ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Dylan Spokemen, by his own admission, is having a Tuesday from hell.
“I got a parking ticket this morning, I even caught the guy. He just looked me in the eye, smiled, then pushed enter on his little computer of misery.”
The 28-year-old solicitor was yelled at by his supervising partner as soon as he arrived three minutes late to work, for taking confidential evidence documents home with him the night before.
His favourite lunch special spot down the road from his French Quarter offices was closed today – forcing him to go somewhere else and buy something he didn’t really want.
“I got a chicken schnitzel six-inch from Subway. They didn’t heat the chicken up enough in the oven, it was still cold in the middle. That was disappointing.”
If that wasn’t enough, upon returning to his dying Toyota Cressida in the firm’s parking lot, he discovered the front passenger window smashed and his tape deck missing.
“It’s 2019, for Christ’s sake! Who has a use for a tape deck out of a 1987 Cressida? Who?! The only people on this planet who could possibly have a use for that is a fellow 1987 Cressida owner. They even took my Fisherman’s Friends out of the centre console! Fuck!”
But, as he drove home in the light rain this afternoon, the downtrodden Gemini smiled to himself and pulled into the Betoota Grove føtex supermarket and pick up the necessary ingredients to make a paella.
He admitted to us that it’d probably make any self-respecting Spaniard cry, but his own twist on the traditional dish would be sure to brighten the grey that’s painted his Tuesday thus far.
“It’s not your typical paella, but it’s what I like. The paella dish rarely gets used, but tonight, I need it more than ever. I need to escape this hellish town, state and country if just for tonight,”
“I’ll let you know how I get on.”
More to come.
