Chapter 4 - Meltdown
Mother Theresa and I have become a fixture on the waterfront at Hervey Bay. Mother Theresa’s the name I’ve given the Winnebago because my sponsors like the idea of the campervan developing a personality. When they asked me why I chose that name I told them it was a reference to the amount of action she was seeing: almost two weeks into the trip and not an orgy or a “ritual disembowelment” in sight*. I don’t think my answer put them at ease any.

Anyway, I’m hanging out here because I’m having another techno meltdown. I originally called in to get Mother a quick dust proofing, but then the little men in the computer starting calling me names and making fun of me again.  

That’s what my Final Cut Pro guru imagines when he’s got technical issues: that there’s a little man in the computer who just needs understanding. He told me this without a trace of embarrassment, I might add. I didn’t tell him I was a trained psychiatric nurse who used to get paid to look after people saying exactly the same stuff. No, my guru probably eats Hershey bars for breakfast and gets paid a great deal more for talking to the little men in the machine than I ever did for convincing the lunatics they didn’t exist.

Though he still can’t help me because he’s on holidays now. He got back from America and promptly disappeared again. It’s getting harder to remain objective about this. But what I do is go on local radio and put out a call for an FCP expert. Hallelujah, I find one lurking under a rock just above the high tide mark.  

I guess we always knew at school that one day the nerds would get the power, that there’d be payback for all the taunting and grief inflicted upon them. Well, it’s happened. Now uncool is very cool and the geeks have inherited the earth.

My FCP guy is so good I want to download him. He’s more than happy to help. At least that’s what he tells me at the beginning. Then I start ringing him. Hourly. No sooner does he solve one problem for me than I ring with another. Before long I’m visiting him at his work. I get anxious and fret if I can’t see him. It’s like the early stages of a romance only the relief is better. In the end I have to break it off before he reports me for stalking.

One of the advantages of temporary insanity is you don’t really notice it yourself; it just feels right for you at the time. For example, I’m almost certain I walked into the water fully clothed at the end of the last segment I just shot. Luckily most people take no notice of people doing bizarre things for television cameras, these days.

Yesterday at Munduberra I had a thoughtful, intelligent entomologist stick his head in a small tent full of flies and mug it for the camera#. Took about point-five of a second to convince him to do it; in fact I think it was his idea.

He told me there were fifteen thousand flies in the tent so naturally I asked him how he knew.

“We count the legs and divide by six.”

A nice, television-friendly grab. He was good talent, the entomologist. Knew how to keep his message clear and simple. Make a joke or two along the way. Had a friendly face and a big smile he used a lot.

“We breed good bugs to control the bad bugs,” he told me. “To give farmers a natural alternative to chemical pest control.”

As well as the flies he showed me maggots (the nursery), ladybugs, lacewings and wasps so tiny you could barely see them.

“How do you send these little ones out to the farmers?”

“In these,” he said, holding up a plastic drink cup, complete with clear plastic lid, “ten thousand at a time.”

“Doesn’t look very scientific; that’s a take away coffee cup, isn’t it?”

“Here we call them Aphytus rearing cylinders,” he laughs.

“How do they get the insects out of the cup and distributed evenly?”

“We put ten pieces of paper in the cup which the wasps naturally settle on at roughly a thousand per strip. Then all the farmer has to do is walk through his orchard spreading the strips of paper about, and the wasps fly off and set to work on the Red Scale bug. Exactly what they were born to do.”

A clever man, no doubt. And he’ll play in a tray of maggots if you ask him. (He draws the line at eating them. Of course I asked: that’s my job.)

Meanwhile I’m still snookered on the IT front. Word has got out in the caravan park that I’m having a breakdown. A woman just brought me some home made cookies and cake. They were very nice. Another woman sent her young boy along to say hello. I ate him as well. When he didn’t return the lady at the front office came asking if I’d seen him. I told her yes and to keep sending them through, I’m going to need more where that came from to get me through this.

On the way out of town I call in to the shopping centre to buy a few supplies. It’s there I get the call from my producer and my worst fears are confirmed: the audio on my retailer story is unfit for broadcast and I have to do a voice-over to salvage enough to make the segment work. Now – in the shopping centre car park.

While I’m doing it a woman with two small children comes up to say hello. I grab one of her children and eat him on the spot. I motion for her to pass me the other one but she grabs the girl and runs.

Three days at Hervey Bay is supposed to chill you out but I feel strangely unsatisfied. As I drive out of town I comb the streets looking for something else to eat.

* Quote from the first in the RED IN THE CENTRE series: The Australian Bush Through Urban Eyes, taken from a letter Rover Australia sent to the Nine Network back my Today Show days, after I returned from Cape York one car short and one car a bit the worse for wear.

# First colour section, page 5, top.

© Monte Dwyer 2010

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