2002-11-03 at 3:58 p.m.

The last 72 hours of my life have been more eventful than the last three weeks put together. First of all, Friday was�

My 22nd birthday, to be precise. I think 22 is the age when birthdays become less exciting and more scary. 22 seems so much more� well� responsible than 21.

Not that that�s going to affect me, of course.

In the morning I was checking my e-mail, when my flatmate Jess interrupted me, looking very distraught.

Jess is a music/education graduating student. For several months, she�s been waiting to hear from the Education Department about which school they intend to place her at next year.

�The Education Department just called� she said. �They�ve offered me a place� at Brewarina!�

Brewarina is a very, very small community near Queensland, with a very, very bad reputation.

Needless to say, she was not very happy about this turn of events.

She took off to speak to some of her teacher friends about her options, and I amused myself by tooling around the internet for several hours.

When she returned, she was much happier. Brewarina, it turns out, isn�t as bad as it seems. And she�ll get to build up her own music department, as they haven�t had a music teacher out there for years. And the school is staffed mainly with young, attractive teachers, which is also a plus.

That evening, I had my birthday party.

About 10 of my friends came to dinner with me at the 3 Monkeys Caf�. We laughed. We drank. We complained about the state of the Caesar Salad. I received many delightful and marvellous presents, which I will list below (because we all know that pointless and uninteresting lists are the pinnacle of funny).

-3 ties. (I collect ties. Hey, everyone needs a hobby.)

-A �Simpsons� pen featuring Homer in a towel

-A nice, spherical candleholder

-A �South Park� video featuring �The Brown Noise� episode (which features the funniest and most --tasteless recorder joke in the world)

-A pretty picture frame

-A T-Shirt made by my friend Peter, with the following picture on the front-

Peter is now my god.

(The picture comes from the short film �Rejected� by Don Hertzfeldt.)

-A bottle of chocolate liqueur

- A book- �The Carpet People� by Terry Pratchett

-The new Tori Amos CD, �Scarlet�s Walk�

-The new Tripod CD (I�m particularly fond of the song �The Ballad of Floor Buffer Smurf�)

-A picture of camels from a friend of a friend in Saudi Arabia

(because one can never have too many pictures of camels)

-An awful lot of alcohol.

After dinner, we hooned into town and went to the Clarendon for drinkies. After a couple of hours, I was pretty pissed, mostly due to the fact that people kept buying me giant steins of imported beer. When we were turfed out of the pub at around midnight, we took off to the nearest nightclub and boogied on down (read: flailed our limbs in a drunken and amusing manner) for a while, then decided it was time to go home. Before that, though, we decided to get some McDonalds.

My friend Kurt was the only one who wanted anything. We drove through to the second window, and, instead of getting Kurt�s McChicken Meal, we were given two giant bags stuffed with food.

�Quick, Tamira! Drive away! Before they figure it out!�

She took off so fast my head snapped back.

Five minutes later, we were parked by the side of the road, munching our way though several free burgers and a lot of free fries. And what did Kurt have to say about our unexpected windfall?

�Hey! Where the fuck are our fucking drinks?�

At 3:30am, still slightly drunk, I rummaged through my cupboard and found the keepsake book my parents gave me for my 21st birthday last year.

The first part of the book contains a typewritten copy of the speech my mother made at my 21st. Here are a few memorable exerpts-

�Most other babies say �mum� or �dad� as their first word. Michelle�s first word was �duck�. She loved her little yellow bath duck., and last week, I noticed she still has a yellow rubber ducky on the bath tub.�

Hey. I knew who I loved.

�Michelle has always been very noisy, talkative, and strong-willed. She was about 3, when on a guided tour of Jenolan Caves, Michelle�s voice and cries when attempts to quiet her were made, echoed through the cave in opposition to the cave guide. At one stage, the guide said that he would like to give her a chocolate-coated hand grenade.�

And nothing has changed. In fact, it�s rare week when someone doesn�t hand me some sort of confectionary-of-death.

