Reservoir Dad’s Adventures in Phuket – The Wedding

Only moments before Kelly walks down the aisle I become aware of the fact that the heat of Surin Beach, male sweat glands and white shirts are not a good mix. The way one of the groomsman keeps pulling at the material and shaking it away from his body reminds me of the under-fit men in the Olivia Newton-John film clip Let’s Get Physical.

What captures my attention most, however, is that the wet and clingy shirt is accentuating the slight overhang of his nipples, and having studied myself in the mirror, at different angles, at different times and in different clothes in the bathroom mirror in our hotel room every day since arriving in Phuket, I am more than a little concerned that the groomsmen beside me is not the only man in possession of the dreaded bitch-tits. I consider hunching my shoulders, or crossing my arms or even resting my hands causally on top of my head to pull the skin tight over my pecs as Kelly moves into position and holds Todd’s hands.

Todd is awash with emotion and the shock I feel at his public display of tears makes me realize that the potentiality of my bitch-tits has very little to do with the importance of this moment and yet I cannot erase the feeling that people are stealing a glimpse at me, and every shuffle and every photo flash and every unconscious cough from the crowd seems to inflame my nipples to the point where I am sure that, given the chance, I could upstage Rudolph for the honor of guiding Santa’s 2009 Sleigh.

My gaze drifts towards my family. Archie is drinking diet coke from a straw and bopping his head to a song only he can hear, Tyson’s little arms and legs are flailing excitedly at a toy hanging from his pram and as I turn my attention to Reservoir Mum, who is physically restraining Lewis in a figure eight grip we learnt in a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class, I am beset by a charge of emotion and a strange feeling of relief – there is no other life I could have ever possibly wanted and happiness and joy for me is a simple matter of holding my attention on us and while I will continue to strive for personal goals and push myself in certain areas of my life there really is nothing else to achieve beyond what the five of us are together.

Suddenly my self awareness softens and my focus sharpens and I realize something very important – my nipples have nothing to do with Todd and Kelly’s marriage.

Kelly finishes her wedding vows and they are pronounced Husband and Wife as the soft wind slows and the ocean settles to a glassy lake and the laughter and chatter echoes as cheeks are kissed and hands clasped warmly and the tops are popped from Champagne and beer bottles and the groomsman start ribbing Todd about his tears and the photos are taken as the sun disappears and there is a sense that we need to immerse ourselves in celebration as much as possible because this night will end too soon.

The guests leave the sand for the Catch Club which will hold the reception but I decide to stay with Archie on the beach, beer in hand, with nothing else to do for the next few minutes but watch him. He’s doing circle work in and out of the water, squealing and hollering, stamping his feet and I’m laughing at the same time that I’m feeling slightly melancholy. Archie is showing me the way to live – be here and now with whatever emotion or energy moves you. It’s a clichéd truth that carries with it an undercurrent of sadness because like most adults I move from one moment to the next with baggage from the past and concerns for the future and the only time I really ever get a taste of the unfettered happiness I see in front of me is by-proxy through Archie and Lewis and Tyson, and even then it suffers under a certain fear and a certain weight because I love them.

Archie stops and giggles and makes me choke a little on a mouthful of beer as he squiggles out of his shorts and starts peeing into the water. Feeling brave under the cover of night, I join him and we laugh together as we have our first sword fight and then we zip up and I chase him around a little just to hear him squeal excitedly one more time and we’re up to join the rest of the party.

The food is delicious and the speeches are great and we get a special mention from Todd for making the effort to bring the whole family over and we feel honored for the mention and then all of a sudden it’s time to get the boys to sleep.

Reservoir Mum sits with Tyson as I walk Archie and Lewis along the beachside strip of open-air restaurants in our Phil and Ted double-decker pram. The boys are pointing out the lights that snake their way up several palm trees as I hear a tune that I find familiar coming several restaurants ahead and when I realize it’s Land Down Under by Men At Work I feel such a sense of elation that I have to physically grab my own throat to stop the moronic chant Oi Oi Oi.

The song is cathartic and I get a sense of myself that pleases me – I am uncultured, I don’t like to travel, I hate adventure beyond lifting heavy weights and I want to go back to Victoria and live with my family there and never ever leave again and it feels so good to know this about myself and not want to change it that I start singing and kicking my legs out a little and jigging the pram left and right and coaxing looks from the restaurant patrons. I am enraptured by a crazy sense of freedom.

When I get back to the wedding reception Archie and Lewis are nigh-nighs and I park them at our table and take Tyson from Reservoir Mum with authority and self-assurance. ‘You finish your dinner,’ I say. ‘I’m a stay-at-home Dad and I don’t care who knows it.’

I choose to stand in front of a restaurant that’s playing Let’s Groove by Earth Wind and Fire because it’s the perfect rhythm for rocking an infant.

Within minutes – maybe even seconds – Tyson’s asleep. I feel a great sense of achievement. This is what I do. Give me your sleepless human baby and I will cure it.

I walk to the reception backwards just for the hell of it and as I pass the table where the Bride and Groom’s family are seated I lean in and say, ‘Three down in record time, mutherfuckers,’ before continuing my backwards jig to Reservoir Mum.

