Gluteus Maximus, there she blows! (Entering a writing competition)

Life’s been a little bit hard to watch of late, so I thought you might like a bit of a giggle. This was the first piece I ever submitted to a writing competition, some 6 years ago now. I sent it in, went on an overseas holiday for 6 weeks and forgot all about it. When I came back they said I’d won…astonishing! I’m only telling you this in the hope that when you find yourself in two minds about taking a chance, you’ll let the competition entry envelope drop silently into the postbox and allow fate to take over. Hope you get a giggle out of this. The topic was a Whales Tale.

© The Ponder Room

   ‘What’s that?’ demanded Daphne, leaning her crimson walking stick against the weather-beaten wooden post while absentmindedly massaging the palm of her right hand with her left thumb.

   ‘What, what did you say?’ thundered Doreen, her best friend of 70 years.

   ‘See there, that dark patch. Look there, now there’s water shooting up in the air. Can’t you see that Dot, surely even you can see that?’ Daphne shrilled, picking up her walking stick and waving it in the air to accentuate the direction.

   ‘Of course I can see it Daph, I might be a bit deaf but I’m not blind you know. Could be a whale’, ventured Doreen, pushing her chestnut glasses further up her nose and squinting out to sea.

   ‘A whale, what are you on about Dot, honestly, you had some of the table wine at lunch didn’t you, I’ve told you before, it doesn’t agree with you Dot?’


   ‘It could be a whale,’ Doreen retaliated indignantly, ‘last night Gerry, you know him….’

   ‘I don’t know any Gerry,’ Daphne butted in, ‘that’s a German name. Why would I know a German?’

   ‘Yes you do, Gerry from the radio, Midnight to Dawn, you do know him. Anyway, he said that the whales had been seen off the back beach again this year.’

   ‘Hmm a whale you say?’ Daphne pondered, almost but not quite, conceding that on this rare occasion her friend might just be right.

   Their forceful voices, combined with the prospect of seeing a whale were enough to stop me in my daily constitutional tracks. Peering out across the sparking waters, I rued that my last remaining strains of vanity were still preventing me from getting glasses.


© The Ponder Room



   To my left moody teenagers hung out near the kiosk, mobile phones permanently bonded to their thumbs as they silently texted each other. The girls were texting about their ‘best friend’s’ bikini choice being ;so last year’. Meanwhile the boys surreptitiously sent ‘winning’ chat up lines to their brave mate who, having overcome a severe case of pimple induced shyness, had begun strongly in his quest, but was now clearly floundering. His last remnants of bravado all but disintegrating as his object of desire ignored him while casually appling her 17th layer of lip gloss.

   Nearby the kiosk owner was slumped against the counter reading the paper, fully aware that he had a greater likelihood of being crushed under a tsunami, than having one of the teenagers actually part with their phones for a second to buy and ice-cream.

   Straight ahead, silicone enhanced cougars lolled about preening themselves in the shallows, having perfected the ideal ‘water to fake tan’ ratio. Any deeper and their $500 ‘sun-streaked’ look would start resembling the less alluring patterns of an ageing male giraffe.

   Just up from them were the local councilors who, smelling copious photo opportunities hovered two paces behind television crews, all the while trying to uphold their professional image as their shoes sank deeper and deeper into the sand. Ignoring them, the film crews slowly advanced on unsuspecting pert twenty year olds, who were just old enough to ensure that any cutting room footage wouldn’t get thrown out by the stations legal department.

   To my right bored middle aged housewives, having volunteered for the Sun Smart Sunscreen Tent, blatantly eyed off the fit 20-something male bodies parading before them, hoping upon hope, that one of them would race into the tent demanding cream be rubbed liberally into his toned, brown, although somewhat disappointedly hair free chest. Sadly it wasn’t to be, and so they spent hour upon hour oiling up squirming babies and crisp octogenarians.

   And then there were the ‘Boaties’. Ah the ‘Boaties’, an interesting subculture, easily identified by their signature plumage of Speedo trunks hoiked so high up their buttocks, you could see all the way to their egos.

  Now it’s a well known fact that Victoria Secret models are the only women who, unlike we mere mortals, don’t have to leave a room backwards when wearing a ‘g’ string. Yet for some reason the Boaties, who tend to be predominantly middle aged men, choose to ignore this fact, thereby subjecting the whole beach going population to their unfettered, hairy, cellulite riddled, buttocks. Mercifully the poor souls floundering offshore waiting to be rescued by them aren’t privy to this sight, otherwise they might just decide to take their chances with the sharks.

   Daphne and Doreen, having survived two World Wars, The Depression, and the Andre Rieu loop on the nursing home television, weren’t distracted by the goings on down on the beach, as another jet of water erupted into the air.

   Retrieving a small pair of plastic blue toy binoculars from my bag, it became apparent that the dark mass was in fact a collection of semispherical spheres, bobbing up and down in unison. Correcting the focus the image became even clearer.

   Evidently in an unusal fit of modesty, the oldest boat crew, Crew 105, had forgone the customary Speedo hoik, preferring to keep their buns firmly closeted within their straining black lycra swimming trunks. As a consequence, when a huge wave hit their boat, the tenth law of physics was rendered worthless, a law which dictates that:

© The Ponder Room

When gluteus maximus flesh comes in contact with cheap plastic rowing seats, the suction is one hundred times greater than that generated by the union of hollywood tape to a size 2 models bare breast tissue. Unless of course the dress is red, and an ex-Eagles footballers girlfriend is involved

   Twelve highly anxious, hairy men were simultaneously catapulted into the ocean, and while the tenth law of physics was abandoned, the laws of gravity held true.

   Consequently their much prized beer bellies instantly propelled the men face down in the water, leaving their bottoms bobbing on the waters surface, creating one large, mercifully clothed, mooning.

   Now how do I explain this to Daphne and Doreen?

   Oh and the spurts of water?……Just nerves I suspect.

Stay tuned for more from the Perth Writers Festival, including the Dexter session write up.