ABPA — The Australian Bush Poets Association Inc.

CHRISTMAS EVE ON THE F3

© B.J. (Beryl) Stirling

Winner, 2013 Humorous Section Snowy Mountains Muster, Jindabyne NSW.

It’s late Christmas Eve and Mary’s in labour;
She rings for the ambulance, yells to her neighbour
“Hey Di, look for Joe, will you? Canvass the pubs.
Or maybe he’s boozing at one of the clubs,
And tell him he’s needed. The kid’s on the way!
Oh Jeeze! Who’d of thought he’d be born Christmas Day!”

Now Joe’s with his mates, but he’s thinking he oughta
Be home with the missus, be there to support her.
She might need him soon, she was due yesterday
And if he’s not there, well, there’ll be hell to pay.
But when he expresses this thoughtful decision,
His mates, with one voice, utter howls of derision.

“Well, one for the road then, it’s my round,” says Joe,
But, after that, best I should get up and go”,
Which he does, weaving out on his unsteady feet,
Gets into the car, makes it onto the street,
Chucks a U-ey and finds himself back on the highway,
While singing discordantly: “I did it my way!”

Now Di, Mary’s neighbour, has searched near and far.
Has yet to find Joe but has met in each bar,
Sundry friends and relations and shared the odd drop
Of bourbon, Campari and iced Passion Pop.
Now, it’s well known her driving is always erratic
But tonight, on the highway, it’s melodramatic.

She finally finds Joe. Runs up his backside,
And this of course launches a traffic landslide.
When an oil tanker skews and spills half its load
And the ambulance swerves, so it runs off the road.
And to cap it, with traffic lanes all now impeded,
Poor Mary is pushing. A midwife is needed.

The ambulance driver, though very well trained,
Becomes very soon just a mite overstrained,
When a second bub follows the first, then one more
And he shouts to his mate:  “Oh my God! There are four!
It’s out of my league and I’m starting to worry.
Send for the chopper and tell them to hurry!”

It comes from the East and it lights up the night
As it searches to find the emergency site,
While a U.F.O spotter completes the equation
Deciding this signals a Martian invasion!
Informs Alan Jones, the P.M. and Bob Brown
And the media circus rolls into the town.

And now through a broken down fence come five llamas,
A furious farmer in flannel pyjamas,
A prize Brahman bull and a couple of cows,
Some sheep, a blue heeler and several sows,
While seventy bikies now surge through the rubble
Bandidos,  Hells Angels, all looking for trouble.

And just when it seems that it couldn’t get worse
The copper in charge, looking up, starts to curse,
For to add to the pile-up that’s blocking the highway
There’s been a collision up there in the sky way.
And fragments of chopper rain down on his head –
Startled reindeer, gift vouchers; an old bloke in red.

Now Joe becomes conscious and finds he’s alive
Though the car is a write off and not fit to drive,
While Di, sobered up, crawls from under an airbag
Assesses the damage and seizes her handbag,
Shouts: “Joe?  We’re in trouble! Let’s get the hell out!
There are dozens of coppers all swarming about.

They’re looking for some one to put in the frame
And seem to think, God knows why, we are to blame!
Perhaps we should both of us spend the New Year
Somewhere rather less crowded, a long way from here.”
So baulked of their prey, the law in their stead,
Arrested and locked up the old bloke in red.

So Christmas was cancelled I’m sorry to say
But next year we’ll celebrate ‘Mary’s Quads Day’
With everything costing us four times as dear,
Including all nutriment, petrol and beer
And the G.S.T’s rising to forty per cent,
To make up the losses from last years event.


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