Lillian is the Boggaburra Beautification Society’s current President, a position she has ruled with an iron fist of fervent altruism for the past 23 years. As such, with the AGM coming up, she has penned her Annual Report. She is now en route to the Society’s meeting, to be held in the Boggaburra Community Hall (established 1907) at 2.00pm, commencing on the dot (latecomers will be reprimanded). 

She is clutching the handwritten sheet of paper (Conqueror 160 gsm, scented with rose and honeysuckle) in her flustered hand, while waiting for the Number 8 bus to arrive. Noting that the bus stop itself could do with some of her Beautification, she starts thinking about pretty mural designs and flower beds. She is calmed by these thoughts. 

Lillian has had to walk briskly to be on time for the bus, having been delayed by a domestic drama. Princess Petronella, her pampered pedigree Persian puss, has just puked on the Axminster carpet. Apparently the Princess did not take kindly to the culinary change from fresh meat to canned Yum-In-Your-Tum Tuna, the back-up choice from Lillian's pantry.
 
Because of her commitment to perfection, Lillian has not had the time to purchase fresh meat from the local purveyor of comestibles the previous day, choosing instead to throw all her eager energy into putting the finishing touches to The Report (with her stylish Parker fountain pen to showcase her elegant penmanship). The Princess has now regurgitated the stand-by, Not-So-Yummy fish slop, in a most off-putting, walking-backwards-while-gagging manoevre, just when Lillian is about to leave for the meeting.
 
She can sympathise with the cat, she herself hates change, but this event has thrown her schedule, and has indeed even thrown her back out slightly, having had to get down on hands and knees to clean the carpet with Supa-Wunda Skwirtz. (Really, why can’t people spell anymore? Those advertising copywriters should be reprimanded.)

Meanwhile, right on schedule, the bus arrives. Lillian is impressed with its punctuality, an important trait which, to her indignation, is not honoured in modern society. However, the bus livery of lime-green and purple is an affront to her good taste. (Really, these bright young designers should be reprimanded and supervised better.)
 
She ascends the steps and, adjusting her handbag (a large crocodile-skin item of prestige and luxury she purchased for a dirt-cheap, haggled-down price at a quaintly impoverished Asian peasant market on the Mekong), she shows the cheerful-but-far-too-familiar bus driver her Katch-It bus pass and Olgeeza card, which enables free bus travel for the over-65s. On making her way down the aisle of the crowded bus, Lillian notes that all the young people have their eyes glued to “devices” and therefore do not think to offer her a seat. (Really, where did common courtesy go? Why does nobody reprimand bad manners, and surely by now parents should have learned that it always means trouble when youngsters are left to their own devices?).

Eventually she finds a spare seat. In the muddle of having to be careful with her dodgy back, Lillian drops her handbag and the precious Report while making herself comfortable. Order is restored after some degree of fuss, and the journey along Boggaburra Boulevard is completed, a duration of eleven minutes. Upon arrival at the bus stop closest to the Community Hall, she prepares to rise from her seat to alight from the bus.

Horrors! Disaster! Where is her cherished Report?  Not in her hand! Not on her lap! The woman next to her has not seen it! Rummaging in her commodious handbag does not reveal it! Lillian has no desire to aggravate her back problem, so leans forward carefully to check under the seat, yet still she does not find it! Craning her neck to look down the aisle and scanning the floor does not bring success either. Fuck!! (She reprimands herself for even knowing such a foul word, let alone expressing it.)

She is certainly not going to be late for the meeting (she wants to get there in time to reprimand others for their tardiness), and is mortified that she will be a laughing stock without The Report, she who is always so well prepared, she who insists that everybody should follow her example. Lillian is aghast that all her hard work in preparing The Report has been wasted, that even her precious Princess has had to suffer (as well as the Axminster carpet). Humiliation looms!

As she stands, waiting disconsolately for the back door of the bus to whoosh open, someone taps her arm and says, “Hey, lady, there’s a piece of paper stuck to your arse!”

She is about to reprimand him for use of bad language when her brain has a sudden sensation of euphoria: The Report!

Lillian is so relieved that she wets herself. The wet patch is still spreading down the back of her cream and turquoise printed linen ensemble, purchased at Myer’s Emporium in 1981. (Classic quality that lasts is so important; one must avoid these artificial Asian acrylics).
 
What else can go wrong to void her poise? I think we’ll leave it at that. I’ll just say: steps, dog poo, torn stockings, broken shoe.

But I will add that a spotty-faced youth comes to Lillian’s aid in a most compassionate way. She recognises him as the person on the bus who so helpfully located her Report. He ties his hoodie around her waist to spare her embarrassment, then takes her across the road to the local Thrift Store, a place she has hurriedly walked past but never been in before. It is next door to a crass Two-Dollar Shop, another blot on the urban aesthetic. 

The young man holds Lillian's arm to support her (the broken heel has made her hopping mad), then helps her to choose an outfit, a task which takes more time than one would imagine. She is appalled at the lack of colour co-ordination on the racks.
 
Lillian only has a $100 note and there isn’t enough change in the till. The girl at the counter kindly suggests Lillian can have the clothes for no charge, but the young man pays for them with his bus money. She is perplexed by his profligacy, such an apparently reckless gesture when the clothes have been offered for free. 
 
She at last has regained her composure enough to enter the Community Hall. It is now 2.43pm and the AGM has been cancelled, due to the fact that no-one else showed up for the meeting. The Report wilts in her hand.

Several years later, no-one else showed up for Lillian’s funeral either. But the flowers provided by the funeral parlour were pretty; an arrangement of roses and honeysuckle lay on her coffin. The hearse drove past the now-beautified bus stop en route to the Boggaburra Boneyard. Lillian was able to rest in peace. Her work was done.

*  *  *

Concerned readers can be reassured that Princess Petronella was not left neglected when Lillian died. That thoughtful lady had arranged for the Princess to be pre-stuffed so she could accompany Lillian on her final journey. So you see, I told an untruth (Lillian may come back to reprimand me); she did in fact have an attendee friend at the funeral.