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RON: Whatcha been up to?
JEFF: I was on holiday.
RON: For three years?
JEFF: It was an extended holiday. A voyage of self-discovery. A chance to see the world, and be seen by the world. To discover new places, to experience life in other parts of the world.
RON: You were in jail, weren't you.
JEFF: Me? Am I a criminal?
RON: Not in the legal sense perhaps. Oh no, I remember now. You were dodging fines. That's what you said when you left.
JEFF: Was it? Well what I really meant was --
RON: Yeah you said you were going to stay away until after 1999. You were hoping they'd have lost track of how much you owed the library when the Y2K bug hit.
JEFF: Ah yes, but my absence turned into so much more than that. I roamed the planet, reached new horizons...
RON: Hold on a minute.
JEFF: What?
RON: Hold on a minute.
JEFF: Yes?
RON: I'm thinking. Just hold on a minute.
JEFF: You sure a minute's long enough?
RON: How could you reach horizons? 'Cos if you go towards the horizon it, like, moves further away from you.
JEFF: It's a figure of speech.
RON: A what?
JEFF: An expression.
RON: What?
JEFF: It's something you say.
RON: I don't remember ever saying it.
JEFF: Okay, it's something other people say.
RON: Who?
JEFF: Me.
RON: Oh. So are you glad to be home?
JEFF: Yes, I am. I'm happy to have returned to my roots - an older wiser person.
RON: I didn't think you had any roots. You're always complaining you don't.
JEFF: What I mean is --
RON: And you don't seem any wiser. But you certainly look older. Where did you go?
JEFF: I had hoped on my journeys to see some of the great sights of the world. To visit some of the most historic and significant places on the planet. Locations that capture the human spirit, that would help cleanse the soul and feed the mind.
RON: That sounds expensive.
JEFF: Yes, it would have been expensive. So I didn't do it. I... umm... I went to Ballarat.
RON: Ballarat?
JEFF: Yes.
RON: You spent three years in Ballarat?
JEFF: Yes.
RON: That sounds awful.
JEFF: Oh no, definitely not. There's ummm... Sovereign Hill, and ummm... Kryal Castle... and the gardens, and Lake Wendouree, and ummm... yes, it was awful, yes.
RON: No wonder you're glad to be home.
12: Another Job Interview
