And so another round of uni holidays begins with another broken down car. And a broken down Labor party. Woe is me. And woe is the Brumby clan on this windy spring eve I imagine.
Tomorrow I will trudge off to work, deep in Liberal heartland. Bravely I will forge a left wing path into a sea of Baillieu mania, hawking my small ‘l’ liberal views to a hostile crowd.
I might even wear a red shirt just to really agitate things. “Don’t you know this man wants to abolish suspended sentences and build more prisons??” I will holler. “It’s a blue blooded OUTRAGE!”.
I’m lying, not about my concerns over this new government’s policies on law and order, but certainly about the forging and hawking. The reality is I will smile and be super friendly as always as I make lattes and take orders for $55 organic Christmas chickens for Melbourne’s elite. I’ll have a laugh about the kids as the lady with a diamond the size of a five cent piece drops $50 on after-school snacks for the rug rats then bundles them all into the Range Rover for the ride home through the urban jungle.
Is it wrong when you don’t quite live the way you vote? I mean thus far, I haven’t really lived the Labor dream. Sure, I’m a struggling uni student working in a café, freaking out about where I will find the money to fix my busted radiator, but at the same time I have private health insurance courtesy of my mum, I went to boarding school, and I live in one of the toffiest suburbs in Melbourne, albeit in a shoebox of an apartment.
But it’s pretty around here you see, and I’ve become comfortable in the land of the Lexus. My street has really nice big trees and people have cute golden retrievers. I don’t think twice anymore when a customer at work spends hundreds of dollars buying Christmas food they could make themselves.
But hey, I’m a massive wrap for unions, and I still thought it was unbelievably outrageous when a hoity toity Armadale lady complained about only getting the fish at a charity lunch at Rockpool. Yeah… a charity lunch… at Rockpool.
Is it ok to vote like you live in Fitzroy, when really you swan about south of the river? I’m not sure. But what I do know is my allegiance to the left goes beyond my big fat crush on John Brumby (come on, he’s hot), I promise I'll stay loyal even if Daniel Andrews takes the lead (shudder). Regardless of my post code, I just can’t see myself putting pen to paper for the Libs anytime soon. Call me hypocritical, it’s the way I roll. And as a Gen Y, I guess I’m just being selfishly true to type. I want to have my union and eat my private hospital food too.
