Why is it, when you move, you have twice as much junk as you thought you had, and can never find anything you want. Coffee mugs. The toaster. The piece of paper with a small number on it that you can’t actually extract from the company because it would be asking too much to ask them to move into the digital age and computerise their records so they could do something as basic as search for the number if you happen to, say, have mislaid it.
But it’s not any number. Oh no, it’s the number you need to get your deposit back if you’ve been lucky enough to rent a property in Aussieland. And from no less a body than NSW Fair Trading.
However, they need that bit of paper, which is why on moving day, when I was up to my armpits in saucepans, a voice asked if I happened to have it handy. I must have gone through every box. Every bag. There Aldi shelf - where I've been slowly buying toold from Aldi, each week they have something new on special. Even the cardboard box the car parts are stored in, looking for the piece of paper that they quietly sent a year back, with no indication that you’d actually need it. As if renting a house in Australia isn’t weird enough, with 100 point checks and the requirement to lodge your diving licence. Which of course you can’t get until get (the diving licence that is) until you have a permanent address. Catch 22 and all that.
Incredible to think that I actually arrived in this country with only my half of 100Kg (which I flew over with). If I want to go back, I’d need a container. And yet, of that little piece of paper, there was nothing to be seen. Until that is, a small voice popped up and said “Oh, here it is. I filed it with my papers from the house...”
But it’s not any number. Oh no, it’s the number you need to get your deposit back if you’ve been lucky enough to rent a property in Aussieland. And from no less a body than NSW Fair Trading.
However, they need that bit of paper, which is why on moving day, when I was up to my armpits in saucepans, a voice asked if I happened to have it handy. I must have gone through every box. Every bag. There Aldi shelf - where I've been slowly buying toold from Aldi, each week they have something new on special. Even the cardboard box the car parts are stored in, looking for the piece of paper that they quietly sent a year back, with no indication that you’d actually need it. As if renting a house in Australia isn’t weird enough, with 100 point checks and the requirement to lodge your diving licence. Which of course you can’t get until get (the diving licence that is) until you have a permanent address. Catch 22 and all that.
Incredible to think that I actually arrived in this country with only my half of 100Kg (which I flew over with). If I want to go back, I’d need a container. And yet, of that little piece of paper, there was nothing to be seen. Until that is, a small voice popped up and said “Oh, here it is. I filed it with my papers from the house...”
