Nothing like a friendly sledge between mates

SOME of the mob who I run with have been mates for 50 years.

That’s half a century of pranks, needling and good old-fashioned sledging.

Some of us went to school together, played footy together – and against each other – and had our first beer together.

Yet, it’s been sledging all the way. As I’ve explained in this column before, hanging around my mates can be exhausting.

Everyone of us is ever ready to get one up on one or more of the others, and pranks and sledging are not only condoned but encouraged.

The thing is, we always laugh and never take offence.

Too many people these days are too quick to take offence, and I’ve been worried the old-fashioned Aussie larrikin was about to be thrown into the dustbin of history which would be a shame.

That was until I took a trip up to Mackay to visit a good friend, almost three decades my junior.

She has one of the quickest wits and cutting sledges I’ve come across, which is pretty much why we get along so well.

We took in the Australian v India women’s cricket one day match in Mackay.

Sitting beneath the North Queensland sun enjoying the match, she, as is the want of a young one these days, suggested we mark the moment for posterity – or as young people say: “Okay, time for a selfie!”

She took the selfie which aptly showed my facial sunburn, a byproduct of sitting under the hot North Queensland sun watching cricket without sunscreen.

However, I was prompted to tell her that I’d never ever taken a selfie.

“That’s because your arms are too short,” she replied in an instant, leaving me laughing out loud (or “lol” as I believe the young ones say).

Now that’s what I call a sledge, and I was quite chuffed and proud of her.

Maybe that’s the reason she’s been referring to me as a dinosaur all these years.

And I thought it was because I had no idea how to use modern technology like a mobile phone, Instagram or the TV remote.

Upon my return to Toowoomba, I couldn’t help telling my mates about the sledge, and they were quite impressed and have since taken to calling me “T’rex” (mainly because Tyrannosaurus Rex is far too complicated a term for my mates).

But it got us thinking of our best sledges over the past half century.

Our late great mate “Dicky Dog” was the best of the crew which includes another mate who is proud of the fact he was asked to leave high school halfway through Year 9 after the teacher told him: “There’s nothing more we can do for you”.

Now, our mate is the first to admit he’s not the greatest public speaker, but he eventually gets the message across.

One day during discussions at our favourite pub, he went to speak only for Dicky to jump in with: “Now this next sentence will take less time as it will be spoken without the use of vowels”.

One of our number, who shall remain nameless, has in recent years put on more than a few kilograms than he might otherwise have preferred.

When, in his own defence, he quipped that he liked to carry a bit of extra weight as a “winter coat” to get him through the colder Toowoomba months, the inevitable sledger came back with: “You’ve got enough of a ‘coat’ there for a nuclear winter”.

That may sound a little harsh until you hear what another remarked when discussing my ever increasing girth just last weekend.

“Put any more weight on, mate, and you’ll have your own gravitational pull,” he offered.

There are a thousand others that have been thrown across our mob over the decades, but you get the drift.

Our mob has always enjoyed sledging each other and I reckon no amount of political correctness is about to lessen the tongue lashes.

And, for that, I’m very grateful.

Put any more weight on, mate, and you’ll have your own gravitational pull