The Adventures of Little Andy: A Hilarious Memoir of Messed Up Life Moments

The Adventures of Little Andy © 2023 Andy Kay.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This is a work of non-fiction. The events and conversations in this book have been set down to the best of the author’s ability, although some names and details may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Printed in Australia Cover and internal design by Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd Images in this book are copyright approved for Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd Illustrations within this book are copyright approved for Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

Cover photo: Andy Zito Illustrations: Jarryd Haefele

First Printing: June 2023

Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd/New Found Books www.shawlinepublishing.com.au/new-found-books/

Paperback ISBN 978-1-9229-9318-2 eBook ISBN 978-1-9229-9326-7

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Another warning here – if you’re easily offended, I kindly suggest you put this book down. I know it looks all sweet and innocent, but it’s not, so back away.

Disclaimer – Complaint correspondence will not be entered into.

89% BASED ON TRUE EVENTS

For my long-suffering partner Matt.

Also, for all the people I’ve accidently offended along the way, I honestly didn’t mean to. Some names and details in this book have been changed, just to protect the innocent.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It’s taken me over twenty years to collate these episodes from my life. First, they had to happen, then I had to scrawl them all down. I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve had a few failed starts over the years, but I was given some sound advice a few years ago. I can’t remember from who, but they said, ‘Write about what you know.’ Well, I know myself pretty damn well, so why not make it all about me? It may sound like this is a self-indulgent memoir, but trust me – it’s nothing like that. You may read it and think I’m a completely and utterly horrendous person, or you may end up liking me, or you may be Switzerland. Whatever you feel about me, that’s your prerogative. But what I do hope is that it gives you some decent out-loud belly laughs – and a few clutch-your-pearls moments – along the way.

First and foremost, I want to thank my beautiful partner Matt, who’s been my sounding board, voice of reason and unofficial editor… although I think he just wanted to make sure I portrayed him in a good light, as he’s played a key role in many of these episodes. Thank you for keeping me fed and watered, and sorry for hogging the laptop for months on end while I was writing and rewriting this book. I love you. I also need to thank my dear friends who have read draft chapters, provided honest feedback and put up with my pestering during the writing process by annoyingly asking…

‘But did it make you laugh?’

Ben, Polly, Lee, Whitney, Paul, Lachlan and Erin, a huge thank you to you all. Massive thank you to Zito for my cover photo, and a big appreciation to my very talented friend Jarryd for doing all the Little Andy illustrations and bringing him to life on paper. To Chrissie Swan, Anthony Callea, Sam Pang and Bob Downe (aka Mark Trevorrow), thank you for providing my book with a teeny tiny bit of credibility with your very generous review quotes.

But most of all, to my dear mum, please don’t disown me. I know you wanted to send me back to the baby hospital, but just remember I’m now your favourite child. Because if I sell heaps of copies of this book, I’ll take you on a round-the-world trip, business class! So, when you get on the plane, you’ll turn left and not right – how fancy would that be, hey?

PREFACE

Hi, I’m Little Andy. I consider myself a good person. I have a core group of friends who I love dearly and will do anything for. There are also some family members in that mix, but to be frank, not as many. I’m the kind of person who’ll always message my friends and family on their birthdays, check in with them when they’re struggling with life’s challenges, or send them a little care package if they’re unwell. I write to-do lists, have a well-kept home, cry when dogs are killed in films, regularly buy groceries for homeless people and even pick up discarded plastic bags so they don’t end up in the ocean choking our beautiful sea life. Now, this isn’t a book about how I think I’m God’s gift. I’m far from that – so far that it would be a very long drive between my house and Saintsville. 

After my forty-plus years on this planet, you’d think I’d be well-versed in the appropriateness of life’s situations. However, I can honestly say I’ve unwittingly fucked up many times. I’ve dug myself so far into socially-awkward holes that no amount of ‘Oh, I’m sorry, let me explain, I didn’t mean…’ would bring me crawling back out of those deep, dark and dirty pits. This book is about what I’d consider my top fuck-ups, where I’ve put myself, my long-suffering partner Matt, and sometimes other innocent victims in awkward social situations that we’d all rather forget. It’s kind of like the finale of a talent show – only the best of the best will make it. 