‘We need someone to watch the boys’ I say to her, as I lay Tyson down on his belly, ‘Because I’m going to request the DJ play the classic electro breakdance hit Rock It by Herbie Hancock, and then I’m going to dance, and I know that this is typical of me after I’ve had a few drinks – and I appreciate that you’re doing your best to restrict yourself from rolling your eyes right now – but you’re not going to want to miss it this time because I’m feeling pretty good about my life and I just might do a head spin.”

“Okay,” she says, as she leans back against me.

I look over at Todd and Kelly and they seem overwhelmed at times and there’s no doubt that the wedding has gone as well as it possibly could and I think briefly about my other childhood friends – Gazza and Scratcha back in Aus – and I hope that we’re all hanging out together ten years from now, having BBQ’s, insulting each other and watching our families grow.

I nudge Reservoir Mum and point down at my slumbering boys and say, “I’m fucking good at this.” She reaches up, scratches my stubbly chin and says, ‘Yep, you are,’ and I eye the DJ and prepare mentally for my dance solo because I know there are seven billion people in the world and I am crazy lucky that out of that massive number Reservoir Mum, Archie, Lewis and Tyson happened to me.

Reservoir Dad’s Adventures in Phuket – The Buck's Night Part 2

Cheap fucking Christmasy lights and tinny music and seedy open-air bars as far as the eye can see and I am so stung into wonder by the unbridled debauchery of the Patong nightlife that I find myself skipping - happy little girl style - and pointing at everything I see in such a way that all the traders are approaching me with the ching-ching sound of a cash register in their ears.

There’s madness everywhere and while I am impressed by the up-frontery of the hookers who show me their wares, and the persistence of the tailors who work 24/7, and the casualness of the animal handlers and the ferocity of the salesmanship in the Pirated-DVD guys, I am mostly impressed by the continual allusion of sex which overwhelms every nook and cranny of Patong in the same way that a house decorated with a freshly chopped Christmas tree is overwhelmed by the smell of pine.

Todd is wearing a T-Shirt with the word’s “TODD’S BUCK’S NIGHT written across the back in black marker. On the front is a grid with 36 squares and 36 tasks that he must complete by the night’s end ranging from sculling a beer to enacting a ‘Mick Dundee’ on a Lady-boy – which basically entails cupping his hand around her meat and two veg – and while I have my doubts that Todd can complete every task I am certain that he will dig deep and give it his very best shot.

A man dressed as a monkey selling half price passes to the Phuket Zoo appears on one side of me and I feel a scratchy weight on my shoulder as another man appears on the other side of me yelling, “You want photo? You want photo?” I do my best Arnold Schwarzenegger slow-mo glance in the direction of the scratchy weight until I bump my forehead against the open mouth of a giant fricken Iguana.

“Get it the fuck off me!” I scream, as I bolt ahead of the group thrusting my hips back and forward and shaking my chest like some crazy hot dancer from the 80’s hit Maniac. I am the cause of much mirth for the Buck’s group and Dennis comments, in a way that could be interpreted as semi-serious, that I have some impressive moves. Being in such a buoyant mood and happy that the man actually caught the giant Igauna before it fell to its death, I have to agree with Dennis – I did move very well and I’m sure that if I had performed those steps in a different context, say at a Blue Light Disco, I would have been an inspiration to many.

We find our way to The Malibu Bar which was secured for the Buck’s Night exclusively nights earlier and within seconds of perching myself on a bar stool three waitresses begin massaging my shoulders, arms and hands (I italicise waitresses here only to save myself from the effort of writing prostitutes and Lady-Boys). The effect it has on my intoxicated mind and body could only be matched by a shot of morphine and by the time I regain my clarity I am in need of a napkin to wipe the drool running from the corner of my mouth and something else to drink with a little kick in it.

Todd lines up several shots and we down them quickly as Jamie climbs a stripper’s platform and starts thrusting against the pole and within minutes of watching him gyrate and kick and swing I am convinced that he has participated in the highly popular pole-dancing fitness classes back in Aus. I make a note to tell him how impressed I am with his talent as I strike up a conversation with two of the other Buck’s – Buck 11 and 12 – who I met only hours before, and within minutes the inevitable, “And what do you do…” question is raised.

“I’m a stay-at-home-Dad,” I say.

Waitresses appear from nowhere to break the lingering silence with their shoulder-loosening fingers. After several seconds Buck 11 says, “That’s great. No, really. I’d love to be able to hang out with the kids all day. Go to the park and that.”

My mouth opens and then shuts and then repeats that pattern several times until I stick another shot into it. I then buy the waitress a shot, which guarantees her 50 Baht from the bar, and distract myself from replying to Buck 11 by refocussing on Todd’s efforts to cross off every box on his T-shirt. As I watch him proposition a Lady-boy, swap pants with a stranger, scull a pot while standing on his head and offer a sexual service to a merchant for 100 Baht, I am suddenly aware of the fact that Archie, Lewis and Tyson will one day start reading this blog and that this very post may be the one that confuses them the most.

