Cast
Philip: a young man in a wheelchair.

Scene
I know, I know. I saw it. I came through the door and every eye in the room was on me. I’m used to the stares and the open mouths but hey, you can’t really blame them – it’s not every day you see a young guy who… is this good looking.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking now. “How can I get out of here without looking like a heartless bitch. Fake text message? My dog’s been hit by a car. No, think big – my mum’s been hit by a car.” You know how many times I’ve been on a blind date and the girl’s loved ones have had near-fatal accidents? I actually thought the mafia had it in for me before I figured out what was going on.

Pause.

You don’t care that I’m in a chair? That’s sweet of you, though you do have to admit it’d be pretty hard to bail on me after all that. But look, we’re supposed to be here on a sexy and romantic date so what I’d really like to do is give you my sales pitch. Okay?

Pause.

Okay. So here’s how I want to play this: if we’re going to date I want you to know exactly what you’re getting into. Strap yourself in baby because it’s going to be a wild ride.

Right, so, I got into the dating game a few years ago when the local church had this fun little Speed Catholics thing going on. To be honest, I only went for the free snacks and coffee. If I pocketed enough from the Arnott’s family pack I could get three meals out of the equation: combined lunch and dinner plus brekkie the next day. I was working at McDonald’s at the time and my hourly rate – as a teenager – was about ten bucks. Eating out costs fifteen to twenty and even takeaway is over ten, so every time I saved the cost of a meal that was one less hour I had to spend assembling burgers etcetera.

Pause.

No no, I could walk back then. Can you imagine flipping patties without the use of my hands? Like, put a spatula in my mouth and… (moves head around as if struggling to flip a burger with a spatula in his mouth).

As I was saying, my mum and my dad basically tried to murder each other when I was twelve and I ended up with the one I believed to be least psychotic. We weren’t very well off so I had to avoid spending money wherever possible. I got into the habit of tightarsedness pretty quickly and habits are hard to break. Maccas wasn’t cutting the mustard so after I finished school I went straight into a phone sales job, which is just a euphemism for being an annoying prick.

My hourly rate more than doubled overnight. I was earning almost fifty K. Life was pretty good; I even starting dating one of the Speed Christian girls. Her daddy loved me and his number one passion in life was spending money on his daughter’s boyfriend to sure up a marriage proposal. That was never going to happen, but hey, if you’re paying…

END OF EXCERPT