Games mascot drops onto beach
Borobi the surfing koala, the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games mascot, arrives in style at Burleigh on Monday morning. Vision: Channel Seven
PT0M30S 620 349"Dude, seriously, let me pack that cone. You're short on thumbs."
Borobi squinted at me through the thick haze of weed smoke.
"Don't patronise me, JB," he muttered. "I'm special now, bro. You gotta show some respect."
What does Borobi the surfing koala really get up to when he's not being a mascot? Photo: Amanda Abate/Seven News
But he was already three buckets into the wind and it took him a long time time to say this, what with all the coughing and wheezing getting distracted by his breakfast beer.
He necked the last half of the beer in one long pull, belched enormously, and fell back against the front of the brown couch. Traffic roared past outside our flat at Nobby's but Bo' didn't hear it. He just lay there on the floor contentedly drumming his fat, greasy paws on the matted and filthy blue fur of his grossly distended belly.
"Dude, you really gotta cut back on the delivery food," I said. "Not judgin', just sayin' is all. You got this new gig coming up. They're gonna want your A-game. Not your pizza farts."
Borobi "drops in" on the Gold Coast. Photo: Sunrise
"Pizza farts …" He giggled as he let rip with a shocker. What little remained of the flaking varnish on the scarred wooden floor beneath his hairy blue arse began to bubble and smoke.
He started laughing for real then, and so did I, because, you know, beers and breakfast bongs and pure dumb luck.
It was pure dumb luck he'd got the gig as the Commonwealth Games Mascot. Pure dumb luck he had the look they said they were lookin' for. A surfing koala, a "little champion" who was "tenacious" and "up for a challenge". And blue. Because of the surf and stuff.
Problem was, my fat little friend was blue because the day of his audition he'd "tenaciously" dived into our blocked and overflowing toilet bowl when he dropped his favourite bong in there – the Minion one, with the big-arse test tube. Then the lazy turd just sat in there, stewing in Harpic, because he wasn't "up for the challenge" of climbing out again.
He said it was because of his handicap, but I'd seen him crawl out of plenty of toilets even after he blew his thumb off trying to light a cone with a giant firecracker we bought online. He reckons a flushing toilet is as good as a spa bath, but ours doesn't really flush any more because of all the koala fur clogging it up. And anyway, he's not really handicapped.
He's just a lazy surf bum is all.
"Dude, you awake?" I asked, pushing a toe into his flabby gut. It felt like a giant pudding wrapped in shag pile. "Dude?"
"Fuggoff, JB," he half-yawned, half-snored.
"Dude, you gotta get up. We gotta go meet Occhilupo at this thing."
He snored for real then.
"Dude, there's a helicopter."
That opened his sleepy, gummed-up eyes. One of them at least.
"A helicopter?"
"Don't you remember? We gotta fly in on a helicopter. Meet Occhi. Get a new surfboard and everything."
He started to push himself up off the floor, but it wasn't the promise of a new board. He hadn't been out in the waves for months.
"Fuggin' helicopter," he muttered. "I can use a helicopter, man. We could get down to Nimbin, eh. Drop in on some buds … get it … drop in … and …"
But he couldn't finish the sentence, he was already laughing so hard at his own lame joke.
"Yeah," I said. "Totally. We could do that."
I figured if I could get him moving, I could get him to his first gig. I could use that board even if he couldn't.
"But I'm gonna need another cone," he said. "A traveller."
He blinked slowly, looking around for the fixings of his next bong.
"Hey. Blinky Bill," I said, "seriously, let me pack that cone for you. You got no thumbs."
8 comments so far
New user? Sign up
Make a comment
You are logged in as [Logout]
All information entered below may be published.
Thank you
Your comment has been submitted for approval.
Comments are moderated and are generally published if they are on-topic and not abusive.