I am interrupted by the urgent need to urinate and hightail it out and notice the toilets are right at the end of the long thoroughfare of bars. Todd, who is still negotiating with the Merchant – they have agreed on the sexual act Todd will perform but the merchant will not go above 80 Baht - stops the intense negotiations when he sees that I am heading in the direction of the toilets. “You should seriously think about taking someone with you, when you go for a slash,” he says. “The waitresses and Lady-boys can be very persistent about getting you into their bar.”

I shrug it off, laugh at him, and start walking in the direction of the toilets. I feel confident. I feel great. If the women and the he-she’s pressure me too strongly to enter their bars, I’ll simply ignore them and walk right by. I am a big, big boy and I can handle it.

As I approach the first bar several waitresses gather at the entrance so I hold one hand up, offer a pleasant expression and mouth No Thanks. Like a clumsy adolescent boy trying to reach second base on his first date it takes me a moment to realise that my raised hand has been seized. I am being dragged, violently, towards the bar by two waitresses and I whimper, pathetically, No I don't want it, as another grabs my leg and yet another goes directly to my nether-regions and works her hands in such a way that the meat is separated from the two veg in what appears to be a bizarre measuring-up ritual.

I am being shunted towards the bar paralysed and conflicted by the fact that my genitals are being handled so expertly by a woman – who may or may not have a penis herself – at the same time that my will and sense of self is being shattered by an effective Phuketian gang-tackle that I lose all ability to think my way out, and it seems my fate is sealed, until another waitress jumps on my back and reignites the memory of the giant Igauna, and I know what I must do.

I channel the energy of the Maniac with every ounce of effort available to me and recreate the dance that served me so well only hours before, and to understand the effort and emotional intensity involved I urge you to watch this clip –

In my mind I am suitably dressed in tight black leotards with white cotton wrist bands and I flick and gyrate and buck and thrust and jump and dive and punch out and one by one the waitresses release me and fall away until I am back out in the thoroughfare panting like an overworked racehorse and jerking all around like that little squirrel chasing the nut in the Ice Age series. With urine on the horizon I have no choice but to Maniac my way past all the bars on the way to the toilets and in this fashion manage to deflect and avoid dozens of genital-scented hands without more than a few mills of leakage.

After doing my business, I stand at the sink for several minutes convincing myself that I have what it takes to make it back and then I hear Todd behind me.

"It's okay. Wait for me. I 'll show you how."

He returns a minute later and guides me to the entrance of the thoroughfare.

"Don't leave me," I say.

He smiles, takes off like Usain Bolt and screams, "Let's just keep going RD. Let's just keep going!" as waitresses bounce off him or dive back inside their bars for their own safety.

I decide I need some real motivation to gee myself up and give me every chance of making it all the way to the Malibu Bar and so I settle on what I feel is the most appropriate song to sing - "My body's nobody's body but mine, you've got your own body, let me have mine," I bellow with all my might, as I take off running faster than I have ever run in my life, not sure if I actually have enough energy left to break free of the waitresses clutches.

They lunge, reaching for me. "Let me have mine," I scream.

Let me have mine.... !

Reservoir Dad’s Adventures in Phuket – The Buck's Day/Night Part 1

The boat is fanging its way towards Phi Phi Island with fourteen semi-decent to non-decent males on board. I’m almost certain that I’ll get seasick and so I distract myself with inner dialogue about the overweight boat-boy. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of cheap board shorts and I’ve been trying to count the roll lines on his belly but he keeps bending, stretching and reaching for things and so I come up with three different numbers – two, three and seven. I’m about to give up, add the numbers and divide the total by three for an average when he finally stops moving and looks stoically back towards Phuket’s shore. I’m surprised to find that his belly wobbles out into a perfect podgy sphere with no lines at all. I ponder the size of his omentum for a moment before we burst through a large wave and I’m jolted back to reality.

Todd, the Buck, told me weeks earlier, that we were in for a day of swimming, diving, snorkelling, lunch and beers on a chartered speedboat. He then asked me which of those activities I would be participating in and seemed surprised when I replied, categorically, lunch and beers.

The Captain yells ‘In case of an emergency….’ over the roar of the boat and that’s about all I hear. I’m not concerned because if this boat capsizes or crashes or is attacked by sea monsters the result will be the same for me whether I understand the emergency procedure or not – death, so I pretend I'm listening, nod seriously and turn to Jamie, Todd’s brother and best man, who is tapping me on the shoulder.

“You have to snorkel,” he says.

“I don’t see any point in snorkelling,” I tell him. “It’ll make me wet and then I’ll have to dry myself.”

“Everyone will be doing it. Are you scared?”

As all visible sign of land disappears I have the impression that the sea is overwhelming us – like cookie dough overwhelms a chocolate chip – and I see no reason to change my decision.

“I’m not scared, I just have a care factor of zero for this particular activity. I’m happy to sun myself and drink beer on the boat. Are you okay with that?”

“I’ll lose a little respect for you,” he says.

“Respect for me? I won’t be the one splashing and squealing like a little girl in the water,” I tell him. “How about I bypass the snorkelling and when we get back to Phuket I’ll find a sprinkler to spread my arse over. You can be the one to turn it on if you want.”

