site.
" These days " he said " we deal with a lot of concrete block. Heavy bastards. "
I agreed and remembered when my parents had built a concrete block fence and we all helped move the blocks to the fence site - they were heavy " bastards" just like he said.
He told me that he wanted to get a qualification so he could teach young tradies the art of bricklaying. I encouraged him to check it out. After all, he could teach long after his back let out on him.
By about 4 pm he cracked a beer and I, wishing to be polite, uncorked a bottle of chardonnay and joined him for a sip or three. We talked about Jenny and how he thought that " she was the one. "
I told him about my failed marriage and we discussed the difference between Rugby League and Rugby Union. How, as two Queenslanders, we weren't that fussed about Aussies Rules because ( as he said ) it was for poofters and girlie types.
I thought I had better put this in before our Victorian friends think I am biased.
We laughed about the fact that we would never say that in front of our Victorian friends because that would be a step too far in pushing the boundaries of friendship.
He told me about his mother who had passed away the year before and how she cooked the best roast chicken dinner EVER. In fact, he would have called her that day, had she still been alive.
Why didn't he ever learn to cook? He questioned. A different era we decided.
By 6 pm I got a whispered " She's here. "
I wished him luck and we terminated out 5 hour long phone call.
I realised that I didn't know where he lived, what his name was, or what his phone number was. I would never know how the dinner went, or whether he married Jenny. I hope they got married, had a few little rugby players and a chef or two to add flair to the mix.
I thought about him only the other day when we heard about raising the retirement age, yet again. How manual labourers and tradies exert so much stress on their bodies and deserve to have that taken into consideration when assessing retirement. I hoped that the Chicken Man had gotten his teaching qualifications and had downed tools before he was crippled for the rest of his life.
I also thought of our friends online - folk we will never meet and often will never hear their voices at the end of a telephone connection. How we do not know what we look like, sound like or even where we live in many cases.
Our governments are now proposing legislation whereby they can censor our conversations online. What next? Our phone calls? Surely this is wrong.
The anonymity of the internet is much like the conversation I had all those decades ago with the Chicken Man. It is to be treasured and celebrated that people can come together and discuss Life, the Universe and Everything.... including how to cook a chook.
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