RACHEL'S COLUMNS

These articles appeared in Rachel's column every Friday in the A3 section of The Age

When variety is the vice of life
2nd July 2004

At around 2am on one of those spookily windy nights this week, where it felt like the whole of the CBD had been sold off as a film set for a Stephen King thriller, I found myself in a lane off Little Collins street, immediately behind the Golden Tower café on Swanston Street.  I don't mean I found myself in the Doctor Phil sense, if you know what I'm saying – it's not like I had an epiphany in a lane-way behind an all night diner – I just happened to be there.  An arctic wind sent fragments of torn take-away bags floating down the gutter as I got blown towards a late-night rendezvous with a friend.

My friend is a fractured writer who views the world through the dandruff-littered lenses of his glasses.  Everything about him is dark and speckled-eyes, hair, trousers, teeth – but mostly it's his attitude that's even darker than the pre-election tunnel we've just entered.  Like many such characters, he's hopelessly besotted with a gorgeous young dental hygienist who doesn't know he exists.  And because I'm famous for being stimulated by rejection, he wanted to meet and talk and perhaps to find comfort in sharing stories of failed romance.  If Paris is the city of lovers then Melbourne-in-winter is the city of lovers in limbo.  We came to the conclusion that romance was more complex than Japanese Haiku poetry – rhythmic verse using seventeen syllables – but less confusing than love and ordered thick toasted white-bread Vegemite sandwiches to celebrate all things uncomplicated.

But when I asked the waiter for a Coke he responded in the format of a Tax Department questionnaire, "Regular Coke, diet-coke, Vanilla-coke or diet-Vanilla coke?"  Confused by his response and bewildered by the choices I requested a pot of tea.  He swiveled his hips and started again, "English Breakfast, chai, regular tea, licorice tea, spearmint-."
"Stop, just a glass of water, thanks!" I pleaded.
He inhaled and continued, "Tap or bottled – still or soda?"

My friend and I got up and joined the woman sitting on the red vinyl bench at the back of the café.  She rocked back and forth while repeating the word, "fatso" to an imaginary companion.  Suddenly she seemed to be the only person making any sense.

This whole "niche-marketing opportunity" voodoo is presenting us with so many choices we don't have time for living because we're too busy choosing.  I read recently that Coke and Pepsi are testing a new cola that has fewer calories than the original and a different flavor than their diet versions.  The new concept is called "mid-calorie cola".  So it's sort of half way between fat and skinny cola - same taste – but fewer calories.  I'm predicting we'll get the mid-calorie vanilla coke, followed by mid-calorie vanilla clear cola from some other company targeting those people who want the taste but not the brown color.  I've even heard rumors that the latest project is lemonade with no bubbles, no sugar and no colour – it looks and tastes like water but it's really lemonade, for those people who are allergic to water.

Chemists sell everything from laxatives to beauty products, travel accessories and cute little faux Impressionist paintings, because of course that's where most people like to buy their art – in a pharmacy.  The range of condoms is intimidating – regular, ribbed, coloured and the sports condom for men who wear their trakky daks to bed.  There are thick, thin and ultra-thin condoms and a selection that taste like strawberries or bananas.  Ohmygod, pretty soon I won’t be able to walk past a fruit-stall without getting horny.

My friend and I said goodbye in the half-light of a new day and I walked back down Swanston Street trying to imagine someone who could be still, but bubbly at the same time.  A deep thinker with a great sense of humour, a confidante and ally who would be present but not territorial.  All of this made about as much sense as giving aspirin to a masochist and I've decided without any doubt, that too many choices, like too much romance, can give you the same feeling as when you're in a plane flying through turbulence