The Day the Fame Monster Helped Me Dice Onions
Look. I’m a plumber. I fix leaks. I unclog toilets. I’ve seen things that
would make a slaughterhouse worker blanch. My life is PVC pipes, copper fittings, and the eternal, soul-crushing battle against tree roots in old terracotta sewer lines.
I am not a man who rubs shoulders with pop royalty.
But about six years back, I’m doing a job at a fancy penthouse in Sydney—replacing a cracked flange on a bidet that cost more than my ute—and this tiny, pale woman with enormous sunglasses wanders in and asks if I want a cup of tea.
Turns out, it’s Lady Gaga.
Turns out, she’s renting the place while she’s on tour.
Turns out, she’s an absolute legend.
We got chatting. I fixed her bidet. She asked about my life. I told her about my workshop at home, my garden, my… well, my bird. She asked if she could come see the bird. I said, “He’s not really a pet, he’s more of a… noisy housemate.” She said, “Even better.”
So now it’s six months later, and this is just… a thing that happens. A few times a year, when she’s in the country, she rocks up to my suburban joint in track pants that cost more than my entire toolbox, kicks her feet up on my scratched dining table, and we cook.
[Menu]
And Kevin—my Rosella—perches on the windowsill and acts like he owns the bloody place. Which, to be fair, he does.
This particular afternoon, I’m knee-deep in a lentil and chard situation. She wanted to cook vegan, I said fine, but I’m adding smoked paprika or I walk. She laughed that weird, theatrical laugh of hers and handed me the knife.
I’m telling her about a job from hell. A burst main down in the Rocks. Council bloke—bald, sweaty, the type who carries a clipboard like it’s a loaded weapon—tells me it’s a simple pressure issue. I take one look at the site and I know. It’s a geomembrane failure. The whole pipe’s been weeping for years, rusted from the inside out, and now it’s split like a bloated sausage. Gonna cost ’em triple now than if they’d just listened to me in the first place.
Gaga’s dicing chard like she’s done it a thousand times—which, apparently, she has. She nods along, and then she drops her voice into that low, rumbling register she uses when she’s being serious. She says, “It’s the same in the industry. You tell a label exec the fuse is about to blow on a tour bus, but they don’t listen. Then you’re in Japan, the pyro goes sideways, and suddenly you’re the weeping pipe.”
And I’m about to respond, but I don’t get a chance, because—
“Wheep-wheep-chirrup?”
I look over. Kevin’s on the window frame, head cocked, one beady black eye fixed on her like he’s evaluating a new cast member.
Australian bird guide – rosellas
I point my knife at him. “See? Kevin agrees with me. He’s been in this kitchen longer than my ex-wife. He knows a losing battle when he hears one.”
Kevin puffs up—typical—and lets out a triumphant “Creeee!” like he’s just delivered the closing argument in a murder trial.
Gaga cackles. That genuine, unproduced cackle that makes you forget she’s a global icon and remember she’s just a weird, wonderful human who likes birds and lentils. “Kevin,” she says, pointing her wooden spoon at him, “is the executive producer of this conversation. He’s deciding the final cut.”
Australian bird guide – king parrots
I snort. “Executive producer. Mate, he once screamed at a possum for twenty minutes because it looked at him funny. He’s more like the security guard.”
Kevin chirps a sharp “Chack!”—which I swear to god is him telling me to shut up.
She wants horror stories. Of course she does.
She slides the chard into the pan, it sizzles, and she says, “Alright, Dave. Your turn. Tell me the most disgusting thing you’ve ever pulled out of a U-bend.”
I groan. “You’re vegan. I can’t tell you that. It’d violate your dietary ethics second-hand.”
She deadpans. “I’ve worn a dress made of raw meat. I can handle a hairball.”
Fair point.
Kevin does a little “Chack!”—like a laugh track from the peanut gallery.
I lean in. I drop my voice. “Alright. 2008. A wedding ring, a false tooth, and a live yabby. All in the one trap. The yabby was pissed.”
She slaps the counter so hard the salt shaker jumps. “That’s an album title. The Live Yabby Trap.”
I’m laughing now, stirring the stew, and Kevin flutters down from the window to the back of the empty dining chair. He’s close enough to nick a bit of quinoa if I’m not paying attention. I’m always paying attention. That bird is a menace.
We eat. The stew is good—even I’ll admit that, and I’m a meat-and-three-veg kind of bloke. She tells me about the Born This Way tour. The mechanical horse. The prosthetic horns. The chaos.
I’m wiping my mouth with a tea towel, and I say, without thinking, “You know, that horse you rode? I had to fix the hydraulics on a similar rig for a musical once. The actor’s fake horse sneezed and blew a gasket. Took me three hours.”
She stares at me. Deadpan. Unblinking.
“Did you just compare my art to a sneezing animatronic horse?”
The silence hangs. I’m about to backtrack, about to apologize, when—
“Ooo-ooo-ooo.”
I look at Kevin. The little bastard has fluffed his crimson chest, lowered his head, and let out that long, descending, theatrical burn of a chirp. The universal sound of you just got roasted, mate.
I throw a bit of flatbread at him. He catches it mid-air, because of course he does.
Gaga points at me, cackling. “The Rosella has spoken. You’re cancelled, mate.”
Kevin preens. Does a little bob-dance on the chair. He’s free to fly out that door any second—to the gum tree, to the whole blue sky, to swoop the magpies and terrorize the local lorikeets. But he stays. Because the conversation is good. The lentils are warm. And he knows, the clever bastard, that he’s got the best seat in the house.
Later, when the sun’s going down and she’s pulling on her ridiculous designer jacket, she leans over to Kevin. Whispers to him like he’s a co-conspirator.
“You’re the real star of this show, Kevin.”
Kevin replies with a soft, smug “Peep.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling.
She gives me a wink, steps out the door, and leaves me alone with my bird and my stew and my quiet, chaotic little life.
I look at Kevin. He looks at me.
“You know,” I say, “she’s the most famous woman on the planet, and she comes to our kitchen to cook lentils and talk about drainpipes.”
Kevin tilts his head. Lets out a single, definitive “Wheep.”
Translation: Yeah, mate. And you still can’t fix the dripping tap in the laundry.
He’s not wrong.
I scratch his head, he nibbles my finger, and we both watch the flyscreen swing shut in the twilight.
Somewhere out there, Lady Gaga is going back to her world of stadiums and spotlights. But in here? In here, I’ve got a crimson Rosella, a pot of leftovers, and a story I’ll tell till the day I die.
Not bad for a plumber from the suburbs.
Not bad at all.