Jamie laughs and even though I’m appearing as blasé as possible I am stuck on the ‘respect’ thing. I like Jamie – he’s a cool dude in a doofusy, Clarke Kent-ish, Gilligan from Gilligan’s Island kind of way and Todd is one of my best mates from right back to High School days and I am suddenly struck by my predicament – I can do what makes me happy or I can do something, marginally painful, to make the groom and the best man happy on what is an important day for them.

I decide to consult the oracle and so reach for a can of beer and pierce the end with a pen. I shake it just a little and then shotgun it in what I feel is under three seconds. Even before I lower the empty can-slash-oracle my 2009 Geelong Premiership Cap is blown right off my head and out of the boat and I take this as a clear message to stay on board and refuse any water activities until Jock – Todd’s father – hands me my cap back and says, ‘It just blew into the back of the boat.’

I swallow a wellspring of emotion and am certain of two things – Geelong will win back-to-back flags 2009/2010 and I will be dipping myself into the ocean for the benefit of my long term friend.

The boat boy waddles past and starts collecting diving equipment as we round Phi-Phi Island and find a ‘good’ diving spot. I reason that he is a good choice for a boat boy for this particular group. Most of the guys have taken their shirts off already and this has to have something to do with how good we feel about our own abs in comparison to his.

Todd is in his element, surrounded by his friends and family – beer drinking foul-mouthed mostly Aussie lunatics – and he leads the diving group into the water. I pull on a pair of flippers and a snorkel and waddle my way to the edge and I can’t help but think that if the boat-boy ate an all meat diet for a month and did some basic exercise that he could switch from Buck’s groups to Hen’s groups and probably make a lot more Baht.

Suddenly I’m in the water. Several fish swim by, I can see right to the bottom of the ocean and am aware that this is what divers and snorkelers talk about – the clear water, the colourful fish – as the carrot of the experience, so I do my best to get taken away. I see a school of barracouta, a big flat fish, some skinny white fish and a very fast fish with yellow stripes. The chorus from The Dream Police is replaying itself over and over in my head. I have no idea why.

What strikes me, apart from the fact that I am just about brain dead bored, is that all the fish are so fricken calm. Why aren’t they eating each other? Where’s the violence? The Dream Police is replaced by the echo of a radio advertisement designed to raise awareness of people with disabilities with the catchphrase - ‘See the person not the disability’ and as I float lifelessly, so disinterested that I can’t even be stuffed paddling, I have to be honest with myself and say that every time I meet someone with a disability I always see the disability first and it is only with great effort that I then see the person, if time and circumstance permits. I also notice the fat in fat people first, the old in old people, the bushy eyebrows on hairy people, the height of the very tall or very small and the pus-filled zits on the pimply. I feel semi-guilty about this until I consider the fact that when I look at myself in the mirror the first thing I notice is the baldness, the sickly whiteness of my skin and the very very slight appearance of bitch-tits on the bald, white, nearly bitch-titted man looking back at me.

Four really big brown fish swim past and look right at me and I barely notice until I see the look in their eyes. They’ve encountered yet another snorkeler and they’re thinking, ‘Oh, there’s another one of those, again.’ They’re as bored with the activity as I am.

Some ocean gets in my snorkel and I lift my head choking and spluttering as Jamie swims by. I look back at the boat. Ten minutes of snorkelling has to be enough to get the respect Jamie has on offer.

The boat boy offers a hand to help me on board and in this position I can see five very distinguishable rolls of fat. I decide that five will be the official number. The flippers and snorkel are discarded and I decide I will now revert back to my University attitude for the rest of the day/night and so open another beer. I have at least half an hour to empty several cans. The Captain turns on the radio and sits down next to me. We look out over the expanse of what is the most beautiful scenery – Islands, massive rock formations, clear water, blue sky – and within minutes he is telling me how he picked up a Phuketian lady-boy by accident.

“Like you pick up your mates keys instead of your own?’ I ask, ‘That sort of accident?”

“No, man,” he says, a little pained, "I mean, I bought her for the night – 1500 Baht – but I thought she was a real woman."

“What did you do to her?" I ask.

“Just about everything,” he says and then goes into detail. “(Content removed by author).”

“How’d you find out she was a lady-boy?”

“I just realised when I woke up in the morning.”

I think, Bullshit to that. You wanted to sleep with a lady-boy and now you want to talk about it. You really really love lady-boy but I really say, “That’s crazy man.”

He nods as The Empire of The Sun start singing Walking on a Dream and I feel awesome about my decision to snorkel for only a few minutes because I would have missed this little story and I know that people are crazy and while everyone’s out there skydiving and scuba diving and ab-sailing I’ll be sitting around watching and waiting for a crazy person like the Captain to spill his guts to a crazy person like me and when asked about my Phuket trip in the future I’ll be talking about how crazy-cool this dude is before I talk about a couple of colourful fish.

The Captain continues his frank discussion about lady-boys and even though I am now aware that there’s a strong chance he is trying to pick me up I start to look forward. Soon we will leave this boat behind and get sucked into the night-life of Patong where there’s a constant atmosphere of insanity, where everyone seems to be laughing at one another as they bargain money, sex, experience and time from each other. It’s going to be crazy and as the rest of the boys climb on board and start reaching for the cold beers I get this tingly, drunken, excitable flutter about the night ahead.

