Sleeping Around by Brian Thacker Read Free Book Online

of Juan’s translation) if I liked Santiago and I told her that I did, but that I hadn’t really seen much of it yet. ‘Santiago very nice nice city,’ Aunty Claudia* said proudly.
    When she left Juan said, ‘There’s nothing to see in Santiago. It’s nice but boring.’
    After an entrée of steaming jumbo mussels, I was handed a plate that was then piled high with so much meat it would have made a vegetarian faint. I ended up with a slab of pork ribs, a lamb shank, thick juicy pork sausages, chicken legs and beef legs (I think I got two entire cow’s legs).
    Just when I’d put something that resembled a dent into my mountain of meat, another huge helping of yet more meat was unceremoniously dumped onto my plate. I was already stuffed and my stomach felt like it was going to burst, but Uncle Carlos* and Uncle Eduardo* were still cooking giant slabs of animal on the barbecue.
    Fuelled by free-flowing champagne, wine and pisco sours, everyone was becoming increasingly boisterous and loud. Juan tried to translate a particularly heated conversation. ‘They are having a philosophical debate about whether nothing exists until humans experience it.’
    Fifteen minutes later I asked Juan whether they had resolved their debate.
    â€˜Oh no, now they are talking about what is happening on the TV show 24 .’
    â€˜Does your family get together often?’ I asked Juan.
    â€˜Yes, very often. Family is the most important thing to a Chilean.’
    I was envious of these folk. The last time that my entire immediate family sat down to a meal together was Christmas day, 1991. I think I now know the secret, though: A family that smokes together stays together. Just about everyone at the table was puffing away like mad when they had finished their meaty feast.
    There were a few smoky gasps of horror, however, when I passed around a pack of Australian cigarettes. (I’d just like to add here that I only brought the cigarettes with me all the way from Australia to warn people of the dangers of smoking.) On the front of the box was a large photo graphically demonstrating what happens to you if you smoke. Apparently, after too many ciggies you will look just like the Elephant Man. The photo was of a horribly deformed foot with rotten and missing toes. This is caused when smoking damages your blood vessels and blocks circulation, resulting in gangrene. Or, according to Uncle Miguel*, by working too hard.
    Uncle Miguel* stared at the photo and said (well, Juan said as he interpreted for me): ‘This means that if you try and work and smoke at the same time you will drop something on your foot and smash your toes. So we should do less work.’
    Actually, the graphic warning seemed to inspire everyone to smoke more, because less than an hour later they had all run out of cigarettes. ‘We need seven packs,’ Juan said as he counted hands. I volunteered to walk up the street to buy them because I really needed a break from drinking. I was getting quite tipsy and I didn’t want to tip over that line into tanked and do something embarrassing. Not that I necessarily would, but I once made a total twit of myself on a similar couch-surfing experience.
    On my first-ever trip overseas, I was invited to stay with a girl in Dublin who I’d met briefly at a party in Melbourne. When I rang Louise from London, she told me that it was her 21st birthday party the next night and that I was welcome to come. I bet she regretted that later. After catching an overnight ferry, I arrived, without any sleep, on the afternoon of the party, and headed straight to the pub with her boyfriend and his mates. By the time we got to the very swanky party at nine o’clock (Louise’s parents lived in a large house in Dublin’s most exclusive suburb), I was already pleasantly plastered. I don’t remember the exact details of the next few hours, but I do remember spilling a full glass of beer