In which Rocco’s mother requests a moon maiden …

There was once a mother (and still is, actually) who, despite all odds because she isn’t one herself, managed to bring into the world three gorgeous and independent girlies. The girlies went forth with confidence and determination and did exactly what they wanted to do with their lives.

Then there was Rocco. Not that Rocco isn’t gorgeous and independent … and I dare say he feels he also has confidence and determination. He’s probably doing exactly what he wants with his life too, but it’s a bit hard to see because of the demolition site (oh sorry … that would be bedroom) in which he resides.

Rocco was a lovely little lad, and his three sisters were delighted to have him when he arrived.  There really wasn’t any sign of a vague and disorganised nature at all. His parents lived in relative bliss until Rocco started school. The first report card said, ‘Rocco has no interest in any aspect of school life whatsoever.’ That was pretty funny at the time because Rocco’s father admitted to feeling exactly the same way. And he’s a teacher.

So the years went by, and despite the aforementioned disorganised nature, Rocco was somehow able to obtain p-plates and purchase a car. It took only six weeks before his mother answered the phone one evening to be invited by Rocco to come down to the bridge please, because there’d been a bit of a problem. And the nice policeman would like to speak to her as well. The mother and father went down to the bridge, where Rocco’s car had taken out three panels of Council fencing and was perched half on the roadway and half in mid air. Rocco had owned the car for six weeks, which was a neat $1000 for each week it had been in his possession. The mother and father had another nice surprise some weeks afterwards when Council sent a bill for $800. Those fence panels certainly don’t come cheap, and it’s nice to know the authorities are on the job and want things fixed and made nice again quickly. At great expense to the management.

A few months later and probably unfortunately, Rocco was able to purchase another car. An older and cheaper version of the first. Precisely three weeks after that, on the morning of January 1, Rocco arrived home at 7am having been dropped off by friends. His mother, naturally still in her nightie and looking forward optimistically to what the new year might bring, calmly enquired as to the whereabouts of Rocco’s car. (Well, that sentence isn’t completely true, because in actual fact she screamed and pointed and stamped up and down like Rumpelstiltskin doing the shitkicker’s waltz.) Rocco explained that he’d tried to miss a kangaroo on his way home from a New Years’ Eve animal-type rage and his car was now crumpled in a ditch. The kangaroo, however, was fine – and it was pointed out the mother should probably be grateful Rocco had only suffered a mouth full of dirt and a slightly grazed knee. Happy New Year. The car had cost $3000 – so having owned it for exactly three weeks, Rocco was on a roll.

Rocco’s mother doesn’t really want to document the fate of the next car, because it’s pretty boring after the first two.  It must be said, however, that it cost Rocco $1000 and (ta-dah!) he owned it for an entire year.  That’s $19.23 per week, give or take. Which is not bad, considering.

Almost without fail, Rocco manages to have his EFTPOS card either chewed up by a machine, lost or stolen practically every week. He has the bank’s number on speed dial. When he phones to request a new card, a tired voice says, ‘Will that be your usual, sir?’ This is incredible, given that the voice belongs to a machine. Even technology is past being thwarted by Rocco. There are robots out there crying tears of sump oil. And through it all, Rocco maintains a benevolent smile and an air of calm. There is, after all, nothing to be upset about. The universe will take care of everything eventually. Like Scarlett said, ‘I’ll worry about it tomorrow.’

Rocco’s mother howls at each full moon to please send Rocco a lovely, organised girlie with a heart of gold. The moon puts its fingers in its ears and goes, ‘la la la la LA!’ Until this request is granted, Rocco sits amiably amongst the empty flavoured milk cartons, burger wrappers and strange examples of prehistoric underwear and softly strums on his guitar.

Whenever you’re ready, moon …

.oOo.

Puff pastry can make anybody feel like Nigella …

It’s no secret I hate cooking. The only good thing about sticky summer weather is that nobody really wants to eat anything. You can be sitting there at 9pm sponging perspiration from your face with your legs spreadeagled over the coffee table (a charming vista from almost any angle) and nobody’s likely to say, ‘How about some roast suckling pig and a dozen treacle dumplings (with custard).’ They’d sooner die. Not only do they lack the capacity to plough into such repast – they’re also well aware I’d have to kill them.

