Every year, the UQLS hosted Annual Professional Drinks, which consists of drinks with professionals (annually). The evening provides the chance for law students to network and build relationships with partners from a range of firms and legal industries.
However, amongst the profession and university alike, APD is known as more than just a networking event. It is indeed Brisbane’s worst kept secret that APD is a hedonistic boozetopia, a jamboree of debauchery, the White Water World of drinking.
For Duke & D’Arcy McMullen partner, Arnold Turner, the old maxim that ‘some people just can’t handle APD’ proved only too correct.
At approximately 9am this morning, thirteen hours after the drinks were scheduled to conclude, Mr Turner woke up in a pool of sweat in what he initially thought was his Eagle Street office.
As Mr Turner swatted away the empty bottles of Wild Yak that were resting on his chest, he realised that he was lying in a gutter on Cavill Avenue. The Surfers Paradise sun had scorched his skin, causing the senior tax partner’s skin to well and boil into a smushy tomato-esque paste.
As he did up the two remaining buttons on his torn blue business shirt, Mr Turner muttered a phrase he had said only too many times before.
‘Fucking Annual Professional Drinks.’
Mr Turner reached towards his pocket, only to realise he wasn’t wearing any pants. ‘Christ.’ His phone, wallet, building pass and house keys had been in those pants. Then he looked up and saw it.
His pants were flying in the wind like a flag on the top of Q1.
‘Surely not,’ Mr Arnold spat, realising he had indeed free climbed Australia’s tallest building to tie his pants to that phallic pole, which is the only reason it’s taller than Eureka Tower in Melbourne. Literally they just stuck a pole on it (this is admittedly a different issue entirely but still important).
As he scrambled around trying to figure out how to catch a bus to Brisbane, Mr Turner genuinely did not know how he’d ended on the Gold Coast. He ran to a pay phone and dialled 1800 R-E-V-E-R-S-E.
‘Honey!’ he yelped, as his visibly panicked wife answered.
‘What happened?’ she begged through tears.
Turner took a breath. ‘I got APD’d.’
‘Again?’ Mrs Turner’s voice shook.
‘This is the last time.’
‘You said that last time, Arnold! It’s too much. You have to make a decision – it’s me or APD. I can’t live like this for another year.’
Turner knew what he had to do. But he couldn’t. He loved his kids. He loved his wife. But then he thought of the champagne, the limp handshakes, the weaving of moot participation into conversations about the view from Flight Centre. He knew, deep down, that he wasn’t ready to give that up. He never would be.
‘I’m sorry Rachel. This does not work. I must network.’
The ink on the divorce papers has not yet dried. The kids are at school, yet to learn that they’ll be sleeping at Aunty Meg’s tonight and for every night to come. But Turner doesn’t care. He never did. Nothing is real anymore. He only needs 3 things for fulfilment.
Annual.
Professional.
Drinks.
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