I would like to introduce you to a little friend I call Tunge, Tounge, Tongue or any other variant involving those letters you can think of.

He is an interesting chap. Luckily only a select few of you out there will know whom I am talking about, but he is a truly rare friend indeed. He can laugh with you, cry with you but one thing he likes to do more than anything is to beat you! Beat you mentally, beat you morally and in the case of a sleeping friend, beat you physically.

But there is a special little place he holds in his heart that very, very few people know about him. He loves to win cash and loves it nearly as much as much as he loves dominating someone in a verbal argument on social etiquette. No actually, he loves to win cold hard cash much much more, which brings me to Saturday afternoon.

It was my punt for the punters club, I had $100 that needed to be bet somewhere. I decided Vision and Power and Triple Honour were the place to be. Much to my annoyance said Tunge suggested that both of my decisions were STUPID and a waste of hard earned punters club money.

Vision did nothing but a flying Triple Honour nearly pulled (finished 2nd) of a $450 return. As Trip’s race finished a noise rarely heard occurred as the Tunge started jumping for joy celebrating a trifecta victory! I sat bewildered for a moment trying to determine how a person who could denigrate me so openly for picking a second place horse could have somehow won a trifect in the same race. It soon became apparent that the Tunge had in fact picked Triple Honour in his trifecta, the sly dog. Tunge celebrating only as a Tunge can thought that this was the greatest thing in the history of the world and celebrated accordingly…. He celebrated that is until he checked his ticket. Whoops it seems the Tunge filled out his ticket incorrectly. That would mean no win.

Not surprising, Tunge was quite disappointed with this mistake and sooked into his beer for a number of minutes. He whinged he moaned but nothing changed the fact that he had cost himself a number of hundred dollars. I must admit I even, nearly felt a little sorry for him.

After a brief period the Tunge fired back with a bet here and a bet there. Soon enough the unit was back. He started to concentrate his considerable abilities on a little town known as Toowoomba. After a few minutes of study he declared a special that would be hard to beat. Thinking that he was acting his niff nuff normal self, know one listened to him. He made a significant bet that defied logic and watched the race unfold. As the line approached the only thing I could here was an abusive Tunge telling anyone who will listen that he tipped it, bet it and won the mother fooker. I did a little maths in my head and determined that Tunge had won enough money that maybe it was time to be his friend.

About 10 minutes into my sucking up process and Tunge’s relentless celebration the loud speaker at the TAB informed us of some facts that would make me laugh for a good solid 10 minutes. The Toowoomba race that Tunge had just won was declared (for no apparent reason) a no race!! A NO RACE ie. no bets counted and Tunge’s second huge victory of the day had been torn from his proverbial wallet! Sure he got his money back back its not the same.

It may seem cruel but jees I laughed!