The first eighteen years of my life were pretty uneventful. I had a decent childhood growing up in the 1980s and 1990s with my eldest brother Mark and middle sister Kylie, me being the baby of the family. We had our ups and downs, like any family, but for the most part it seemed to run relatively smoothly. I had the things most middle-class Australian kids had during that era: a BMX bike, two cats, a rabbit, a dog, and a nice family home with a well-kept yard. My dad was a budding landscaper, so our front and back yards were always kept immaculate, like something you’d see in a gardening magazine. When I got my own dog as a thirteen-year-old, he was a beautiful and super-intelligent Blue Heeler-Kelpie cross that I named Dog. Genius, really, as everyone who met him knew his name instantly. People would always say, ‘What a lovely and well-behaved Dog you have.’ His ears would prick up and he’d shower them with sloppy kisses.

From an outsider’s point of view, we were the lucky family in our street, as we had an unheated, semi-above-ground pool in our backyard. It was basically a fancy-looking water tank doused in chlorine, with a timber desk on either side, but Mum and Dad sold it to us as a pool. The neighbourhood kids would all come over to our place to swim, and it became the destination house during summer. My mum and her bestie Angie, who lived a few doors down, would drink cask wine while supervising us, baking themselves in baby oil on the timber decks. When they’d finished a cask, they would throw the bladder to us, so we could use the metallic silver pillows as floaties. Us kids would try and drink the remnants of the wine. Sometimes, we were lucky enough to get a quarter of a cup between six of us. While I can appreciate a good bottle of wine now, back then it tasted like cat piss – well, if cat piss tastes like cheap lukewarm cask wine. By the end of each summer, I usually had a collection of about thirty of those pillows that I’d carefully store under the pool deck, so they could be re-used when the kids came knocking for the next pool party.

Although this may sound like irresponsible parenting, it was the 1980s and all very loose. No seat belts if you were in the back seat, no sunscreen when you were out in the blazing Australian heat. It was a joyous moment to peel sheets of sunburnt skin off my siblings’ backs. The aim was to get the biggest piece of intact skin, like in The Silence of the Lambs.

First day of school with our family dog Kristy. I was very sweet and innocent back then!

On my BMX bike, which I absolutely loved

I just seemed to glide through the years, relatively unscathed, but once I hit eighteen years old, it all took a turn… for the worst! It was like someone had side-swiped me on life’s highway, pushing me into oncoming traffic, and I couldn’t turn left or right to get out of the way.

I was in trouble. Big trouble.

In reality, there is no recall function, like you get when you send a wrong email. You have to own what you’ve done, or hope to God Kim Jong-un gets trigger happy with North Korea’s nuclear missiles and starts World War Three at that precise moment, just to distract everyone from the shit show you’ve put yourself in. Then you can do a discreet exit stage-left to your nuclear bunker, resurfacing months later to a toxic and desolate landscape. But on the upside, by then everyone’s forgotten about your foot-in-mouth moment.

I’ve been with Matt for over fifteen years, so he’s been with me during my finest hours. He’s my complete opposite, but I like to think I bring him out of his shell when it’s needed, and he puts me back in my shell when I need it – which is quite frequently. He’s solid in every sense of the word. A solid partner, solid support system, solid personality… a solid employee of a major bank (unlike me), a solid lover, and a solid best friend, with a solid muscular body. He’s got gorgeous thick brown hair that curls when it gets a little long, the cutest brown eyes that stare deep into your soul, a big, beautiful smile, and a loud bellowing laugh when he finds things genuinely funny. This usually happens when he watches a political satire show I don’t understand. He’s also got a slight sassy side, which not many people have seen. He comes out with his own toe-curling one-liners from time to time, and it’s one of my favourite things about him. I really did kind of hit the partner jackpot when I met Matt. Without him, I wouldn’t be alive today – I know that sounds dramatic, but there’s good reason for it. More on that later.

Whenever I put myself (and my partner) in an awkward situation, I almost have an out-of-body experience. I can sometimes see the pile-up on approach, going down the wrong way of the highway, but my brain and my mouth don’t seem to catch up to each other in time, and before I know it, crash, bang, I’m in the shit. Usually dragging an unwitting person or persons along for a ride they did not want to go on. One part of me is kind, considerate and thoughtful, while the other part is a fucking menace with zero self-awareness or filter. But in the nicest