My friend Jules, whose claim to fame is cooking ‘from scratch’, is quite astounded when I’m game enough to mention convenient things like fish fingers. I do it sometimes purposely when I feel she’s being too smug and needs stirring up. I have no doubt Jules makes her own fish fingers, forming hand-minced flaked flathead into artistic oceanic shapes with her bare hands and crumbing them. With crumbs made from scratch with … yes, bread. Probably home-baked and grated with her own toenails. Opening a frostbound box from the freezer department of Food-o-rama is probably as foreign to Jules as a working knowledge of what to do with a Brussels sprout is to me. Furthermore, I just don’t care. Some of us were put on this earth to nurture our families – and the rest of us weren’t.

There is something mind-numbingly boring about going to the supermarket anyway. Filling your trolley with vegetables, taking them home, nuking them – then scraping them from your children’s plates into the bin. If you took them straight home and binned them immediately, you could cut out the middle man completely. It must be the ‘guilty mother’ syndrome which keeps you battling away – so when the doctor tells you your family has scurvy and every nutritional deficiency known to man, you can say with complete honesty, ‘I tried giving them vegetables, sir … but they wouldn’t eat them!’ It sounds lame, but you’ll get away with it because it’s no longer legal to jam things into kids’ mouths and tape them shut.

I once remember cooking something – but it didn’t work. It’s tempting to try again when winter sets in and the aroma of the neighbours’ pot roast comes wafting through the kitchen window. Tendrils of gastronomic extravagance curling through the barren wastes of my non-productive kitchen. Sadly, the Hunter Gatherer sometimes thinks the aroma’s ours. He looks hopeful and asks what I’m cooking. I tell him to stand near the open window and breathe in. It’s called ‘passive eating’ – it’s inexpensive and you won’t gain weight. Our neighbours have no idea how many of their meals we’ve enjoyed by osmosis. If they cook something really hideous, we just close the window and the HG is forced to endure yet another dalliance with fish fingers.

A very convenient tool in the art of feeding your family is the knowledge nobody will ever let themselves starve. When they start making whimpering sounds, you point to the loaf of bread. Your only contribution to the scheme of things is to make sure there is a loaf of bread. The survival instinct will then take care of the rest. If you’re really fortunate, one of your offspring will discover they have a flair for cooking and will shove rudely past you to get to the spice rack. You may be lucky enough to get quite a few years’ mileage out of this before they leave home.

But the best invention since sliced bread (or any bread, really) is the packet of ready-rolled puff pastry sheets. You can wrap them around just about anything and people will be incredibly impressed. Just open a tin, bung it on the pastry, do a bit of artistic crimping … and voila! Your family thinks you’re Nigella. Not only that, you can use up those tins of Pal you don’t need anymore since WoofWoof moved down the street to where the dogs are spoiled rotten with home-made beefy numnums.

Necessity being the mother of invention, feeding the family need only be limited by your imagination. You will find you can fool almost all of the people most of the time with the pastry trick. I was telling Jules about it the other day and she refused to believe there would be any call for such a product. Fortunately for some of us, there most definitely is. Due to consumer demand, the packs of ready-rolled pastry now come in an economy pack of 10 sheets. Bliss on a stick, and bring on the dog bowl!

Eat your heart out, Nigella …

.oOo.

Loneliness of the long distance shed man …

Look in a man’s shed and his whole life flashes before you. His triumphs, his experimentation and his spectacular failures. From the wheels off his first trike to the latest high-tech gizmo for blowing leaves off the driveway – it’s all there. And every little nut and bolt tells a story.

Why do men keep jam jars full of rusted nails and screws? They’re never going to use them. When they start a new project they rub their hands together with glee and head straight down to Bunnings to proudly acquire a box of shiny new ones. This is part of the fun of home-handymanism. They wouldn’t dream of using some old 1940s nails on their new matching-shelf-and-whatnot-extender. Or on anything else, for that matter.