Reservoir Dad’s Adventures in Phuket – The Jellyfish

I’m in a lazy sun-slash-beer-slash-food stupor and comparing myself to the recently fed, highly-sexed lion, lazing under the shade of a tree in the sweltering African heat. I come to the conclusion that I stack up alright – Lions eat lots of meat and I have eaten double helpings of every kind of animal available in Phuket. Lions have sex fifty times a day and I have already thought about sex at least fifty times today. And when not aroused into action by sex or food lions do nothing at all and I am also doing nothing very, very competently.

I open my mouth to let out a groggy roar but the effort is beyond me and I resign myself to a dopey smile and several smacks of my recently beer-soaked lips when I notice a blurry shape to the right running down the beach towards me. I lift my head to see Reservoir Mum walking at a steady pace with Archie, crying, and Lewis in toe. A mild panic strikes me and I’m on my feet, suddenly alert.

“He’s been stung by a jellyfish,” she says. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Oh Jesus, is he going to die?” I scream.

Reservoir Mum rolls her eyes and tells me to go ask the locals for some ointment. I run as fast as my legs (which are fatigued by my extended period of stagnation) can carry me, to a woman selling massages for 100 Baht and tell her that my son, who has encountered tremendous peril at the hands of a jellyfish, needs her special magic ointment to ward off any chance of death. She fails to understand me and calls over another woman who cannot understand me who calls over a man who holds two hands up and says, “What do you want?”

I say, “Jellyfish sting ointment.”

He speaks in Phuketian and the second woman dawdles off and returns with a slice of lime. I ask her if she perhaps forgot the cocktail that goes with it.

‘Rub it on the sting’ the man says.

I’m unconvinced but scream Konichiwa as I head back to the scene of the drama and within minutes Archie is fervently licking a chocolate coated shark-shaped ice-cream and standing confidently on his lime-soaked legs.

***

The boys are asleep and I’m watching a pirated copy of Management with Reservoir Mum but I lose concentration shortly after the bum scene.

“I want to hunt that jellyfish down and kill it,” I tell her. “It’s out there somewhere with bits of my child’s skin on its bastard tentacles.

“Don’t be silly,” she says to me, “Stuff like that just happens.”

I feel angered by her Buddhist nonchalance at the same time that I feel enamored by her coolness. “If Archie had been eaten by a lion in Africa we’d hunt the feline arsehole down and skin it alive. Wouldn’t we?”

Reservoir Mum begins to talk but her words are lost in the shoosh of the ocean. I can see myself on a jet ski. I am high-tailing it towards the horizon. When I look behind me I see Archie on the shore. His leg is very, very red and the tears in his eyes renew my resolve.

When I look down I see a school of the bulbous jellyfish bastards, undulating as they do – their tiny heads and their pathetic wispy tentacles. I don’t trust anything without eyes and mouths but these child-stinging mongrel sons-of-bitches are also missing noses and ears. I secure the snorkel and goggles to my face and dive into the deep blue. My legs clamp together and I buck and flex my hips like a mermaid (without boobs, long flowing hair, a tan and a general female allure).

Within seconds I am upon them. They scatter like rabbits but regroup meters ahead and circle me. I am in water – their favorite place. They have the home-ground advantage and they know it.

To my right I see a jellyfish with something on its tentacles. It can only be human flesh, the flesh of my child. I lunge for it and my hand is consumed by jelly. I whack at it, bite it, punch it, poke it, give it a Chinese burn and my rage is so focused that it’s only after I deliver a thorough thrashing that I’m aware of the dozens of other jellyfish that cling to my legs, my arms, my torso. The pain is so dictionary complete.

I swim one jelly-fished stroke, one tentacle covered kick at a time until I feel the waves rise and carry me to the shore. I am dumped on the sand resembling a large summer sweet. Beautiful exotic Phuketian women run from everywhere with slices of lime and rub me from head to toe for 50 Baht a stroke and the jellyfish recoil and fall like vampires splashed with holy water.

A crowd forms. Archie is crowd-surfed over them and placed at my feet. He looks at me, still scarred by a reddish or perhaps now pinkish-white barely visible line around his ankle. He notices the jellyfish I still hold in my hand and recoils but I beckon him near. I raise it in the air and feel a surge of unnatural strength, that only a father whose child’s life is threatened feels, and I say, to the jellyfish, so that all – the crowd, the women but most of all Archie – can hear, ‘You’re going to the naughty corner. Two minutes. And then you must say sorry.’

Archie laughs and falls to his knees in relief as the crowd cheers. The Phuketian women, still lovingly applying lime juice to my legs, ask me to marry them but, alas, Reservoir Mum and my country will only allow me one wife.

The shoosh of the ocean and the adulation of the crowd recedes and is replaced by Reservoir Mum’s voice. "We should buy him that blow-up shark floaty thing on the way to the beach tomorrow though, to encourage him to get in the water again."

