Last Friday, I was supposed to have a day off. I was very much looking forward to it, but last Wednesday, everything started going downhill. On Wednesday, I got a call from an old family friend, well, a friend of my mother. She’s a lady in her 70s and was recently told that her rent was going to be increased (no surprises there in the current rental climate). So she was told that she had to sign a new lease. Normally, that would be no problem. She would just go down to the real estate agent and sign the papers. However, they’ve all done away with paper forms and require everything to be done online, so of course, she needed my help to set everything up. But then on Thursday, I got a call from my boss really needing somebody to help a student with their maths assignment. Of course, the assignment was due Friday, and I was the only free maths guy, I reluctantly said yes. I know the student, and he’s had a rough trot of late. I didn’t want be the big meany, so I just accepted the shift. So my day off was filling up quickly, but I had to book some time in with my wife. Because we had so many conflicting appointments during the last couple of weeks, we just hadn’t seen each other, so we booked in 9:00-9:30am to spend some time together. I was looking forward to it. So after dropping the kids off at school, I got home around 9:00am as planned, but then I saw one of my wife’s Chinese friends parked on the street outside our house. I went up and asked her what she was doing, and she said that it was a surprise visit to take my wife out for morning tea. She’s never ever done it before, so I thought the universe was having a laugh with me. So couple-time with my wife went out the window. I did my shift finishing a bit late at 11:40am. I had arranged with my wife for her to come home at around 11:30am so we could spend some time together, but then just as I finished work and was about to spend some time with my wife, the lady who I had booked in for 12:30 came knocking on the door. I know her generation. They’re notoriously on time, which is good, but she was 45 minutes early. My wife had to go to work at 12, so any chance of me spending time with my wife quickly went flying out the window. So I helped the lady with her lease renewal. Actually, it was a lot more painful then I imagined. It took a good couple of hours to finish. So I had half-an-hour free to spend some time with myself on my wonderful day off before having to go pick up the children. So 2:30 came around, and I went and got the children and got back on time at 3:30pm. But just as I arrived, just I was unpacking the children’s bags, one of my wife’s friend’s husbands rocked up, a Chinese guy who needed some help with his home insurance! We finished by around 5pm. Finally, some time off. I asked my wife, “Are we done for the day? Can I put the car in the garage?”. And she said “Yes”. But, just as we were preparing dinner, my wife got a message from an old colleague who lives out of town, a Malaysian lady. For no reason at all, she had baked my wife a cake and needed her to go pick it up at 6:30pm two suburbs over from us, and she would be waiting for her out on the street. I said, “That’s ridiculous! Why would she be waiting out on the street?”. I said, “This must be a scam. It doesn’t sound right at all!”. My wife was insistent on going and was originally planning to go by herself, but I told her I’m not going to let her go to a strange neighbourhood to pick up a mysterious cake from an old colleague standing out on a darkened street. It just wasn’t going to happen. I know, this all sounds ridiculous, but that’s really how it went down. We got the children in the car and drove two suburbs over to a mysterious darkened street. And believe it or not, there was a Malaysian lady standing out on the darkened street with a cake in her hands. I didn’t honestly believe this was real. I thought this was some sort of intergalactic joke. My entire day off that I was planning for weeks got completely destroyed. It’s like I’m on The Truman Show. I’m completely oblivious of the fact that my entire life is some kind of reality TV show and my family members and colleagues and everyone else are just mere actors trying to hoodwink me. I don’t know. Just every so often, I have these silly days where everything goes wrong. It’s like, I can’t get out of it. I sometimes think that there’s some sort of intergalactic crowd watching my life and having a good laugh. Or perhaps, I’m dreaming, I just don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, some of the stuff that happens in my life just seems to be staged. It’s like somebody has written a script and I’m just the foolish idiot butt of the joke. MUSIC Melancholia by Godmode ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CBgFL4cOho

Over the last five or six months, our fence has been falling down. Despite repeated complaints to the property manager, nothing has been down about it. The owner simply does not want to fix it. Our backyard is now open to the street. Just the other day, a large dog wandered on in while my kids were playing out the back. Luckily they ran inside and nothing bad happened, but this isn’t the first time that it’s happened. Basically, my kids can’t play out the backyard unless an adult is out there actively patrolling the perimeter. But despite this, they decided to jack up the rent last month. Out of respect to myself, I refused to pay. I said I’m not signing the new lease if the owners are refusing to fix anything. The property manager just told us that if we don’t sign, they’ll basically kick us out. She said, “We can easily find somebody else in this market”. And that’s the state of being a renter in Australia at the moment. No power. We’re at the whim of greedy owners. So why can this happen? Well, as many of you would know, house prices are rather crazy here in Australia at the moment. Australian house prices are rocketing up, at least, according to the pundits: “Australian house prices to rise by 15 per cent this year but slow in 2022”; “House prices reach yet another record level due to ‘perfect storm’ of low interest rates, improving economy”; “Australia’s housing boom rolls on with national home values lifting another 2.2% in May”. Many people have told me that it’s a horrible time to buy, but yet, everyone’s buying. Why? Well, it probably has something to do with record-low interest rates. As rates go down, what goes up? House prices and debt! As it becomes cheaper to borrow, people borrow more, and inevitably house prices go up. Yes, Australians are in a record amount of debt just so they can say that they are living the Australia dream – “A belief that in Australia, home ownership can lead to a better life and is an expression of success and security”. From my experiences in the last six months, it’s become more of an Australian Nightmare. Houses for sale on eBay ▶ https://ebay.us/RXc2fY MUSIC Landing by Godmode #HousePrices #Australia #RealEstate ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTHe5libU2M