Every now and then, when there’s nothing to watch on the telly and everyone’s on his back, a dedicated Shed Man will give his things a ‘clear out’.  This means the little jars of nails and screws get shuffled around on the shelf. It’s Shed Man’s version of getting it sorted. Sometimes the jars get new sticky labels which say ‘nails’ and ‘screws’. But they never get thrown out. A real legitimate Shed Man will have at least 100 little jars. These used to hold the baby food consumed by his first child. That child now has children of his own.

There will also be tins of paint. None of these are any good because they dried up in 1963. There is half an inch of rubberised gloop in the bottom of each. Full of rust specks. You also have to bear in mind the sad truth nobody will ever want to paint anything Psycho Orange again – even though Shed Man  is just waiting for the day.

Sometimes, there are car parts. They will never see the inside of another car – unless it’s on their way to the tip, which it won’t be. Shed Man keeps them in case he bumps into someone at Bunnings one day who just happens to be looking for a crankshaft for a 1934 Crapmobile. Then he’ll be able to say he has one.

There are jars of things which even Shed Man himself won’t be able to identify. He won’t be able to tell you where he got them, but you can guess. They have been passed down through his own family – from Neanderthal Shed Man to Pre-War Shed Man. In turn, he’ll pass them to your son. Or your daughter’s hapless husband. This is why you never find jars of strange objects if you go scavenging at the tip.

The remains of every toaster you’ve ever blown up will be somewhere in that shed. Remember how he took it out there that morning when the raisin bread caused it to fizz and spark and ignite the Psycho Orange curtains? Sadly, it never came back. That incident, unhappily for Shed Man, culminated in a trip to Kmart instead. Ditto the dilemma with the electric jug, hair dryer and a range of battery operated kids’ toys which you’ll find in the Too Hard Basket under the rear workbench.

Be honest, though – you didn’t want all that stuff back, did you? They had little labels glued on them which said ‘Must only be opened by a qualified repairman.’ It’s the sign of a dedicated Shed Man that he thinks he is one.

Gone are the good old days when he could pop down to NostalgiaWorld and buy a new element for that jug. He could proudly screw it in and bear it back, triumphant, to the kitchen for the little woman to sigh over. His family relied on him to be Mr Fixit.

The disposable age has seen the demise of the effective Shed Man. Appliances have a life span of a couple of years before it’s time for that trip to Kmart again. On any given Saturday morning, the aisles are bursting with despondent Shed Men, replacing toasters, jugs and clock radios and shuffling along behind their womenfolk bearing a sense of personal failure.

Which is a right shame. Your lovely Shed Man has enough stuff at home in that shed to build a 1934 Crapmobile from scratch. And quite possibly just enough paint to finish it off with two coats of rust-flecked Psycho Orange …

.oOo.

 

How to bore people to death and not influence anybody …

There are people out there who can’t stand their own company. As the saying goes, they’re usually right. So what do they do with their spare time? Wreck yours. Phoning, visiting or hanging around malls waiting to head you off at the pass when you’re on your way to the car with a bag of fresh cream doughnuts and the latest copy of Chow Down (Bumper Holiday Edition). For some reason, they think they’re doing you a favour by inflicting themselves upon you without notice – and it’s just not fair.

            You can pick out The Prey in the crowded streets. People with haunted expressions and dust balls clinging to their hair. They sometimes wear dark glasses and towelling hats, and resemble people in a witness protection program. This is because they’ve spent the morning under the bed, hiding from someone jolly in a floral tent who kept punching the doorbell and calling ‘YOOHOO!’

            On the other hand, The Predators have little beady eyes, darting everywhere in order to spy a victim. They also have Tupperware catalogues, lamington drive order forms and photo albums full of crap you wouldn’t want to know about. They never phone first to give you time to make up an excuse. When you don’t answer the door, they tramp round the house trying all the locks and windows. While you’re lying under the bed trying not to breathe, you wonder what in hell you’re supposed to do if Maisie Fansbarns comes hurtling through your bedroom window. Do you come out from under the bed and pretend you were dusting, or let her go through the personal papers on your dresser? It’s a tangled web you have woven, and it probably serves you right.

