I used to hate going to bed. When I was a child I was convinced that the time when I was sleeping was when all the interesting stuff happened. That’s why adults wanted children to go to bed. So they could do the good stuff. I got this idea one night when I snuck out of bed and hid behind the couch while my mum was watching The Box, the 1970s Aussie drama about a TV station. It was basically an early version of free-to-air porn. In black and white. It was so much more interesting than The Mike Walsh Show.
I would have been six or seven. I was hooked. I’d never seen anything like it. One of the ladies looked like someone I’d seen on Play School. Another bloke looked a bit like Big Ted. There was a lot of action in the nude. Mums and dads in the nude. A lot of them in bed like I was supposed to be.
Ironic that Mum would be up watching a show about people who were going to bed. It seemed strange that they were supposed to be in bed too but none of them appeared to be sleeping. They were doing a lot of jiggling. Bouncing up and down. When I did that on the bed I got into trouble. But apparently it was okay if you were in the nude and had a friend over.
The Box was all big boobs and afros and moustaches. (And that was just the women.) So that was what my mum was doing when I was asleep. Watching The Box. I thought she was doing the dishes. Or praying to Baby Jesus. No. She was gripping her cup of tea in the dark, even more enthralled than I. That’s clearly what adults did when kids went to bed. They watched The Box.
I liked it. I decided that from now on I would be staying up with Mum and watching The Box. It made me feel like an adult. Like I’d had a glimpse of a secret world. Kissing looked funny. Not like I’d ever been kissed. People were squishing their faces into each other and tilting their heads from side to side. Instead of tightly pursed lips pecking a cheek or another set of tightly pursed lips, they were wide open. Maybe they were sharing food. Or licking each other’s teeth. I remember thinking I would try kissing someone like that.
Then I saw a bum. An actual hairy man bum. It took up the whole screen. It was soo funny. I gasped and then fell on the floor laughing. ‘That’s a bum! There’s a bum on TV!’ Mum shat herself. She screamed and launched her tea into orbit, coming down in a quiet thud on the shag. I think she was pretty well aware that it was a bum. I actually think she was quite enjoying watching it. Oh no. Mum is angry.
‘What did you see?’ I didn’t really know what I’d seen. But it was very interesting. Instinctively I knew that I should lie. ‘I just saw a bum, Mum. I had a bad dream and then I saw the bum.’ I can still remember that fuzzed man bum. I sometimes wonder if it was my friend Tony Barry’s bum, but I’m too embarrassed to ask.
Mum made me go back to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. All I could think of was watching The Box. And seeing bums. Mum was in the lounge room watching bums. I fell asleep laughing. From that moment on all I wanted to do was watch The Box. It even featured in my ‘Morning News’ presentation at St Joseph’s the following day.
I told them I had seen a bum. Not on the toilet. Not in the mirror. On TV. Somewhere I never thought a bum would go. I don’t think that Sister Rita was allowed to watch The Box either. Or look at bums. She told me to ‘sit down’. But I couldn’t. It was the first time my Morning News had got full class attention.
I had the whole of Year 2 captivated with my bum story. I had just done my first successful five minutes of standup, and I nailed it. I had to sit in all lunch time and say the rosary ten times. That was after Sister Rita hit me on my bum three times with the cane. I didn’t care. I was on the path to knowledge. I could feel it in my bones. Actually, after the caning I could feel it in my bum.
That night I went for a straightforward approach. After dinner, when I brushed my teeth I asked Mum straight up. ‘Can I watch The Box?’ No. ‘Can I watch The Box?’ No. Then I started screaming. And crying. And stamping my feet. I realised if I threw a tantrum while The Box was on that Mum couldn’t enjoy The Box. Mum loved The Box too. So that’s how I started watching The Box. On one condition: ‘Don’t tell Sister Rita’.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
