Photo: Gordon Bell/Shutterstock

13 Signs It's Time to Get the Hell Out of Melbourne

Melbourne
by Laura Mason May 19, 2015

1. You want to peel your own face off with rage whenever you get on the tram.

Clearly everyone knows that you don’t touch off in zone 1. But then again you can if you want to, even though there are signs EVERYWHERE telling you not to.

But if you don’t touch off you might be charged more, apart from when you’re in the zone 1/2 “overlap.”

And you don’t touch on or off in the “free zone” but you DO touch off in zone 2 or 3. Oh, except if you’re on the tram after the second to last stop in the journey.

And of course you clearly will know that some areas of zone 2 are now zone 1. I mean, what’s not to get?

2. You’ve finally realised it’s cooler to sit in a restaurant than stand outside of it looking forlornly at its piss-stained wall.

Your brain can no longer comprehend the idiocy of having to queue in the street in pissing wet 8-degree rain or 40-degree blazing heat for at least two hours — just to get into Chin Chin or Mamasita. And of course you can’t just wait in a pub because all the tables are booked for people coming to eat there (I’m looking at you Tramway Hotel).

3. You have become that cheese snob.

You’re having a chilled out breakie on a funky Richmond side street and you hear the following comment come out of your mouth like a slow motion disaster scene: “I’m not having the smashed avocado if it’s not with meredith goats cheese.” (Although in your defense, what do you think you are, from Brisbane?)

4. You know the chicken you get your local eggs from is an Australorp called ‘Janice.’

Yeah, the relationship with your farmer is getting a little weird.

5. You realise you now live within walking distance of three cafes in North Fitzroy that identify themselves as paleo, biodynamic, organic, and ethically-sourced.

6. And now every TV company knows that Melbourne makes a better program than Sydney.

So your local home-from-home North Fitzroy pub, the fabulous Lord Newry Hotel — where they know know you want a Pinot Noir before you even ask for it and serve it to you in front of their blazing fire — has been featured on an episode of Offspring.

You’re displeased about it because 1) the (rather shit) TV-show had to shut your pub down to film there, and 2) the said shit TV-show has now drawn an influx of wankers toward your pub. Despicable behaviour indeed.

7. You’ve started to notice people are drinking coffee in pubs now.

When you wander down Brunswick Street to your second best local in Fitzroy, Little Creatures Beer Hall, for a tasty crisp refreshing pint of pilsner (following wanker-fest in North Fitzroy, see above) and find not one, but at least three people drinking coffee. In. The. Pub. The clue is in the name folks — it’s where me and my delicious ale go as a place of refuge away from all your dirty, judgemental, non-alcohol supping healthy ways.

8. And when you do want a coffee, you are thwarted.

When you feel like a tasty slurp of soy-latte and head to good old Brunetti’s on Lygon Street in Carlton, you fail miserably because the place is crammed full of mamils (middle-aged men in lycra) who are far too cheerful and sweaty than is appropriate for a Sunday — plus you’re cruelly usurped by a 9-month old getting her babychino.

9. You still haven’t gotten yourself a french bull terrier to take to Albert Park so it can wreak havoc on the black swans.

It’s a sign, you don’t really fit in here.

10. You’re too broke to shop at the “vintage” charity shop on Chapel Street.

It would probably be cheaper to fly to New York and commission Ralph Lauren to hand sew you a new chair using thread made of gold than it would be to buy one single second-hand item from this place.

11. Seeing ads for Cirque de Soleil makes you gently weep inside for your lost local park.

When you gleefully head to Edinburgh Gardens on the first hot day of summer to do some serious lounging with an icy cool bottle of Yarra Valley Riesling, you find that it has been infested with jugglers and tightrope walkers having a very loud day and they evidently intend to share it with you. No thanks.

12. All the razors in Brunswick have been melted down to make skateboards.

You’ve run out of specimens for the hobo vs. hipster game as everyone now just looks like a hobo. The only ones you can be fairly sure about are the ones who serve you cocktails — and even then the odds are 30/70 against you.

13. You can pronounce Prahran and can afford to live there.

You’re clearly f#*ked.

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