            The Warrior Queen, who desires solitude and the company of other animals above all things, was once caught out badly by Mrs Fogsbottom, a ghastly neighbour who turned up each morning at 9am as soon as we kids were off to school. She’d be in situ still when we returned home. The WQ was quietly going batshit. She had never hurt anyone’s feelings before in her life, but found herself in the position of inventing dialogue/scenarios in her sleep with which to defray the dreaded Fogsbottom in a permanent and resolute fashion.

            She decided to say she wouldn’t be available for morning coffee for a couple of weeks because she was going to springclean. The idea was to break Mrs F’s habit so she’d move on to greener pastures. ‘Good idea!’ Mrs F agreed. ‘I might do the same!’ The next morning the WQ awoke with hope and optimism. She thought she might curl up with a book and do sod-all. She packed the school lunches, shoved us out of the door – and there, like a battleship in full sail, was Mrs F-Bottom sashaying across the street with a duster in one hand and a container of Vim in the other.

            The WQ went feral. There is no other way to describe it. From the top of our steps she screamed across the road – ‘Go AWAY! I can’t TAKE IT ANYMORE! Don’t you DARE come any further!’ The whole thing was accompanied by some rather menacing pointing gestures and much stamping of feet. Mrs F-Bot was rooted to the spot. There was no way to disband gracefully and return to barracks with her dignity intact. None of us can quite remember what happened next, but nobody in that neighbourhood ever spoke to the WQ again. Which was a very happy ending altogether, because that’s just the way she likes it.

            If you happen to be a Predator, spare a thought for those who love their own company and delight in talking to themselves and not sharing their cream doughnuts. Go to the library and choose the first book – something by Aarronson about Aardvarks – and start reading. Do not phone anyone or visit a neighbour until you have worked your way through to Zxybrand and read every single word of his million-page trilogy on life in a 16^th century throttlers’ camp.

            By the time you’ve done this, you’ll be so wise and well informed, people might actually be interested in what you have to say.

.oOo.

 

