Chab Gassie

ASIO was the first intelligence organisation to lodge a report on how great they are doing. We all have to compile these at this time of year. These intelligence reports can be tricky because in other businesses you can usually say how great you are by how many units you’ve sold, or how many hits you’ve got on your site, or how many times you’ve qualified for the World Cup. But in intelligence, targets aren’t given. Our bosses don’t call us in at the start of the fiscal year and say “Right! This year we need to intercept sixteen dead drops, tap into 72 phones and stop 98.5% of terrorist attacks.” You just do your job as required. ASIO were within their right to lodge a report that simply said “Did we keep Australia safe? YES WE DID ACTUALLY!”

So I’m busy putting together a report of all the great things I did. I also have to list a stupid thing I did and that’s what they’ll use to tell me about where I need to improve.

The stupid thing I chose was the time I had to try and get classified information from a woman who had issues with her weight and was always going on and off fad diets. But I was thrown into a situation where I had to talk to her about this before I had researched the latest diets.

“So you’ve also tried the low-carb and liver cleansing diets,” she said to me while we were doing pilates at a gym in Manly, Sydney. “What are you on now?”

“Ummm…” I stretched my arms and gritted my teeth, really pushing the stretch, as I thought. “I’m on the melon diet.”

“Wow! What’s that one? Who has tried it?”

“Who?”

“Which celebrity?”

“Jennifer…”

“Hawkins? Anniston? Garner?”

“Anyway, it is quite simple and quite effective. For lunch every day, you eat a melon.”

“What type of melon?”

“It can be any melon, but you have to have a different one each day.”

“Really? A whole melon?”

“Yep. I’ve been on it for three weeks. I’ve lost four kilo.”

She adjusted her position so she was leaning forward between her legs with her elbows on the floor and her chin in her hands.

“I don’t think I can name seven melons. What are they?”

“Rockmelon, watermelon…”

“You ate a whole watermelon for lunch?”

“Sure.”

“What are the other five?”

“Ummm… honeymelon… ummm… coconut.”

“Coconut? Is that a melon?”

“Technically.”

“Sounds strange.”

Then I got an order in my ear to fake an injury and get myself away from her as quick as possible. Somebody else finished off the operation.