A rather amusing morning getting into work today as I brought in my 1.5 metre high, 1 metre wide penguin back to work. The actual reason that I have such a thing is that it is the mascot for the
Linux operating system, and my work mates gave it to me as a birthday present some years back. The memory of Meaghan carrying it home with only her little legs visible out the bottom as we walked through the middle of Sydney and then got on the train will stuck with me for a long while yet.
First trick was getting him out of our new car at
Hurstville where Liz dropped me, right opposite the Police station. The funny looks had started.
Carrying it to buy a ticket, the ticket office lady wanted me to give him to her. Not really the sort of thing to give away, but it was much nicer than her insisting that I buy a ticket for him. This is not really a joke, as if you want to take a bike on the train (like, for example, we did before and after riding 55km in the Cycle Sydney in the 36 degree heat on Sunday) during peak hour, you have to buy a ticket. This thing takes up space in a more square pattern rather than an elongated pattern, and if it hits people it is nice and squishy, but other than that it's still pretty huge.
After waiting for a magically disappearing express train to the city, I got on a normal one after twenty minutes waiting on the station with him.
Once on the train, not too suprisingly this several kilos of soft toy proved to be quite the conversation starter. Plenty of people were amused at the sign of a normal-looking corporate guy carrying a large soft toy, asking how I came to be in posession of such a thing.
The worst was yet to come, however, and it came in the form of a rather drunken woman who got on at Kogarah station. Yes, drunken, even though this was about 11am on a Wednesday morning. She proceeded to groom tux (he got pretty dirty from all the public transport - lucky his bum is black), and tell me how she thought I should keep him. Better than suggesting I leave it on the train, I guess.
The conversation (or is a one-way conversation called something else?) then turned to her collection of stuffed toys which she stole from somewhere, and from there how her boyfriend of seven years won't come around to her apartment anymore because there is no room with the quantity of plush animals around.
I seem to be like magnet for these people. Luckily she managed to remember to get off at Wolli Creek and go get drunker or something.
Finally my stop came at Central, and thankfully the train hadn't become too full - the biggest challenge had been the several people who for whatever reason wanted to walk between the carriages, the door of which tux's bum was blocking. I got out and waited for the couple of hundered people to go up the escalator before I tried with tux.
At the ticket gates at the top, the lady said "Thank You - just what I've always wanted!" No no no, although this does seem to be a good way to get women to talk to me if I wasn't already engaged.
Then it was just the walk to work remaining. This invovled crossing Elizabeth Street, dodging people everywhere and getting the second "yeah, Linux!" for the morning from J. Random Passer-by.
And then Tux was back where he was born (he arrived un-stuffed from memory and my work-mates had to fill him up and seal him somehow or other). He is currently sitting in my boss' desk, who is away until Monday.
One of the reasons for such a journey was that I was sent to a corporate
"Fish!" course yesterday, where we learnt all about how to be a nice person and love our jobs. It was actually better than it sounded, although the concept of decorating everything you can see with fish-related items is a bit much.
Hence Tux. Penguins eat fish, you see...