I was talking to a bloke the other day who claimed he was a Sunshine Coast local.

Because there’s not many of them around – not genuine ones anyway – I felt compelled to test out his claim.

“So how long have you lived here?” I asked.

He paused for a moment as if considering how best to put me in my place; looked me in the eye and said “When I was a young bloke we use to play on Minyama Island. There was nothing there but scrub and we used to camp there and chase quail.”

He thought he’d beaten me with that one but I still had something up my sleeve.

“I bet you’re kicking yourself you didn’t grab some land there,” I sneered. “You probably would have got the whole island for a couple of thousand bucks.”

Game, set and match to Damian.

The poor bloke’s face instantly fell. He knew I was right but he didn’t need me to tell him.

It was obvious from the look on his face that he’d lain awake lamenting lost opportunities.

But haven’t we all?

Doesn’t everyone have a little skeleton of missed opportunities in their closet?

I know people whose forefathers were dairy farmers and owned a lovely bit of land by the beach.

This was going back a century or so and they sold it for a few pounds when they got too old to carry on and no one else in the family wanted to stay on the land.

Apparently, it’s called Cavill Avenue now. The heart of Surfers Paradise.
Talk about lying awake at night!

An old mate of mine thought he’d picked up a bargain when we were in Fiji back in the early ’80s.

We spent the best part of a day looking for a stereo he had his heart set on. He found it in a duty free place and spent hours haggling over the price.

There was a lot of arm waving and head shaking before we stormed out of the shop, with the salesman running behind, begging us to go back.

We agreed and he got on the phone to his boss and secured the deal my mate wanted (in hindsight, for all we knew he could have rung his mother to ask what was for dinner because our Fijian extended to “Bula” and “can we have another two beers please”).

So we struggled out of the shop with this bloody great boom box thing my mate then had to cart everywhere for the next week.

He refused to leave it in the hotel room when we went out, in case it got stolen.

It got its own seat on the bus to the airport and would have had its own seat next to him on the plane if he’d had his way.

When we got back to Brisbane he couldn’t wait to show it off to his sister who listened intently for about five minutes and then reached across and picked up a Chandlers catalogue from the coffee table.

“It looks a bit like this one,” she said, pointing to exactly the same stereo which the store around the corner was selling for half the price he’d paid in Fiji.

I’d never seen a grown man cry before that.

Now I would like to be able to say that I’ve never missed an opportunity but it has happened as recently as the other day.

A couple of kids were holding a footpath garage sale near home and I noticed they had this great barbecue, complete with gas cylinder and the works for $100.

I checked it out and it had to be worth twice that much, but alarm bells rang when they told me some bloke called Bill had moved out and given it to them.

“Something definitely fishy there,” I thought.

Next thing I know, a police car pulled up and the two cops on board spoke to the boys, paying particular attention to the nearby barbecue.

“Here we go,” I thought. “Can I pick them or what?”

The cops left and within five minutes a woman pulled up, forked over $100 and left with her bargain.

I couldn’t help myself.

“Didn’t I see the police talking to you about that barbie?” I asked one of the boys.

“Sure did,” he replied as he counted the $20 notes in his hand.

“Did they ask you where you got it or say anything about not selling it?” I ventured.

“Nah,” said the kid.

“They’re mates of Bill’s and just wanted to see if we were having any luck selling his barbie.”

I didn’t let them see me having a little cry as I walked away.