“@#$% OFF!”  So I said, “yeah, those two.”

To cut a long story short the marital ‘bliss’ ended when she walked out on her Aussie-Greek husband.  I had been conducting classes in my kitchen, (I tutored foreign students), when I heard this banging on the wall from His side.  “Mate mate!” yelled Larry, “Call the cops, they’re coming to get me!”  I am trying to work out, who is coming to get him, and look out the back door and his ex, yes the (@#$% off) one is there with several of her Islander ‘buddies’.  They must have seen me open my door and the next thing I know they are on my back landing trying to walk into my place.  I said, “Now where do you think you’re going?”  I push him back out my door.

“Oh we just want to talk to Larry.” He said trying to sound conciliatory, as he kept trying to walk in.  They had obviously assumed that it was just one house and that my door was the back door.  Probably because in order to win her over in the first place Larry had beguiled her with stories of HIS house back home that she imagined would be HER house, but was really his dad’s house that he lived in rent-free.  So, here I am faced with a pair of Fijians standing at my back door insisting they enter.  Now if anyone has seen the proliferation of South Sea Islanders that get work as Bouncers, you will know what I was facing.  Imagine two axe-handles across the shoulders, seven feet tall, 300 lbs, looming in my back door, with my little Asian student quivering in fear behind me at the kitchen table.

Now I am a tough talker, oh mate, I can talk up a fight.  If boxing matches were won with tough words I would be world champ, hey, maybe I should be a pro wrestler?  Anyway, so I said, “This is my place mate!  You’re not coming in here.”  I stood in front of him and pushed back till he was outside my door and down the steps, now it was my turn, and smiling I looked at Larry’s ex who scowled back surrounded by her bouncer buddies, and calmly said, “Your turn now!”

* Abbreviation for utility truck, Aussie for pick-up truck.

** Cabs dispatcher substitution when they can’t pronounce a name.