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Chapter 1: The Paramedic Christmas Bash

My story starts with a paramedic. And not just any paramedic mind you. This paramedic is actually pretty lame but he is now hailed a hero. I guess you could say I’m pretty bias though as he is my oldest brother.

 My whole family is involved with saving lives with the exception of Jet, who spends his days playing Farmville and not actually admitting it.

My mum is a doctor for some big hospitals in Perth. There are about 7 big hospitals in Perth and she does shifts between about three of them so I never bothered to find out which ones she worked at.

 My dad is a fireman. One of the ones that drive a big red truck that makes way to much noise and does heroic yet stupid things. He always comes home smelling of smoke and he never gets the black out from under his fingernails.

 My oldest brother, Josh, as I recently mentioned is a paramedic who has followed in Dad’s footsteps and does heroic yet stupid things if it results in keeping a heart beating, which I guess is good in a way.

 I’m a lifeguard. It’s very sporty considering how lowly I think of sport. It is up there under the upside-down smiley face side of my mind with boiling kittens, parent interviews and stuffy rooms with low roofs.

 So there you go, a family of people who are devoted to farming and saving lives. Mum and Dad and their three precious little treasures, Josh, Jet and me, Allie Grey. We are the Grey family and despite our depressing surname, family gatherings are anything but grey.

 So as I was saying my story starts with Josh the paramedic and the stupid end of year gathering we had to go to. Now at the end of the year we go to, on average, 4 Christmas gatherings, mainly because sometimes Mum doesn’t go to one of her hospital joints because she doesn’t like the boss and they always have shitty wine. Last year though they had a change of management within the overall departments so we have to now attend all 5. At the end of last year we attended three hospital Christmas gatherings where they talk about hysterectomies and neurologists and all those other large words that actually mean ‘head and neck specialist’ but then again doctors pride themselves on their use of smart, long intellectually challenging lingo, one fireman night at the pub where all the men get drunk and take off their shirts and we all get free fireman calendars for the new year and finally the paramedic Christmas bash where they give out heroic medals and retell stories of wiping bits of people off the road and helping the kid with a collapsed lung and all the paramedics that are at uni studying to become a doctor asks Mum long complicated questions that she answers in depth.

 The rules of Paramedicotholgy or whatever it is called is preached intensely and very reverently amongst Josh’s people. It is like being in Church. They recite their dreams and ambitions religiously and take a pledge devoting their life to protecting patients, families and ambulances, much like Christianity. It is hard to find many differences actually apart from the fact that Christians worship God and the Paramedics praise ‘Big Ambo’ who is actually the head boss of the local division.

 The Paramedic Christmas Bash is held in this huge hall with a giant slide with humungous overhead projectors showing images and videos from a small Toshiba over the whole wall. The tables are always laid out neatly with ‘welcome’ napkins and family names printed on cute little cards in thin, wavy black writing placed neatly in the middle of our reserved table.