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(Jeff waits for Ron outside a building. Ron comes out and they start walking.)
JEFF: Well? So? How'd you do?
RON: Oh, good thanks. And you?
JEFF: No no.. your interview. Your job interview.
RON: What job interview?
JEFF: Hold on, hold on, hold on. An hour ago you walked into that building there. That one. And you went up to the forty-seventh floor for a job interview.
RON: Oh yeah! So that's why I was there.
JEFF: You mean to tell me you went all the way up into the clouds in an express elevator, made your way through a maze of corridors, waited for what seemed like an eternity, staring at the ceiling, and trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone else there... finally got called into a little room and sat down in the corner chair, ready to be grilled by some ruthless personnel officer... and you couldn't remember why you were there?!
RON: My mind went blank.
JEFF: It often does. You know what this means? This is terrible. It means we have to keep living on the meagre hand-outs from Messrs Social & Security.
RON: Well why don't you get a job?
JEFF: I suppose you think that's funny. Let me remind you of one thing: I do not work. Never have. Never will. I come from a great line of dole-bludgers, going right back to the middle-ages when Geoffrey the Lazy-bastard first asked the local baron for a handout. And I hope you're not asking me to break with seven hundred years of family tradition. You think I got an Arts' degree for nothing?
(They keep walking for a while. Jeff notices a newspaper headline about Schumaker-Levy comet.)
JEFF: What do you think about this Schumaker-Levy thing then?
RON: I think it's great. I think it's fantastic that they're introducing a levy to support our local shoe industry. You know, I bought some shoes the other day that...
JEFF: Hold on, wait, whoa. Schumaker-Levy is not a local industry support scheme. It's a comet that's exploding into Jupiter.
RON: Oh. Ah. Well, in that case, it's good that for once the astromoners have something to look at other than a few thousand stationary dots.
JEFF: Yeah, but...
RON: I know, I know, they get eclipses to watch every few years. But they can't actually look at them, can they, 'cos they're wossname, they're masturbatory; they send you blind. Anyway, eclipses are all the bloody same, aren't they. It's never a surprise what happens. Sun. Moon. Moon moves in front of Sun. Darkness. Moon moves out of Sun's way. Darkness ends. Sun shines again. Moon buggers off back to its own orbit. Big deal!
JEFF: Well, maybe you'd be a little more interested in all this if you lived on Jupiter.
RON: Hmmmm, that's a thought. Any idea what the dole rates are like there?
JEFF: But even if you stayed on this planet, I'm sure you could find some kind of job if you just put your mind to it.
RON: Like what?
JEFF: Well, what are you good at? What skills do you have?
RON: I don't know.
JEFF: You don't know? Do you know anything? Did you go through eight years of schooling and not remember anything about it?
RON: Well it all went hazy after that day I walked into the wrong toilet one lunchtime and was persuaded to smoke certain substances.
JEFF: What kind of substances?
RON: I don't remember. In fact, the only thing that I do remember is that I don't remember. And that's all I remember about school. That, the mortar bomb incident, and the time I inadvertently found myself leading a skinhead protest to the principal's office.
JEFF: Sounds like you could take Alexander Downer's place in the Liberal Party.
6: Red Tape, Charity, More Telly