The importance of being beige …

There I was, standing in the middle of the supermarket, gazing despairingly into oblivion. They didn’t have the right sort of toilet tissue. Being a creature of habit, unable to concentrate on everything I need to think about AND the shopping, I usually just reach for ‘the one I always have’. But it wasn’t there. The time a shopping trip takes can escalate dramatically if you are caught with the miserable predicament of having to pause to make an impromptu choice.             ‘Just get a politically correct, unbleached, ergonomically satisfying, recycled job,’ I told the child in question, who was required to reach up and grab it. There were howls of protest.             ‘We CAN’T use that … it’s been used before!’             ‘Not as toilet roll,’ I told them firmly. There was further angst and distress later that night when we unwrapped the offending product. It was beige. There is something about beige – it doesn’t translate to toilet paper. It might be a perfectly acceptable shade if you can’t make up your mind whether to paint your walls puce or chartreuse. It’s a nice, safe option for knickers if you have fat thighs and a doctor’s appointment which necessitates the removal of clothing. But hanging there on that little wooden roller … well, wrong on just so many levels.             I reminded the complainers caustically their great-great-ancestors probably cut up bits of newspaper and stuck them on a rusty nail on the outhouse wall. Uncomplainingly, too. That the aforementioned ancestors, having suffered through the London Blitz and Great Quandialla Locust Plague respectively, would have been eternally grateful for beige.             ‘We’d rather have newspaper, thanks,’ sniffed the Rt Honourables.             ‘Fill yer boots,’ I told them wearily.             There’s the same problem with lunchwrap – beige is persona non grata. Or non gratin, if you’re not having cheese with that. There’s a definite stigma attached to having the wrong greaseproof. It has to be designer label, with a surf brand printed on it.             For the duration of the next fortnight, while we are in purgatory with embarrassing toilet tissue, nobody will bring their friends around. It’s too shameful, like having a corpse sitting up at the kitchen table singing, ‘Nobody Likes a Bogan’ – which we sometimes do, when I forget myself.             Admittedly, I have my own quirky little prejudices. Like orange. I won’t buy products with orange wrappers, or books with orange covers. I’d never consider orange clothes or furnishings, either. Being a child of the 60s and 70s, I lived through that when it was smokin’. Nubbly orange wool armchairs with just a hint of chocolate running through the weave. And yes, there’s more – pouffes to match!             Interestingly, we had rainbow lunchwrap in those days – and you were allowed to openly purchase soft pink toilet tissue without being banged over the noggin with a placard because you’d killed a forest. There were brown paper bags to carry groceries home in. Bread came in waxed paper, not plastic. Food even tasted something like food and hadn’t been cryonically preserved and banged up in a freezer container for 20 years.             The thing I miss is how sneakers only came in white canvas. Your standard Dunlop Volley. It saved an awful lot of time deciding whether to buy the ones with lumps, bumps, transparent soles or hologram laces. Or whether you wanted them for tennis, running, cross training, aerobics or merely for sitting nonchalantly around in the mall with a plate of cinnamon doughnuts and a cappuccino.             Then, just when you thought it was safe to go buy a t-shirt again, horrible acid colours made a comeback. It almost made you crave beige and nubbly orange wool.             Alarmingly, the most hideous thing of all can never be killed off. Like cockroaches after a holocaust, that most disgusting of biscuits, the Iced VoVo, is still with us – revoltingly pink and coconutted, with that awful little slab of stale pastry stuck on the bottom. I asked around to find out who actually ate them. Men do, that’s who. The tough ones, with sweaty armpits and tungsten-carbide tools in leather pouches slung around their hips – the same ones who proudly proclaim they don’t eat quiche. Go figure.             They probably use pink toilet tissue, too. .oOo.

 

Our operators are standing by to take your call …

Home shopping is the revolutionary new thing. It appears there’s not much you can’t do from the safety of your recliner rocker.             Just this morning I could have changed my life forever. I could have removed my unwanted hair, lost my unwanted flesh – and still had time before lunch to put some decorative little triangular plastic corner shelves up all over my house to hold my knick-knacks and potted ferns. Or my personal favourite – stayed on the sofa and had a bit of a hoot.             You can’t help laughing, really, because all this is taken so seriously. The women demonstrating the products have never had hair or flesh problems. Nor do they have homes enhanced by little triangular shelves. They have a limited script consisting of condescending dialogue such as, ‘That’s right, Bert – imagine never having to wax again!’ Bert looks thrilled as he imagines it. You can tell waxing has been causing him considerable grief and he is champing at the bit to get his hands on the product in the privacy of his dressing room.             The Hair Removal System (a razor), promises it will remove the hair forever. In which case, what’s to stop you sending it back after one go and getting your money back? Different hairs, however, must grow instead. From different follicles. Therefore, you will need the razor for the rest of your life, so it’s just as well it has a guarantee which will see you into your grave. When you are old enough not to give a sod about hairy legs and plaited armpits, you can have a go at your newly-acquired moustache and attempt a bit of a poke at your bristly nostrils.             The Weight Removal System is equally enthralling. By ordering a handful of pills and a revolutionary booklet, I too will look like the woman who is holding the tablets. The small print on the bottom of the screen assures me, ‘when combined with a low fat diet and plenty of exercise, you will lose weight on this program’. This is a bit of a shocker, really. Tim Tams and Big Macs, when combined with a low fat diet and plenty of exercise, will no doubt give the same result. The small print fails to mention this. Neither does it mention the side effects if you happen to eat the booklet.             The Say-Goodbye-to-your-Empty-and-Unattractive-Corner System consists of three beige plastic triangles. When you twist something underneath, small prongs dig into your walls. It’s just what you’ve always wanted, really – small prong-holes in your corners. Because you can easily move the shelves around at will (as helpfully demonstrated by the hair-free, flab-free smiling woman), you’ll probably have more prong-holes than a sinner in Hades before you’ve given up finding a satisfactory combination and hurled the offensive plastic crap into the potting shed.             The product which caused the most mirth, however, was the Buzz Away Your Flab System, which is a belt you can wear discreetly under your clothing. The voiceover assures you it is SO attractive you can wear it OVER your clothing if you so desire. As you would – the battery pack merely looks like designer chic. The gist of it is, if you let your tum hang out if gives you a bit of a buzz. This is a gentle reminder to pull your fat back in. If you don’t, presumably it just keeps right on buzzing. This would do me fine, thank you very much. Very relaxing altogether, and where do you put the batteries? The best part is, your colleagues have no idea you are doing it. They wonder why the building is shaking and your keyboard has vibrated its way off your desk – but apart from that, they remain relatively unperturbed. Until you pass out from lack of oxygen.             It makes you wonder what will be on offer next, really. Not that I give a rat’s. I’m just worried my knick-knacks will keep dropping off the edges of my little plastic shelves because my Buzz Away Your Flab System is turned up to maximum capacity.             Anyway, I can’t be arsed getting out of my chair to order anything. .oOo.

