I feel great – refreshed from a swim and a steam. I’m in the members’ change room of the Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre, heading towards my locker after having a shower. I have timed my swim well, leaving as the lunch break members are arriving. I look to see if anyone’s changing near my locker and there is only one guy at the end of the bench. He’s fairly good looking and probably some kind of corporate dude as I can see he has a business suit zipped up in its casing on the bench. I unlock my locker with my green rubber wrist band that I prefer to wrap around my water bottle rather than my wrist. I then turn and attempt to slip the band off the bottle, pulling on the lid. But it wasn’t screwed on properly. The lid slides off. The bottle falls to the bench. Water spouts out like lava from a volcano. Some of it lands on the business dude’s suit casing . I am embarrassed. “Sorry mate. Didn’t see that coming.” He smiles. “No worries. It’s only water.” I think of something, then quickly quip: “Actually, that’s my vodka.” He laughs. “Well, even better.” I then think about saying something along the lines of: “Feel free to lick it off,” but thankfully restrain myself. Instead, I turn, undo the towel wrapped around my waist and proceed to get naked in the company of strangers.

My eight-year old son and I are heading home after kicking a footy in the park. As we walk past the building where he was conceived, I repeat what my wife and I have been saying to him for years: “There’s the Luke factory”. He doesn’t really respond, so I decide to ask him a question: “How do you think you were made?” I’m pretty sure his response will involve the word ‘sexing’, as he has for some weeks now been declaring that he knows what it is, slightly shocking my wife and I that he’s across the concept at his age. “You and Mum got me out of a box and I was put together by robots.” Wow! I didn’t see that coming. Suddenly he’s an innocent little boy again – with quite the imagination. “That sounds pretty exciting. But no, that’s not how you were made.” We walk in silence for awhile. I give it some thought and then decide to take the leap. “Do want to know how were made?” “Okay.” “Well, you know what ‘sexing’ is, don’t you?” “Yeah, it’s when the man puts his penis in the woman’s gavina.” “It’s actually called a ‘vagina’ but yeah, that’s right. Well, that’s how you make a baby. The woman gets pregnant and then nine months later, out comes the baby.” Shocked silence. Then, “Really?” “Yep.” More silence. Then, “Ahhh – I knew you and Mum must have had sex at least once.” I laugh. More silence. But this time, I can almost see the little cogs in his brain spinning around and I know what’s coming next. “So… you and Mum could have sex again and make me a brother!” “Unfortunately, no. Women get to a certain age and then their bodies can no longer make a baby.” He’s disappointed. But I can tell that he’s buzzing with this newfound knowledge and is probably busting to get back to the schoolyard (where he no doubt learned what little he did know about ‘sexing’) and share this bombshell with his little mates. What I fail to foresee, however, is that he will soon suddenly stand up in his afterschool-care classroom and declare to kids aged five to ten: “All your parents had sex at least once before you were born!”

I’ve just read about it on the net but still don’t believe it. So I head out into the wet and dreary day to see for myself. As I near the beach, the evidence trail begins. Exhibit A: a shattered shop window. I cross the road and begin to walk down the grassy hill. Exhibit B: a stretch of tire tracks scarring the grass like a couple of muddy trenches. I hop down from the wall and onto the promenade to check out Exhibit C: a collapsed aluminum fence. I look further out towards the beach and there, finally, is Exhibit D: a lonely looking hatchback, its wheels buried in the sand. Wow. So it is true. There are a couple of other onlookers sheltering under umbrellas but mostly there’s no one about. Lucky. Had this car ended up in the same spot on a weekend or especially during a hot summer’s day, carnage and chaos would reign. Trying to imagine how this could possibly have happened, I become the driver of a hatchback not all that different from my own. I am driving along Campbell Parade. The windscreen wipers slide and thump a steady beat. My right foot starts to cramp. I take it off the accelerator and reach down to rub it. As I do, the steering wheel starts to turn towards oncoming traffic. I quickly swing it back and stomp my foot on the brake. But it’s the wrong pedal. Instead of stopping, the car races towards the footpath. I pull on the the steering wheel. The car fishtails. The back bangs a shop window. Glass rains down. I am pointed away from the footpath and shoot across the road, missing a truck by millimetres. A horn blares. My foot has cramped completely and is cemented to the accelerator. Grass and mud churn and leap. Then I am flying. A fence surrenders as sand rushes towards me. Impact. Airbag. Silence. Adrenaline and shock battle for control. I sit there. Waves crash nearby. After what feels like a decade, there’s a knock on my window. I see a wide-eyed face. “You okay?”. And at that moment, I am the most embarrassed being on the planet.