"Yes," I say, "He’ll love that" and within minutes I can see Archie floating out into stormy seas. I am guiding my hang-glider through lighting and rain, honing in on him. The Phuketian women are wearing wedding dresses and singing a particular song from Moulin Rouge which I can’t quite remember the name of……

Reservoir Dad's Adventures in Phuket - Flight Of The Wolf

We’re five hours into a nine-and-a-half hour flight to Phuket and all I really want to do is watch a movie. I’ve had several attempts at the new flick Management but am only twenty-five minutes in and can only blame it on the seating arrangements.

Reservoir Mum, Archie and Tyson have three seats together. Me and Lewis are sitting in the row behind them.

Lewis. Lew-is. I don’t think I can emphasize Lewis enough here. Tyson is an angel baby whose temperament is more closely related to Spock’s (with smiles and giggles), than it is to mine, and Archie will watch television – in a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox, in a drain and on a plane – for hours on end. Lewis is, on the other hand, as Lewis does and Lewis does need to release massive amounts of toddler turbulence every five to ten minutes.

My crazy mixed-up mind suddenly considers the idea that Reservoir Mum has a good thing going on and that she has probably been aware of this from the moment she began planning the trip over several months ago. My suspicions are confirmed when she turns in her seat and says, ‘I’ve watched two movies and one sitcom so far. Have you had any sleep yet? You should get some. I feel so much better.’

I look to the emergency exit lever and am overwhelmed by a longing I have never felt before. I want to buy it flowers, massage its feet and disembowel myself for the sweet relief it promises.

The food arrives, neatly packed on small trays. I place Lewis’s tray in front of him with all the enthusiasm of a diffuser cutting a random wire on a bomb. For a moment, as he chews on a piece of lemon chicken in a cow-like fashion with his eyes on the TV monitor ahead of him, I feel like I’m in the clear and my muscles systematically relax until my bones are fully reclined in a seated position for one of the few times in the entire flight.

Ahh my darling food. Lamb – terrible airplane packaged lamb – but lamb nonetheless. I take the remote control from my arm rest and rewind Management to the scene I have already watched several times. Jennifer Aniston says to Steve Zahn , 'Okay, you can touch my butt but then you’ve gotta go.'

Admittedly, I could be a little further into the movie than this if I didn’t appreciate the artistry and the performance of this particular scene. Jennifer Aniston’s butt is also worth watching, no matter who’s feeling it and, yes, I understand that there are issues to explore here – the sexual appeal of dominant women, Groundhog day fantasies (would you like a desert island and a coconut, or an airplane and Anniston’s butt with that?) and the fact that I am becoming increasingly aware that I am a dirty old man in a relatively young man’s body – but they are issues that will await further posts.

I’m piercing a piece of marinated lamb with my fork and guiding it to my mouth with such anticipation that I am almost choking on my own saliva when I am suddenly struck in the cheek by a stream of milk. I scrisper (a scrisper is a scream tempered by a whisper) and the ‘s’ in Lewis turns me into a sprinkler that gives my TV monitor a bath. Lewis is grinning with a small container of milk in his hand that has been partially opened. I snatch it from him, knocking a third of the lamb on to my lap.

Words cannot capture the rage. The spirit of the wolf possesses me. I focus entirely on my food despite the potential embarrassing disaster developing beside me. I am over a carcass. The other wolves are circling. I only have to growl, bare my teeth, and devour the most edible parts of the kill as quickly as possible. As I shovel my food into my mouth I am semi-aware of Lewis standing and spilling his tray – water, main meals, sweets and all – but my body swells further, my face extends into a snout and my skin constricts to reveal a heavy coat of fur. The mind is thereabouts but overwhelmed. I am physical, animal, and food is my only concern. Unless there is some intervention this lamb will be devoured and then I will tear this fucking plane apart.

To the rescue. A stewardess pours me a cup of coffee and my claws retract into human fingers even as I am taking the first sip. I help Lewis to finish his meal spoon by spoon while she talks to him and plays with him. He smiles shyly for a moment but then begins to perform, making up songs, gyrating in his seat. The stewardess seems to be melting with affection for him. A few more minutes pass and I am smiling at him and laughing with him and filled with pride that he can have such an affect on someone.

I love the little bugger – the tiring, stubborn, funny little bugger – and no matter what happens that undercurrent of love is always there.

The coffee settles well. I can relax for the moment. The mind has replaced the wolf and life is good but there are hours of flight to go, two airports and a Taxi ride through Phuket to our apartment before we can settle.

I focus on the TV monitor and rewind to Aniston’s butt again. I’ve seen this scene nine times now and it keeps getting better every single time I see it.

I Do My Little Turn On The Catwalk

As Reservoir Mum and Tyson are flying off to Sydney for a conference, Archie Lewis and myself are on a three hour trip to the country to see the grandparents. The kids are watching Alvin and The Chipmunks on the portable DVD player with a lap-full of crackers and nuts and I can hear Alvin's squeaky little tone and I wonder who it could be supplying his voice - probably someone famous like Jack Nicholson.

