A Portal into Derek's mind!: 21 November

Now I'm going to be honest. This will be long. Honestly.

Thursday morning - the day of the formal - I woke up, woke up, and drove my mom to Bondi Junction for a voice over she was doing at Triple M. During the drive I got calls from Roger David at Warringah Mall. (That's the store I finally chose to get my formal suit/outfit from.) They rang to say that the suit may not be in until 4pm. I need it BEFORE then!!!

Let me fill you in a bit.

Wednesday 9th November 2004 (just over 1 week before the formal):
I rang about 15 stores looking for a chocolate brown suit with pinstripes (I'd already been into so many stores I got sick of walking around, thus why I'm using the telephone). Finally I rang the Roger David store at Pitt Street Mall. They said they had the suit, AND in my size! I told them to courier it to the Roger David Store at the Mall. They said yeay, I said yeay, everything was yeay!

13th/14th November:
On that weekend I went to the Mall, to Roger David and looked at a larger size of the suit. I also asked whether the one I'd ordered was in it. It wasn't. But it would be in on Tuesday at the latest. Nice I said. I picked a tie and shirt and mom layby-ed the whole outfit (in the correct sizes, which remember were still not at that store yet).

Then there was shoes. I wanted something interesting. Like something Ron Burgundy wears in "Anchorman". I thought it will take ages to find something like that for cheap. We walked past a General Pants store and told mom how I wanted to get two different coloured Converse "Chucks" one day. Then I saw the chocolate brown pair of Chucks. My mind said "unusual shoes for a formal", I said "Giddy up". Great, they didn't have my size. I ordered some in. They'd be in on Thurs (18th Nov - cutting it close!) at the latest. I gulped and hoped for the best.

Tuesday 16th November:
I rang Roger David at the Mall (by this point we knew the staff there really well) and the suit had not arrived yet. Then I rung General Pants at the Mall. The shoes were not in yet. Although I wasn't as upset about this, yet, because they would have ordered them on Monday (15th Nov).

Wednesday 17th November:
Same as Tuesday, same status.

Thursday 18th November (the day of the Graduation and FORMAL):
Now, as I was saying. I took mom to Bondi Junction to MMM to record her radio commercial on Thursday morning. We were a bit early so we waited in the MMM reception for a bit. We continually kept getting calls on my cell phone from Roger David. They were saying that the suit still wouldn't be in until the mid/late afternoon and if we wanted we could get it from another store such as Eastgardens. Mom went nuts. She spoke to the Roger David girl and said she didn't want to goto Eastgardens, she wanted it at the Warringah Mall Store. They said they were seeing what they could do etc etc, but the couriers were running slow etc.

It was time for mom to go do her voice over. I manned the phones (mom's cell and mine). I was listening to the radio (MMM) in the reception because it was on. lol. "Tough Love" had just begun (it was around 10:10am). Mick Malloy was asking for people to ring about having 'Zero Tolerance' for something. I pondered for a bit. Almost rung, and then pondered some more. Then I finally rung on mom's phone :p . A lady picked up and asked me what I had zero tolerance for and told me to turn down the radio and then told me to hold. I asked the lady behind the MMM reception desk if she could turn down the radio because I'd rung the radio station blah blah. She didn't turn it down much so I curled up on the couch and cupped my hand around the bottom of the phone so that only my voice could be heard but I didn't think that would work too well. So I went down the elevator (I was on the 25th floor). I went to the ground level and about a minute later I was on air saying how I had zero tolerance for bloody courier deliverers. I told them a short version of the story I told above.

Mick Malloy (DJ) said: "Well if you don't get it by this aftenroon you can go to your formal in your underwear and just tell everyone not to worry cause it will be here sometime tonight." I told him that my mom went nuts on the phone at the people.
Mick: "Hold on, you're in grade 12 and you're still letting your mom run your life?"
Me: Nah nah. She's just my negociator.
Mick: ahh
Robyn Butler (other DJ): "So she drives a hard bargain hey."
Me: "hah yeah!"
Mick: "Mate you sound like the kind of guy who doesn't have a date."
Me: "Course I do. I'm actually coordinating my outfit with my date's outfit. As I said I'm getting a chocolate brown suit, well my date has chocolate brown hair. Her dress is an aqua green colour, and I'm dying my hair that colour to match."
Robyn: "Wow, that's a really nice idea."
Mick: "Well good luck tonight mate."

After that I went back up the elevator to the MMM reception and sat there for about 5-10mins and mom was done.

MMM is in Bondi Junction. Eastgardens is about 20mins drive away. As if I felt like driving even further from home.

We kept in contact with Roger David (RD) at Warringah Mall and FINALLY they said they could get a private car (just some random I suppose) to take the suit from Eastgardens to the Mall store. Arrival time quoted about 2hrs from now (It was about 11:38am). Now remember the suit from Pitt Street Roger David was with the courier company so there, apparently, wasn't anyway to get it from them.

Then there was those 'Chucks'. We gave up on the General Pants (GP) store at the Mall. We found a GP in Bondi Junction Westfield and asked them if they had any. They didn't. Although GP at Bondi Beach did. I put them on hold. We went back to the car. Zoomed to Bondi Beach. Got the Chucks. Home James!

We got home. I continued to finish invites for my 18th Birthday party (it takes me so long to design anything). 1:15pm came along and I decided to leave bound for the Mall. Mom had to stay home and run NS Actors.

