CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
In what has been described as the ultimate elephant-and-the-mouse scenario, 82-year-old John Nguyen is now best friends with 19-year-old Kelly Sampson.
It’s a lifelong bond that was forged in the fire of chaotic mail deliveries and non-stop phone calls to the front desk.
John, the mail clerk for a thirteen floor office block in the Betoota Flight Path District Business Estate. Kelly, a receptionist for the data analyst firm on level 8.
While some would deem this friendship unlikely, it seems all it took was a steady stream of small talk, day-in-day-out, for the entire 5 months since Kelly left high school last year.
Gradually, the small talk grew into an unbreakable support network between two workplace outsiders.
In fact, after hearing hours worth of anecdotes and constantly tangenting stories about Kelly’s friendship circle and brief love interests, John would also considered the newfound best friend status to be rather unexpected. Especially given the differences between his life as a first-generation Vietnamese-Australia grandfather, and Kelly’s life as one of those outgoing nightclub chicks who can’t decide if she wants to be a dental hygienist or marine biologist
But what John has grown to understand is, that the eyes of a bubbly millennial, the fact that he can remember the names and boyfriends of Kelly’s 18 other best friends is good enough reason for him to make it to number 19.
While John doesn’t usually socialise with people he mets in this job, he eventually decided to make an exception for the wide-eye Kelly, around about the same time she started calling him Johnny From The Block. An early 2000s RnB reference that he doesn’t understand but trusts is not making fun of him.
While doing their best to avoid being caught slacking on the job during their intermittent gossip-charged encounters, other colleagues within the building are beginning to grow jealous of this loyal union.
In fact, when you consider that Kelly is the only person in the building who talks to John about things not directly related to signing for mail deliveries and where they can park their cars – it’s almost just as expected for him to consider her one his best friends as well.
Which he does.
At time of press, John was highlighting to Kelly the parallels between him having to leave his home country by boat in the years following the Second Indochina War, and her having to block her toxic friends Angela and Annabelle on Tik Tok because they actually require more energy than they are worth.
