RORY SALAZAR | Finance | Contact
A good for nothing so and so who will always try to compete with you, no matter what, has this morning just won again.
Bradley Burns (48), a small business owner who lives in an old inter-war period 4-bedroom home out in Betoota Heights, doesn’t care if he’s playing a sport, cooking a meal, or just having a mundane conversation with you about the weather. He always makes it a competition and he always has to win.
And it is this undying need to win that led Burns to compete with his neighbour, Tony Jones (43), over who had suffered the biggest gas bill shock recently.
Which is something that the Advocate understands is completely mental to want to compete over.
Like Burns, his neighbour Jones lives in a similar style of dwelling in the sense that it is basically an asbestos-riddled shack that can’t retain heat. Jones too was shocked to discover that his gas bill had sky rocketed to $615. While this time last year, it was only $329.
Not to be outdone, Burns immediately produced his gas bill and held it high like a trophy.
“You want to talk about bill shock? Take a look at this! 820 bucks for 60 days, mate. Now that’s bill shock. I was the most shocked bloke in the whole street.”
The Advocate can begrudgingly report that Burns did indeed have the highest gas bill of all houses along the street. In part because he has one of the least sustainable dwellings of all, but also because he cranks on his gas-guzzling space heater up to 25 degrees every day of
the week.
“Mate, my house is the biggest on the street so it’s the most expensive to heat. I wish I had a smaller house like yours, Jonesy. Plus, my body runs the coldest of anyone in Betoota.”
The Advocate noticed that poor Jonesy had a look on his face like he couldn’t stand talking to his neighbour.
“Do you know I was the first bloke in all of the Heights to get frost bite?” Burns bragged to the Advocate before asking Jonesy whether he’d ever suffered frost bite.
“No, Burnsy. You win that one, too.”
“Oh, stead on, Jonesy. It’s not a competition, mate,” Burns said with such sincerity that the Advocate believes he doesn’t actually realise how he makes everything a competition.
What a nightmare.