 

Hangin’ with the paparazzi …

Bearing in mind my memory seems to be fading – or dying completely – I’ve been wishing lately we’d taken more photographs over the past 30-odd years.             It seems there are rather long gaps between events, if you go by the lack of action in the family album. On one page someone’s a baby – on the next they’re cutting a cake at their 21st. You’d think we’d all gone into hibernation for long periods of time in between photo opportunities. Maybe we should have, judging by the amount of stuff which obviously wasn’t worth documenting.             Anyway, I was rather pleased with myself on recent holidays, because I actually managed to dash off a couple of quick rolls. Rather nonchalantly, I thought. There are the ones I took in the mist, the ones I took in the dark – and some mighty fine efforts which give breathtaking views of the inside of the lens cover.             These little gems pale into insignificance when you take into account the cinematic brilliance of our first effort, when the Rt Honourables were small and we thought it might be a nice idea to record important things like birthdays, etc. We had one particular film in the camera for years. It had five birthdays, a couple of Christmases and a christening on it. There were still a couple of shots left the day we went to Luna Park. Seeing as the Rt Hons were having such a brilliant time, we decided to splurge on a new film, which meant taking the old one out and replacing it. Not the best idea we’d had that day, if you don’t count the accident with the Dagwood Dog.             The Hunter Gatherer took the last shot, wound the little handle to rewind the film and popped open the back. Two long, thin black streamers came cascading out – ‘surprise!’ – a bit like a gothic party popper, if you really want to know.             There went three or four years of photographic genius, bearing in mind the film was totally ripped in half – down the middle. Which would have been no mean feat had he done it on purpose.             For a long time after that we were very disillusioned. The HG has refused to touch a camera since, so it’s been up to me. And I can’t understand why, when everything looks okay through the lens, you end up with a family of amputees and leering idiots who look like victims of cosmetic surgery malpractice cases.             One member of the family – on the HG’s side – does even better. Her specialty is ‘spontaneous’ shots at barbeques, where the surprised participant is caught with cigarette in one hand, beer can in the other and views of half-chewed, flyblown chop bones on a dirty plate in front of them. We got into the habit of cutting the unpalatable bits off, so pages in our album have tiny little circular pieces dotted all over them, giving legitimacy to the term ‘thumbnail sketch’.             I remember being told once to take photos with people and/or signposts in them. This is to make the pictures more interesting and gives a point of reference. This accounts for some very odd views of complete strangers standing in front of such gems as ‘Welcome to Wagga Wagga’, and ‘Danglewillee – Home of the Giant Choko’. I can’t for the life of me remember the giant choko – but it’s impossible to wipe from memory the frenzied look on that man’s face just before he dived into a clump of noxious weed at the side of the road and nearly emasculated himself on an electric fence. Which would have served him right. If he hadn’t had his raincoat open in the first place, he wouldn’t have attracted undue attention.             There’s still half a film in my camera, and I’m looking forward to finishing it and seeing what the rest of my holiday looks like. Reminiscing is pretty good. Sometimes it can bring back those halcyon days before you ‘let yourself go’.             Ah … last night I dreamed I went to Danglewillee again … .oOo.

