ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
John ‘Stagecoach’ Pettiford is a complex man with simple needs.
He drinks when he’s dry and eats when he’s hungry.
This afternoon, the 28-year-old was just starving.
On the walk home from his local MetroLine stop in Betoota’s fabled Danish Town, the fourth-grade Dolphins co-captain popped into his local føtex to see what caught his eye for dinner.
Enter a four-pack of bacon and egg pies and a box of instant mash.
Stagecoach timidly approached the freezer section like a man approaching a wild stallion, intent on breaking it in.
He opened the glass door and looked down at the box.
“Hmmmm,” he murmured.
“Two-stars is a bit how ya going, even for me. Maybe if I jazz it up with some broccoli or something it won’t give me colon cancer. They do look delicious,”
“Hmmmm.”
It didn’t take long for John to convince himself that a few pies, mash potato and a whole head of boiled broccoli isn’t actually that unhealthy.
Smiling to himself as he walked through the front door of his rented one bedroom apartment, he kissed his fiance, Rachael Rooney, on the top of the head as she sat watching Millionaire Hot Seat in the living room.
When asked what he had planned for dinner, Rach wasn’t quite ready for the reply.
“I’m having these,” he said, lifting the frozen pies up for her to see.
“I got some instant mash and broccoli as well. I got you some microwave brown rice and salmon, just like you asked.”
Rach then went back to watching Eddie McGuire and let out a long sigh.
Around an hour later, they sat watching the news as they slowly ate their dinners.
“These are actually pretty good,” he said.
“Do you want a bite?”
Rachael considered having one briefly then smiled and said yes.
“They taste like a quiche,” she said.
“A bad quiche.”
More to come.
