“Wayne, you’re a broken record, banging on about these darn Covid restrictions until you’re blue in the face, as if you think you can actually change the minds of reactive bureaucrats.”
Wise words, Wanda.
Which leaves you, readers of this column, as my final frontier. Because I’ve been thinking.
I’ve left a note in the top drawer of my chest, behind the socks, under the envelope where I’ve stashed a few of those cash payments the neighbour used to offer when I mowed their lawn.
It says simply that if I am to meet my maker in the next week, you’re to back the hearse up to the front gates of either Suncorp or the Gabba, whichever is hosting a game.
Any game. That’s not really the point.
Because I won’t be left dead thinking that only 20 people will be gathered in a pokey room mourning my passing.
I’ve done more than that. I want hundreds sharing tears into each others’ champagne flutes, telling heartfelt stories about what a great bloke I was.
Sure, he complained a bit, they’ll say. But his heart was in the right place.
If they can’t do it in a hall somewhere because my casket is a giveaway that we’re breaking the rules. Well, you know, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.
And the only place that will allow that many people is the football.
There are drawbacks of course. I don’t have enough in the kit to be paying $10 for everybody’s drinks, and you can’t keep a tab at the Bay 35 beer fountain anyway.
That means it’s a pay as you go event. There’s plenty of room in the front row, between the seats and the rail. That’s where the coffin can sit. Put a home team flag over it, if that helps.
Half time is about 20 minutes, which is ideal for a few words from an empathetic soul who never knew me to speak highly of me. The pre-game coin toss can dictate which child gets the honour of reading the eulogy that I’ve pre-written, also to be found in the sock drawer.
See if you can get Geoffrey out of the aged care home for a day. He’ll probably be cheering through the formalities because he won’t know the whistle’s blown for interval, but that’s okay. Adds to the atmosphere.
When play resumes, everybody can raise their glasses and burst into rendition of True Blue, again because that’s the type of bloke I was – always true, and now maybe a little blue.
Wanda will be inconsolable, but nobody will hear her wailing over the jeers of the crowd. The children will take care of her. Everyone else can keep their grubby hands to themselves, especially the lummox from the bowls club who always did have a fancy for my girl.
There will be no need for a wake because everyone will have had an over-priced hot dog or pie while finalising logistics about how to get the box back into the hearse which by now will have been around the block 63 times to dodge parking fees.
Stories will be flowing as freely as the sponsored brew, and people will be wondering why nobody had thought of this before. Because you can’t shout at a real funeral.
RIP Whiney Wayne, they’ll say. You bloody genius.