I drove around the parking lot a few times. I got a little impatient and gave up. I drove through the parking lot to a different one. One which Chris L had parked in the other day which I didn't know existed. It was close to a Myer. I walked down some stairs in Myer and through the clothing department and out into the Mall. At this point I was on level 1 so I had to get an escalator down to the ground level where RD was. A metre from stepping on the escalator I got a call... from RD. They said the suit was in. "Nice" I thought. From the escalator I would look left and saw RD only a car length away from me. I was rather.. ironic(?). Alas I did not turn left at the bottom of the escalator, I ran straight ahead. Went to Priceline looking for hair peroxide/bleach and Blue Fudge (permanent hair colour).. make that "Blue Hawaii". Priceline didn't have any Fudge so they told me to go to Price Attack around the corner. I ran there, almost colliding with a few people. Got the stuff and zoomed to RD.

They had it all there. They asked me to try it on (which I never thought of) just to see if everything would fit correctly. - Shirt: Small, Jacket: 38", Pant: 30" - It did, except for the pants. They were a bit tight, and they weren't even around my hips. Then there was a lot of "hmm-ing". I'm probably going to grow some more so I really wanted to get the 32" pants. They said they said they couldn't switch around the pants on a complete suit. - They = the RD Staff - They did say they could get the 30" pants "taken out" at a tailor somewhere around the Mall. They called one. It wouldn't be able to be done for about an hour. We went to one only 4 shops from the RD store. That tailor couldn't do it quickly either. More "hmms" back in the RD store. They finally said: "Okay we'll do it... we'll switch the pants." I said things like "Thanks so much", "Sweet", "Nice, thanks". I rang my mom from my cell (my bill is going to be soo high!) so that she could speak to the lovely RD girl to do a credit card transaction. Everything was done. Great. Nice. NEATO!

I ran back up the escalator, through Myer, up the stairs and to the car. I chucked all the items in the back seat and just as I opened the driver-side door to get in I got a call (I didn't have RD's number in my phone but it wasn't a private number so I recognised it and greeted with a nice "hey". They told me I left my tie. Gee Wizz! I ran back through Myer.. blah blah. Scooted home.

Quick shower and relax time. Dad hemmed the pants because they were a few inches too long in the length. lol. We didn't have long before the graduation started (we had to wear our formal attire to our graduation) so dad just duck-taped the pants lol.. nice dad ;)

Graduation:
Eh. (I hate the word "meh"!) It was so hot in the MPC (Multi-purpose centre) aka gym. [The school spent its money on a new mic and speaker system rather than putting come cheap ventilation in or fixing the bloody acoustics (it's a brick box)]

Yeah, so it was hot. We had to listen to "Musical Act" after musical act! And the principal blab on. And millions of claps. And more music. Award after award. Did I mention we were all wearing suits/formal attire?

When that ended we zooomed home to dye my hair. That's right. I didn't catch the bus (a rant I'm sure will be mentioned soon). Jackie (my sister) did some bleaching. I let that do its magic while I finished my invitations. Then washed it off in the shower. It was orangey-yellow, mainly because it was still wet. I dried and it was more yellow. Mom put the Fugde in. I let that do its work while I printed the invites. I washed it and it turned out exactly as planned! AQUA-GREEN :D - It matches Emma's dress. Noice!

Formal:
I got to the formal at about 8:10pm - It apparently started at 7:30pm - and nothing much was going on. Yeeww.. (cos I feared I'd be a tad late)

I went around taking photos. The view of the city from the Balcony was amazing! We couldn't see any animals though :(

Dinner came. Yuk. As usual. Chicken (one tiny piece). I LOVE chicken! Execpt it was stuffed... with some foreign substance. Thank you god, for bread rolls. :) I wasn't the only one who didn't like the chicken. Scott L, on my right, pushed his over to Kristian. After dinner I just went around taking more photos. Luke R's birthday was on the 19th Nov so there was a Krispy Kreme Doughnut pyramid there to celebrate his 18th year alive. Yum KKDs!

Dessert arrived without many knowing. People were either on the dance floor - shitty DJ - or outside on the balcony. I tried a bit of the dessert - meringue smothered in passionfruit sauce with fruit around - I didn't like it. I left it for the waiter to take back and went to dance. Wow. If no one has ever seen Blake dance.. you HAVE to! He's a great dancer. Style. Rhythm. Beat. I don't have a clue how to dance, without hurting myself - I got a very sore neck from head-bangning on Home & Away (Australian teenage drama, yes I'm an actor).

What a hectic time, hey!

There was no official after-party - yes, it was a pretty low entertainment formal. No where near as good as our grade 10 formal! - Although lots of people went all seperate ways to see if they could find a place to just drink themselves silly. The bus dropped everyone back at Davidson High at about midnight, after the formal. About 10-15 people stayed at the school. That was funny!

One last rant:
At our year 10 formal me and 3 others (I organised it) got the nicest car to rock up in - A 1960s Red Mustang Convertible - It was so good because the venue had a driveway where everyone would see your car. I tried to organise a big, stretch limo for our year 12 formal but everyone wanted to go on the bus. It's our year 12 formal! The last one!! How can anyone go in a bus.....
Later I heard that a group got the limousine I was going to get and they said it sucked because they didn't get the complimentary champagne (which was stated on the website), nor did the driver turn the funky neon lights on. I guess I'm kind of glad I didn't get that limousine then.

Was that long enough? Next post: My 18th Birthday Party (coming soon)

Photos from the formal below.