07 March, 2003 - 2:43 p.m.

I was cleaning my room last night .. a general go-through-everything-and-chuck-out-everything kind of one to see if I could uncover that confounded mouses' hidey-hole, when I came across an old shoebox of random pieces of paper that had notes scribbled on them from all years past that I had kept for one sentimental reason or another.

One of them, however, wasn't kept as a reminder of anything particularly sentimental or meaningful; it had probably just been thrown in there one time and never thought about since. It was a With Compliments slip from a doctor's surgery that I used to frequent (and frequent frequently at that) when I was younger, and it bore the autograph of Scott Fisher. Now that name may mean nothing to you .. and it probably means nothing to a lot of people who actually DO live in Perth and were around in 1993, but anyways. Scott Fisher was one of the better players on the Perth Wildcat's National Basketball League (NBL) team back when fluorescent snap wristband bracelets were cool and we were all eating push pops.

I don't recall this story myself, but my brother used to tell it to me again and again because he thought it was hilarious.

apparently I was sitting in the doctor's surgery because I had sprained my ankle wrestling with our dog (we had been wrestling on the carport roof ..) and I was there with my brother and mother, when this guy next to us got up out of his seat and walked over to me and said "I bet you feel too embarrassed to ask me, but yes, you can have my autograph". I looked at him stupidly, and then turned to my mother. "WHAT'S HE TALKING ABOUT, MUM?" I asked, in a clear, loud tone. "WHO IS HE? -- WHO ARE YOU?"

turning red, he looked around the waiting room uncomfortably. "err .. right then .." and walked over to the receptionist's desk, asked for a With Comp. slip and came back over to me. "what's your name, then, love?" I looked at him, then at my mother, then back at him. "FIRSTLY, YOU TELL ME YOURS."

I don't think he got it. I may have been a tomboy. I may have loved climbing trees and wrestling with the dog. I may have followed the NBA like it was a religion .. but the NBL? That meant nothing to me. he meant nothing to me.

so basically for the next ten minutes he played the famous celebrity card whom nobody (read : me) recognised, whilst I played the incorrigible child card.

I think I won that round, because by the time he eventually got around to persuading me to take the slip of paper with his autograph on it, I had talked him into taking mine!

.. I'm willing to bet that he doesn't have my autograph stored away somewhere in an old shoebox, though.

oh well. his loss.

;)