ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A local man currently on his 45th trip around the sun has told reporters this afternoon that his card was declined at the supermarket a short time ago.

Dale Penk, a city worker who used to commute two hours each way to work in a windowless office for a company that doesn’t value him at all, said in December last year that 2020 was going to be ‘his’ year.

However, today’s events would suggest it is far from it.

“Don’t worry, I get paid on next Thursday,” he laughed depressingly.

“Man, this year has been tough. First the bushfires, now this super flu. What’s a man to do?”

“Just thought I’d treat myself to a TV dinner tonight. I’m going to watch Matilda, that old film with the girl and it’s based on a Ronald [sic] Dahl book. You know what I’m talking about. Anyway, there’s a scene in that movie when they’re all eating TV dinners watching TV and Matilda wigs out and blows the TV up with her mind,”

“Yeah, that’s why I thought I’d get one. But I don’t even have $9.76 in my account. Fuck me. Looks like I’m getting a kilo of rice and living on the old Thai-Burma Railway diet for a few days. If they can do it, I can do it.”

Our reporter offered to buy the odd-looking man his chicken kiev and creamy mash frozen dinner but he politely declined and slinked off into the night, walking at a fast pace in a sickly sort of gait.

More to come.