The photo of her on the netball court shows a typical Michelle during childhood- sucking her left thumb whilst twirling her hair with her right hand. Fortunately she finally gave up these habits, but unfortunately the fingernail biting has persisted. An embarrassing moment from the netball sideline occurred when Michelle and her opponent struck up conversation on the defence third line. The play swept right past Michelle and her new-found friend still standing and talking at the line. A goal was scored by the opposing team and the two girls didn�t need to move more than an inch to resume the starting position.�

I�ve said it before, I�ll say it again- sport ain�t my thing. But talking- there�s something I�m accomplished at.

�In year 11, Michelle attended State Drama Camp. Michelle came home all arty-farty and speaking with a plum in her mouth about the wonderful people she had met and the wonderful experience she had had. However, the distinctive laugh had not changed and the plum soon fell out of her mouth.�

Me? Speaking with a plum in my mouth? Why, the entire concept is unequivocally preposterous!

After the speech, there are a series of pages signed by my friends who attended my party. A selection-

�Dear Michelle, congrats on reaching 21! Dang! It�s time to be a responsible adult. �Lucy�

Yeah. Right. Like that�s going to happen.

�It has really been a ball throughout all your changes of hair colour. You most profound influence on me was to convince me I need to bleach my hair! �Suzanne�

I�m making the world a prettier place. One person at a time.

�Live Long and Prosper- George�

Yes, nerds do gather in packs.

�We can�t all be hero�s because someone has to sit on the curb and [illegible] and clap as they go by- Jane�

Um� what?

I should mention that, at this point, everyone was pretty drunk.

�Righty-O then, own up you witch-bitch, love you to death but really, [illegible, written in Ancient Saxon just to piss me off]- Nath�

Nath is a big dork, and can read and write several dead, and even some technically non-existent, languages. I should also mention that �witch-bitch� is actually a compliment of the highest magnitude.

�To my dearest Sea Harpie, It�s been fun, well, occasionally. At this point I was going to write something witty, but hey, why start now�We have had many wacky adventures, most of them ending with me trying to do away with you, either through alcohol poisoning, extreme exertion (Sofala Hill Climb), mysterious 180 degree car crashes, drowning, death by card games, and of course varying flying objects, snares and electrified double chocolate cup cakes.

Here�s to visiting your fridge for the next 21 years, oh, and hurry up and get depressed so we can make another video clip. �Love, Simon�

My high school friends were all wack-jobs. That�s why I love �em so much.

�To Michelle hey a great night.. I sing my heart out [illegible] you [illegible] [illegible] love you [illegible] � Kurtey�

This is about as coherent as Kurt ever gets.

At 4am, filled with beer, free cheeseburgers and nostalgia, I collapsed.

It was a good birthday.

Well, the bits of it I can remember.

The next morning I woke up, staggered out of bed, and dragged my ass towards the bathroom. As I passed the cage that contains my pet rats, Ruby and Chai, I noticed that they were both curled up on the floor of the cage. This is odd, since Ruby usually sleeps in a hammock near the top of the cage. Then I noticed that Chai was lying very, very still.

�Oh, fuck.�

I adopted Ruby and Chai from friends of a friend. They were going overseas, and needed someone to take them permanently. Chai was named after a brand of tea my friend liked, as the drink was the same colour as the brown spots on her back. Ruby was named after� actually, I�m not sure why she was named Ruby, but it seemed to suit her.

After a few weeks, the distinct personalities of both rats were beginning to show. Chai was the nice one, the sweet one, the submissive one. Ruby was the bossy, rude, heinous bitch one. Chai was more �dog like� in her affection- unquestioningly loyal and kind. Ruby was more �cat like�. She didn�t have a master. She had an indentured servant.

Whenever a nice tidbit of food wound up in the cage, it was Ruby who pounced on it first, then dragged it away to eat it by herself. I quickly learned to give the rats two of everything, or Chai would have starved to death.

Ruby also appointed herself as Chai�s personal stylist and image consultant. Whenever she felt Chai was getting too dirty, she would grab her, push her onto her back, hold her down, then forcibly groom her. You could hear the squeaks of protest from two rooms away.

