On Thursday a Disney Princess

I should say that Chris would have been happy with all of the people that came to see the room, he’s very accepting. So it is a good thing that I’m here.


On Wednesday afternoon Mel messaged me that Ariel, an accountant who works in Bendigo wanted to see the room. Ariel is the name of my favourite Disney princess. I should not have told Chris this.

On Thursday at 4pm Chris said that he had to make cookies. The dough was a delicious looking mess that extended from the bowl to the table, the microwave, the sink, the drying up towels and the floor. The baked version was flat as a pancake and impossible to remove wholly from the tray. Then at 4:45pm he hurried out the door saying that he had to get to the post office before it closed, leaving the kitchen a disaster for when Ariel arrived after work at 5:15pm.
Ariel appeared shy and awkward and his hand was limp when I shook it hello. This happens a lot, which is surprising as everybody knows that a firm handshake is supposed to say good things about your character. I wonder if my handshake is a result of that connotation, or my character, and if character, what does that imply?
He came in and I showed him the room and then the rest of the house. He said very little during the whole process and I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable so I asked him if he’d like a cup of tea and he said he would. His hair kind of looked like mine, but much neater. He wore a smart grey jacket over a woollen jumper, suit pants and black shiny shoes. I wore hiking boots, op-shop jeans and a synthetic fill not-so-waterproof because of Angie-the-cat’s-claws jacket. Chris came home and seemed very flustered.
“Did you tell him about me?” he asked me.
“I said you were 22 and that you were making cookies” I replied.
Chris told Ariel a bit about himself in his hyperactive way of speaking and then told him “I like your jacket. I have one kind of like it, but not really, but it’s grey like that”.
I laughed at Chris because he’s hilarious, but also to show Ariel that I think Chris is weird, meaning that I’m not weird because by laughing I obviously can identify weird and not be weird myself- I have issues.
Chris said “do you know that you…” and he put his hand over his face like he was trying to think of the words to finish that sentence.
“…have the name of a prince? Jaci knows, you say it” he told me.
In my head; “oh god.”
Out loud; “Not a prince, Ariel is from ‘The Little Mermaid’”.
“Oh, then who is Ariel?”
“The mermaid.”
“Have you heard of kimchi?” Chris changed tactics.
Ariel had not, so Chris offered him some. I warned him that it was pickled cabbage and he declined for the time being.
“Do you work?” Ariel told him that he’s an accountant.
“Do you do any group activities?” Ariel said no. Chris told him about how he does swordcraft, which of course Ariel had never heard of, and when Chris asked him if he’d tried role playing games this confused him even more, as it did with Mel and myself when we first met Chris.
“Do you do any activities by yourself”. He said he played guitar.
“No way! I didn’t picture you playing guitar, and I’m usually really good at this. Like Josh” he indicated to me because Josh is my friend, “I could tell that Josh played the guitar for sure. Feel free to have some grapes” he offered from a bag.
The tea was ready, thank god, and I passed them each a mug and we went to sit at the dining table. Chris popped a container of pickled eggplant in front of us and told us that we should eat it because it was going to go off today. Then he poured milk from one of those plastic containers that come with sliced peaches in them into his tea cup. Ariel and I watched curiously as some milk made it into his tea cup, but more made it onto the table. I was glad that Ariel had declined milk in his tea. Then Chris continued to interview Ariel.
“So tell me about accounting.”
“There’s not really much to tell.”
“Just tell me something, anything. What do you do?”
“I work for a firm and give advice for investments for our clients who have self-managed super funds.”
“What’s a super fund?”
For the next 10 minutes we explained to Chris what a super fund is.
After some more unpredictable questioning Chris offered him another cup of tea. He’d already been here a very long time, and I was ready for him to leave, but he accepted. We all went back into the kitchen and while we waited for the water to boil Chris put more cookie dough onto the baking trays. He offered Ariel some raw cookie dough.
“Is it good?” he asked.
“Well of course it’s good” he answered himself “no one’s ever going to say that cookie dough’s not good.”
He explained to us that his fiancée who lives in Sydney is an incredible cook and that she'd sent him baked. He hoped that this would up the ante so that now she might send him a cake! And it dawned on me that that was the reason that he had to go to the post office earlier.
“Did you send Young Ju those cookies?” I asked incredulously.
The flat, still warm, and with a huge amount of melted chocolate chip cookies?
“Yes.”
Ariel and I laughed again. Or maybe we just continued to laugh.
“Why didn’t you just wait till tomorrow to send them?”
“Well that… would have been a good idea. But I was excited and I wanted to send them today.”
“I like your pants” Chris told Ariel.
Oh no Chris was running out of things to say.

Later we both agreed that we would call Ariel to tell him that he can have the room, but we both expressed that we wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t actually want it.