I scream out, 'Nooo', as I glance at the rear vision mirror and notice that Lewis is nearly asleep. If he has even five minutes of sleep during the day his bedtime ritual can be put out for up to four hours and I just can't handle the impact that would have on my schedule. I will be watching the 2009 AFL Grand Final DVD tonight and I don't care who knows it. I wind down the back windows and blast an icy wind on his face. A nappy, half the MelWay and a small puppy I had bought to surprise my sister are sucked out onto the highway but Lewis is laughing himself awake and I am satisfied that the disaster has been averted.

Bang. The chipmunks are singing 'You Can't Touch This' and I am locked inside myself again. Reservoir Mum fills my mind. I miss her after only waving goodbye an hour ago but I'm not surprised because music from my teen years fire my neurons with a mix of euphoria, depression and alcoholic type blackouts.

A bus passes me in the left hand lane and I can't help but wonder if anyone saw me absent-mindedly shift my jeans-constricted genitals a little bit to the left. The very likely possibility reminds me of an article I read in a doctor's office about the sexual fantasies of middle age women. Driving past trucks with the skirt hiked up around the hips and the breasts bared rated very highly and all of a sudden I am thinking about boobs. I can see a pair of them waving from side to side in front of me like a hypnotist's watch and it occurs to me that I never really was a breast man until my sons arrived to take them away from me. The mirage of a pair of breasts becomes two MC Hammer's in baggy yellow pants dancing on Reservoir Mum's chest singing You Can't Touch this and I'm back with the chipmunks and Archie and Lewis and another hour, at least, of driving and I feel desperate for a seventies/eighties/nineties music fix.

I swerve into an exit off the highway that leads into a BP convenience store and within minutes am back on the road with a CD called 'Guilty Pleasures' that is just bulging with nostalgic hits - ABC, Cyndi Lauper, Starship, Tears for Fears etc - and I'm shaking with excitement. I skip straight to MC Hammer-the boob-denier's You Can't Touch This for the real version and within seconds I am flexing and relaxing my glutes to get a bopping-up-and-down-on-the-carseat-dance going. Archie and Lewis are laughing and I can't help but be enthused by this. I dip my head to the left and the right, slap my hands together semi-rhythmically and point at them in the rear vision mirror. This just about incites a riot as the boys go ballistic. They wanna be like me, their cool Daddy-O.

They dance well. They dance very well. Picture two hamsters on a medium-to-hot frypan and turn up the heat. One of Lewis's arms break free of the restraints and in all the excitement it's only natural he smacks Archie right in the face. I scream,'I'll turn this damn car around!' and change tracks.

Rick Astley is Never Gunna Give You Up but he won't stop Archie chewing at his car seat restraint to enact a horrible revenge on his brother so I fast forward to I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred. Bingo. We're off again, dancing like the freaks we aspire to be - there are a thousand spiders in our hair we just can't get out, no matter how hard we try.

I drift again and see a long catwalk. Everyone we know is there lined up in their Sunday best, screaming for us. Archie, Lewis and Reservoir Dad strutting up a storm, singing, dancing, gyrating our way to a life of fame. We do a little jig in a circle and then jump higher than anyone expected us to and finish with a spinning back kick. I'm thinking move over Jackson 5.

Archie stops me mid strut and brings me back to the long road ahead.

Dad, he says, what is sexy?

Oh shit. Sexy. I know what it is but should he know yet? I run through good definaitions of sexy in my head - concerned predominantly or excessively with sex, someone or something that is sexually appealing, Wilma from the Flintstones - Uh, no. Anything that has anything to do with sex has the potential to lead to other words like penis, vagina and vas deferens. I tell him that sexy means you wear nice clothes and I feel okay with that cause its kinda true in the round-about way that not telling the truth is kinda like telling the truth.

The sexy smoothness of Sam Brown singing Stop joins us and I turn it up saying, 'Okay. This here, Arch. This is sexy.'

I watch them staring silently as Sam soothes them. They're so cute. Like little chipmunks. They're the cutest kids. I feel like screaming 'Line up your kids people! I dare you. None of your kids are cuter than mine!' For a moment I consider that Arnold out of the Cosby Show may have been their equal in the cute stakes but only directly after he said, 'What you talkin' 'bout Willis?'

I think of Tyson and I miss him - his wobbly bubby cheeks, his husky little giggle, the way he drools and wees on me and how it doesn't even bother me. I wonder what he's doing and Sam Brown enhances the emotion to put me on the verge of homesick-like tears but I'm well aware that I'm a man and that crying in public is considered an outrage and so I tilt my head to the side and watch the road through the corner of my bleary eyes, just in case another bus comes by.

Within a split second of thinking of the bus coming by I remember the sexual fantasy article and I think of boobs again and I'm almost certain that Tyson is breastfeeding and I remember that I have now been banished from breastland for nearly five baby-suckling years and the boob mirage appears again just out of reach in front of me on the open road. My mind morphs images and the boobs become two Geelong Premiership Flags, one from 2007 and and one from 2009, blowing in the breeze. For most of my life I thought they would always be just beyond reach but here they are, mine forever and the message is clear.