 

Mother is not just half a word …

The chocolates settle comfortably upon the hips of the mothers of Australia – time once again to reflect on Mother’s Day.             Motherhood is not a doddle. Babies don’t come with a user’s guide. Even TV dinners have more comprehensive instructions. Therefore, there are many different kinds of mother. Some deserve special mention.             The Tryhard Mother is the paragon of parenthood. Your average Tryhard plays classical music to her stomach when the pregnancy’s confirmed. Don’t even think of mentioning epidurals – this woman does pelvic floor exercises while she waits in the checkout queue at Coles. The neighbours will be robbed of the opportunity to say she’s let herself go – she’ll be smugly zipping up her jeans on the way home from hospital. Then she’ll iron the nappies.             The Earth Mother spends nine fulfilling, harmonious months preparing soothing alfalfa sprout poultices for her sore bits after her pain-free, organic, underwater birth. Her partner, two close friends and a few interested neighbours will join her – nude, in the patchouli-scented water, being encouraging and singing madrigals. The Earth Mother will breastfeed until the child is five. She will only stop when the kindergarten teacher tells her firmly, but kindly, it is disrupting the class. She is asked courteously to send muesli bars instead. Kellogg’s will have nothing to do with this – the Earth Mother bakes her own with hand-ground grains and they will not be packed in Tupperware – she’s never heard of it, but knows plastic is carcinogenic. Her child will, however, be able to give useful advice on star signs and know immediately whether the sun is in Uranus. Later on, the Earth Mother will be baffled and mildly hurt when her child changes his name from Rigel Stratosphere to Steve. Like every other mother, she’ll wonder where she went wrong.                     The Thrillseeker ‘Laugh in the Face of Danger’ Mother barges straight into parenthood by giving birth to her child while parachuting into a war zone. It won’t worry her, either – she thrives on photo opportunities. Her child won’t know what’s hit him. He’ll wonder all his life what he has done to deserve a mother such as this. The Thrillseeker Mother puts her hand into a loaded nappy to check it. She thrusts an arm into a schoolbag that’s been sitting in the sun outside a classroom all day with a devon and banana sandwich inside. Often, the Thrillseeker Mother does not have a partner. He got frightened and left. The child will leave too, as soon as he finds a girl just like mum … another controlling bitch.             The In-Your-Face Mother tells the obstetrician what to do. He wonders why he bothered with seven years of medical school. She pushes the child belligerently through shopping malls like the commander of a Sherman tank, telling other mothers what they’ve done wrong. Teachers hate this sort of mother. They are trained to recognise one at 50 paces. The In-Your-Face Mother’s child is gifted and talented … or else.             The Leave-You-Wanting-More Mother had her child in between conference tea breaks, phoning the hospital whilst explaining the finer points of a Powerpoint Presentation on the overhead projection screen. Fortunately, due to her superior organisational skills and foresight, her nightie was rolled in her tortoiseshell briefcase under a folder of advertising contracts. Her child will wonder whether he has a mother. He’ll build an empire and his wife will have artificial insemination.             Lastly, there’s the At-The-Coalface Mother. A functional, hands-on type – the kind we all wish we had – the kind we all wish we could be. She makes playdough in five different colours and flavours, can flip pancakes, juggle oranges and wears your macaroni necklace in the rain even though the turquoise and orange dye wrecks her off-white jumper. She doesn’t care if you wear odd socks to school, have jam and curried egg in the same sandwich or keep a python under your bed. One Coalface Mother spent all night making a prehistoric diorama in a shoebox because it was due to be handed in at school that morning and she’d only just found out about it. She didn’t get any gratitude and didn’t care when she only got a C+. She’s wise enough to know tomorrow will be another day. When it comes, she’ll cope with that, too.             The Coalface Mother’s kids grow up to be exactly what they want to be. Because she always told them they could.             Have the best Mother’s Day. Whichever one you are … .oOo.

