So, I’ve been busy. Apart from welcoming a new Baby Rogenous into the fold late last year, I’ve been arsecrack deep in manwork — something of a radical departure from the poncy stuff, like blogging, with which I prefer to fill my idle hours.

Anyway, chief among my domestic projects has been the construction of a sandpit to hold three 1000lt water tanks I scored for Christmas. The job, up until the weekend, had involved digging out part of the lawn in my severely sloping backyard and building/propping up a level timber box. This left me with a large hole to fill — too large for me to be able to afford all the expensive packing sand I’d planned to sit the tanks on.

The classifieds in the local paper came to the rescue, with one woman — who we’ll call Jane — advertising a metric shitload of free cleanfill for pick-up not far away. So on Saturday morning, at what I assumed was the reasonable hour of 10am, I grabbed my phone and called hers.

After about 10 rings, an extremely hung-over-sounding man answered:

MAN: … ugh, hello.
ANT: Hi, my name’s Ant Rogenous and I’m calling about the dirt.
MAN: … the dirt.
ANT: Yeah, the dirt in the paper.
MAN: …
ANT: Um … can I speak to Jane, please?
MAN: Jane … yeah, righto.

A good 30 seconds passed before an equally hung-over-sounding woman picked up:

JANE: … ugh, hello.
ANT: Hi, my name’s Ant Rogenous and I’m calling about the dirt.
JANE: … the dirt.
ANT: You know, the dirt you advertised in the paper?
JANE: Oh, right. Take as much as you want.
ANT: Great!
JANE: Okay, bye.
ANT: I’ll need your address.
JANE: Okay.
ANT: …
JANE: Oh, right, it’s (says address).
ANT: So when’s good for you?
JANE: Any time. Don’t bother knocking, just go ’round the back. It’s all there.
ANT: Okay, thanks. I’ll come over now.
JANE: (beep … beep … beep)

When I arrived at Jane’s house, the hung-over man — who we’ll call Steve — was standing in the driveway, phoning his mate to come and pick him up. We exchanged a greeting of blokey nods — it felt like the right thing to do, since I was carrying a shovel — and then off I fucked ’round the back to get started.

Fifteen minutes into digging what turned out to be mostly compacted clay, my mobile rang. Caller ID told me it was Jane.

ANT: … ugh, hello.
JANE: Heyyyy. Is this the sex god?

Sex god? Well, I supposed I did look pretty manly, shovelling dirt into buckets and wiping my brow with my forearm, just like I’d seen real men do in Victoria Bitter ads.

ANT: Um … yeah, righto.
JANE: (giggles) I just wanted to make sure I had your number right.
ANT: …
JANE: Steve?
AND: No, Ant Rogenous.
JANE: …
ANT: The bloke digging dirt in your backyard.
JANE: …
ANT: …
JANE: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh mygod.
ANT: …
JANE: Ohhhhhhh fuck, sorry. Fuckshitfuck.
ANT: Don’t worry, I’ve been called a sex god before.
JANE: (beep … beep … beep)

Needless to say, Jane didn’t come out to say hello. And I, doing what I reasoned was the manly thing of not risking her further embarrassment, shovelled for another half-hour and then fucked off without calling to say thanks.

Thanks for the dirt, Jane.