I turn the music up and listen to We Built This City by Starship because it just seems like the right time to do it and I'm feeling buoyant, suddenly. My boys are awesome. The way they dance and punch each other! The way they eat nuts and crackers and watch DVDs! They are works of bleeding art. I feel good that we made them - me and Reservoir Mum - and I know, and I'm sure Reservoir Mum knows, that the boob-time we sacrificed to make our kids the best kids ever was well worth it. And I'm thinking, as I tap my fingers on the steering wheel and shift my jeans-constricted genitals back to the right, that my boob time will come again.

Oh yes, it will come again.

Wild Waters

When I finished high school, I moved to a town on the beach. Ten minutes walk would take me to a wide blue horizon, a cool sea breeze, soft warm sands and waves that were the perfect size for surfing without any real risk of injury or death. I lived with mates who were keen surfers. Our bath always had a trail of sand leading to the plug, wet suits hanging from the shower curtain rail and the smell of turtle wax and seaweed lingered from one side of the house to the other.

With all that you’d reckon I'd have leathery brown skin, a smattering of sun spots, freckles across my face and the ability to hang ten, duck dive and swim like a fricken otter.

Truth is I have pale white skin, a few suspect moles and my water skills are limited to the ability to drink it when I can’t find a Coke Zero.

The beach has never appealed to me and getting wet has been reserved for showers and baths. In my time by the seaside I went into the water twice. Once because I was trying to impress some girls by skinny dipping, another time because I fell asleep on a blanket and the tide came in.

So – shitmanandfarout – it was hard for me to adjust to the idea that I’d be going to swimming lessons with the kids. It was Reservoir Mum’s idea of course but even I can understand that kids should be skilled enough to keep their heads above water if they were ever unfortunate enough to find themselves in it. I was just hoping that swimming lessons would be Reservoir Mum’s domain, (or nanny’s, or a distant relative's, or the guy who runs the late night Kebab van in Preston) but no such luck. We’re booked in every Tuesday for (what feels like) eternity. Arch at nine am, Lewis and me at nine thirty and Tyson and Reservoir Mum at ten.

Yep. That’s right. Lewis AND me. In the water. With other people who may not have showered and are probably peeing.

Here’s a report of our first trip to the pool as a family...

The muggy air and the echoey screaming and hollering makes me feel like I have a concussion. Fucking togs – on entry into the water trapped air escapes and makes fart bubbles right next to several of the Mums I’ll be spending the next half hour with. Yes, of course, I am the only Dad. Lewis loves the water. I love it about as much as I like dipping into tubs of cow shit and worms but I do my best to pretend that I am pretending to love it cause Reservoir Mum is watching. A woman brushes against me. Her legs are hairier than mine (I’m talking bear-in-the-rapids-searching-for-salmon hairy) and I’m thinking Lewis better enjoy this a hell-of-a-lot. The group instructor is large enough to displace a third of the pool’s water. She seems to have her sense of self built around the fact that she is very stern. 'The kids will get used to it,' she says. I want to tell her to keep her I’m a tough fat girl and I don’t care who knows it routine to herself but I notice something on one of the mother’s teeth and am almost certain it’s a pube. We start singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus…’ and I feel ridiculous enough to consider putting my face under the water into Faeces-ville. The instructor yells ‘And what do the Mummy’s on the bus do?’ and avoids eye contact with me. I think Mummy’s? What the fuck do I look like? before internalising a vision of myself pooncing around in a circle with a bunch of women. Oh, shit. Still, I stew on her discrimination for a minute and am just about to scream Are there any fricken dads on this bus! when she introduces the next chorus with, ‘And what do the Dads on the bus do?’ and I bite my tongue. Take it easy man. Just take it easy. We start swimming through the pool to collect floating toys. We’re told to get one each and return it to the toy tub but I think Stuff it, this is my chance and me and Lewis return five toys in record time, biceps bulging from the effort. Sure, some of the other kids are a bit upset but my point is clear – I’m feeling insecure and DADS RULE! More dancing. Safe entry lessons. Lewis is losing interest and telling me he wants to get out. I want to get out too but I can see Reservoir Mum on the sidelines. She looks so happy so I do my best to last the full thirty minutes. Lewis scratches my stomach with his toe nails as we’re told to get in a circle and hold hands. The cute little girl next to me smiles as we bounce in unison to the left. I grimace at her cause that faraway look in her eyes tells me she’s pissing and I’m bouncing right through it. Then we change direction and I realise the giantess instructor is holding my other hand. She has that same look in her eyes. We’re outta here. Fucking togs stick to my skin and reveal every nook and cranny of my nether regions. They might as well be painted on. Wet towels. Debri stuck to my foot that feels like cigarette butts and mouse poo. I line up my wet arse with a dozen hairy old men arses in the change rooms. My cold wet jocks stick to my ankles. I can’t kick them off. I resign myself to bending over and nearly fall. For one of the few times in its life - before I regain my footing and clamp up - my anus is exposed to the cold air. The old men chuckle. My pool experience has lived up to expectation.

It was a torture I never want to revisit but Reservoir Mum, Archie, Lewis and Tyson are as happy as hell as we waddle our way with bags of wet stuff to the car. They love it. I love them. So, I guess I’ll suck it up next week and do it all again.