Ahhhhhhhhh! That was a sigh of relief. It was the sound of me de-stressing, relaxing, and switching off from the last 3 months of work. I’ve been on holidays for a week and have another week to go and it is definitely worth it.

I spent Christmas with my family in Hervey Bay. My days were spent watching TV, playing Eve:Online and generally ignoring the world. My nights were spent drinking with friends, eating great food with my family and, again, ignoring the world.

There is a specific joy in knowing that 14 days must pass before I go back to work. It reminds you as you go to sleep that you needn’t set your alarm, whispers to you in the mornings that you can go back to sleep for another hour or two. If there is something that needs doing, it can wait until tomorrow, or next week. No rush, no stress, no worries.

Christmas morning in our families’ house is a subdued affair. There is no tree, no decorations, no 6am present unwrapping. In fact, I have not wrapped a present in years. We hand each other our presents knowing that wrapping and extra decoration in no way improves the intent of the gift.

This year my Mum bought me art. That’s right, I, Tony Peaker, am now an art owner. It’s a great painting called “In the eye of the storm”. It’s mostly black and dark with a man grasping the edge of the canvas, stretched out horizontally in the face of the wind and rain. When I look at it I see myself in my most stressful times and know that I just have to hang on for one more day, because the storm will pass.

As my last post said, I went to a housewarming party last night. Nothing strange there, just your average get together, a few friends, a few beers, lots of chatter. It got strange when, due to a mainly male party population, the conversation turned a little raunchy. We’re men, we do that. We like to talk about disgusting or rude subjects. I’m sure that every woman in the world has overheard these conversations at some point and shaken her head in disbelief.

Last night, the tables were turned. There we were, speaking your average level of male bullshit, when a quiet voice from the girl’s side of the party said, “My boyfriend slept with a midget.” Stated as pure fact, no story to go with it, no real link to the conversation we were already having. Just, ” My boyfriend slept with a midget.”

To say it piqued our collective male interests would be an understatement. In an instant every guy there was staring at her, pleading for the details. Because, that single statement was a Gold Medal, Judges Choice, People’s Vote winning entry in the almost exclusively male game of story telling one-upmanship. We all do it, all the time. Any story told is a challenge to take it one step further. Each subsequent story gets another white lie closer to the ultimate ending, which is where everyone calls “Bullshit” on the story. It’s a man thing.

But this story floored us all. You see we had no come back to midget sex. In fact, we had no knowledge of the subject apart from the wonders of internet pornography, and even then it wouldn’t really be considered as knowledge. We begged her for details. How did he meet her? What position? What did he say it was like? She became the centre of attention for a good ten minutes as we lavished in every erotic, comedic, and politically incorrect detail. It instantly became a story that will be told at every party. In fact, every party will now be compared against that story. It won’t be a great night until someone has attempted to beat the “Sex with a midget” story.

Is there a moral behind all of this? I really don’t know. I guess I just wanted to have the best story today.

Actually, no, there is a moral. Ladies, we know that you have seen, or done, or heard of things that are guaranteed to at least place highly in the Bullshit Challenge. Next time you see the game in play, join in, we don’t mind new competitors. You will probably win and then you become a legend.