However, Chai was by far the more entertaining of the two. She had a fantastic trick where she would climb up the cage until she reached the top, then continue climbing out across the wire, until she was hanging upside down and looking directly up and you. If rats could grin at you cheekily, she would have been doing that, too.

She was also a voracious cloth-chewer. Many a towel, and the occasional shirt cuff, fell victim to her gnawing teeth. She could reduce a bath towel to mulch in approximately three hours.

At the start of the year, just before I went on a month-long trip to England, Chai developed a huge lump on her shoulder. I took her to the vet, who said that they�d have to perform surgery to remove it. I left her there for one very nervous day. When I mentioned to my friends that my rat was having risky and expensive surgery, they mostly responded thus-

�Why don�t you just get a new rat?�

�Look. If your dog got sick, would you just get a new one rather then trying to cure it?�

�No. But that�s different.�

�No, it isn�t. It�s not different at all.�

�You know, Michelle, sometimes I just don�t understand you.�

�Only sometimes?�

I then returned to pick her up that evening. Her shoulder was full of stitches, but she was running around like Lleyton Hewitt, and even doing the upside down trick. And grinning.

Her monetary worth had also risen to $130 dollars.

I left Ruby and Chai with a friend for a month while I was in England. When I returned, that friend didn�t want to give them back. I also noticed that they now looked like furry tennis balls with heads, as they had been fed a lot of culinary delicacies, and generally been horribly spoiled. I put them on a diet. They began to look less like koosh balls, and more like rats. But they resented me for it for weeks.

A couple of months ago, I noticed that Chai was slowing down a bit, and losing a lot of weight. I took her back to the vet, who gave me some antibiotics. I dosed her up each day, and it seemed to help, until I ran out. Then she immediately got worse. She was also losing her sense of balance, and couldn�t even climb up to the rat hammock anymore.

I took her back to the vet.

�How old is she?�

�I don�t know. I�ve had her for two years, but I have no idea how old she was when I got her.�

�So she�s pretty old, right?�

I could see where this was going.

�Yeah.�

�Uh huh.�

�There�s nothing you can do for her, is there?�

�No. Not really.�

So, I got given some more antibiotics, and took her home. To wait.

�Oh, fuck.�

She was curled up into a little ball. Her eyes were shut. It looked like she had just gone to sleep.

Ruby didn�t want me to take the body away. She clawed at my hand when I reached into the cage. Chai was so cold and stiff, I could hardly bear to touch her.

I went looking for a box, but I couldn�t find one big enough. Eventually, I cut up a piece of cloth, and wrapped it securely around her.

I think she would have liked that.

Then I had to go and borrow a shovel from the neighbours. It was a bit of an odd request, seeing as though I haven�t done any gardening in the three years I�ve lived here.

�What do you need a shovel for?�

*I really don�t want to explain myself right now.*

�Nothing. Just a little bit of digging.�

I cleared a patch in an overgrown garden bed, and dug a deep hole.

Then I came back with Chai�s body.

It seemed wrong to me. Horribly, violently wrong. After two years of companionship, after two years of love, all I could give her now was a dirty hole in the back garden.

�Oh, honey. I�m so sorry.�

I put her in.

Then I filled in the hole.

Ruby was pressed up against the wire when I got back inside. She looked at me questioningly.

�She�s not coming back, shortie.�

I took Ruby out of the cage. She started licking my hand. It was more than I could take.

I put my back against the wall, and slowly slid down to the floor.

I sat there for a long time, holding Ruby on my lap.

And for the first time in two years, I cried.

�I need to get out of here� I said to Jess. �Let�s go shopping�.

Sam, my other flatmate, was busy packing her belongings into her fiance�s car. She was moving out sometime in the next week.

�See ya later!� she called as we left.

We shopped around the city centre for a while. It was blessedly distracting.

When we got back, Sam�s room was stripped clean. I noticed a letter on the phone table. I quickly read it.

�Well, whaddaya know. She�s gone.�

The note read-

Talk about abrupt. After 10 months of living together, she splits while we�re out of the house.

Then again, considering my precarious emotional state, it was probably a good idea.

And today?

Today I�m having a nice, boring day, where nothing happens.

I think I deserve it.