Bill & Toni's

Every couple of months or so a couple of friends and I meet for dinner.  Normally I only see Jason and Tony when they need comedy relief for one of their camping trips but a few times a year we gather at Bill & Toni's in Darlinghurst to dine on inexpensive Italian food washed down with free cordial and bread.  We could probably afford to go somewhere more expensive but suggesting such a thing would be a heresy equivalent to denying the dual nature of Christ.

Over dinner Tony and Jason catch us up with what's been going on in their lives.  They have small children so if nothing else there is at least going to be growth of offspring to acknowledge.  Jason has recently sold a house so we had an enjoyable time cursing out his estate agent.  Tony is still talking about early retirement which he had better arrange quickly otherwise it will be just normal retirement. Then a perfunctory query is made to see if anything has happened in my life (it hasn't) after which the conversation moves by unspoken mutual consent to more general topics.

"More general topics" is basically a euphemism for an endless stream of personal abuse thinly disguised as conversation.  I am reliably informed by Tony that my wit in this area has been dulled by age and my sallies now resemble being beaten with a stalk of boiled celery.  I like to think I have simply raised his standards over the years.  Eventually the topic wandered around to the subject of why I never organise these dinners.  It was implied (and by "implied" I mean "explicitly stated") that I was rather dragging the chain in this regard.

There are reasons for my neglect in this area, principally the fact that I'm the only one who doesn't have to gaffer tape children to the wall and tell outrageous lies to a spouse before slipping out for the evening.  As such it makes a lot more sense for me to wait until they are free rather than try and arrange an evening around my own availability.  The last time I tried neither of the other two managed to turn up.  Still I made vague promises which I've already forgotten and the conversation, like a mortally wounded beast, stumbled on.

After dinner we dragged our swollen bellies downstairs for coffee.  In deference to the fact that one of us still hasn't quit smoking we sit outside which is pleasant in Summer and, er, less so in Winter.  Jason and Tony quit smoking when we stopped sharing a house together and they ceased to have ready access to my cigarettes.

By the time the coffee arrives Tony & Jason are comfortably ensconsed and ready to spend the next hour and a half telling each other what fantastic parents they are while I drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and make up conversations in my head.  From time to time my opinion is sought on one of the finer points of child rearing which I answer in a non comittal, non judgemental, non being stupid enough to actually give an answer sort of way.  Occasionally I suggest something outrageous like buying Tony's daughter a bear as a pet or enlisting Jason's seven year old son in the army.  I'm prepared to bet neither of them even remember that.

Eventually when we acknowledge that Tony & Jason's wives will notice somebody is missing in a few hours we drag ourselves off to our respective homes.  Apparently I did agree to organise the next dinner, it must have slipped in among the child rearing questions.