Things Bogans Like

She was already in white when they met. It was serendipity. Their eyes locked across the cavernous room that housed Sensation™ White at 3am. It was hard to look away. This was, in part, due to the extreme dilation of their pupils. He began to walk across the room, before accidentally shouldering some guy called Lance, who took umbrage at his inability to navigate a swarming sea of pristine, Napisan-ed bogans, and tried to glass him with his half- empty Corona bottle. Eventually he finds her, and they fall into each others’ arms. They share their thoughts on how loud the music is, and how fucked they are.

Flash forward two years, and they stand silently, downcast, in his parents’ en suite, staring morbidly at the home pregnancy test, as the litmus stick turns a sinister shade of blue.

Flash forward another month, and they sit in the audience of Deal or no Deal. During the ad break, Andrew O’Keefe wanders over to where they sit, addresses the couple, under the guise of generic crowd banter. Suddenly, his expression changes, and a glint appears in his eyes. He takes each of their hands, and places one in the other. The bogan male falls to his knees, fishes around in his jacket pocket, and retrieves a purple (velvet) jewellery box.

A.O’K glances mischievously at her and says ‘Aaron, is there something you want to tell Erin?’, as the bogan stares earnestly at her. ‘Yes Andrew. There is. Erin, I’ve loved you ever since we locked eyes at Sensation™. Will you be my beautiful wife?’ She stands, hands to her mouth, as the crowd chants ‘Deal! Deal!’ She says yes. Tears are shed as A.O’K struts back triumphantly to his lectern and announces, on national television, that his guests are now betrothed, to rapturous applause. To this moment, is the high point of both of their short lives.

The camera zooms in, focusing on the glittering stone newly placed on Erin’s ring finger. It is a shining clear gem, the size of her pupils all those years ago. After the cameras have stopped rolling, she says ‘Forget, cut, colour and clarity…I just want carat!’ The male, meanwhile, has descended into an insolvent abyss, as he contemplates the alarming synchronicity of the ring’s repayment schedule with that of his plasma screen TV.