 

Waiting for Mr Fixit …

There are many really scary things in this life. Close to the top of the list is having to face the ghastly fact you are in need of a repairman. This is not because they are not perfectly nice people. It’s because I don’t know how to handle them.             The washing machine has been making a really impressive grinding noise for some time now. I’ve been ignoring it, hoping it would change its mind. Not. There is obviously something causing a bit of a problem in the whatsit – a bra wire or a chewed up sock.             The real problem is not what is stuck in the whatsit; it’s what to do about getting it sorted. Along with taking out the garbage, this type of transaction should come within the boundaries of ‘secret men’s business’. The bloke phones the repairman, says, ‘Mate – the Whirlpool’s stuffed.’ The repairman says he’ll get around to it. Some months later, maybe he does. These things can’t be rushed.             There is no way a woman should have to do the phoning. Not unless she has a hankering for wanting to be made to feel stupid. The repairman will ask her what the problem seems to be. There will be a silence in which she can hear Juicy Fruit languidly popping. She will innocently tell him the machine is making a funny noise. There will be a longer silence in which he digests this gem of technical information and she is treated to the sound of him scratching his testicles. He will then ask what the noise sounds like. She will say, ‘Er … like maybe a bra wire.’ She will then hear him telling his mates, who are lurking in the background drinking Milo out of chipped and greasy mugs. There will be much hooting and muffled laughter, and the word ‘doofus’ bandied about.             When and if he arrives, make absolutely sure you are not in your nightie. He will think you are a bored housewife who calls repairmen in purely to seduce them. He will think this even if he is 65 years old and his stomach is hanging to his knees. He will think this even if you are Kylie Minogue. It will not occur to him you are in your nightie because he was supposed to be coming three days ago at 10.30am and you had given up on him. Imagining he is Harrison Ford is the nature of the beast. He probably has a housewife register he shares with fellow repairmen. You get one star if you offer a cup of coffee, two stars if you put a biscuit on the saucer and God help the three star Momma.             Taking your car to be serviced is another minefield. Mechanics KNOW women are stupid. They read it in the manual. It is imperative you don’t tell him there’s a problem with your thingamajig, or the light on the whatnot isn’t coming on. When he asks what’s wrong, tell him firmly it’s his job to find out. Tell him you are on your way to the airport for a conference in LA on quantum physics and you don’t have time to explain stuff he should know anyway. Look down your nose. Be careful not to slip in the pool of sump oil on your way out – it spoils the effect of your otherwise cool presentation if you have a slick of SuperRev up the back of your designer knickers. When you get charged three times as much as the job was worth, you’ll probably kick yourself, realising how much you would have saved if you’d just come clean and told him the whatnot sounded blocked.             Clearly, what is needed are more female repairpeople. You can comfortably tell them about the bra wire or the thingamajig, safe in the knowledge they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. When they turn up, you can make coffee (the espresso kind), break out the Cheez Nibblies and have a good old natter in your Simpsons pyjamas.             When she’s extracted the sock from the whatsit, she’ll even mop up the greasy water that leaked out over the laundry floor and make sure there aren’t any little nuts and bolts left over. There’ll probably be time for a nice glass of chardonnay.             You’d be a right nuffnuff to call a man in to do a woman’s work! .oOo.

 

Some things are best left to their own devices …

We spend our whole lives accumulating stuff. It gathers in corners, under beds, on the tops of wardrobes. We don’t know where it comes from, and haven’t the faintest idea what to do with it. We just can’t let it go.             Parents start buying stuff for their babies before they’re born. That little white teddy propped in the cot, and the red plastic rattle on the change table – we make sure our offspring arrive in the world with possessions, even if we don’t have the remotest idea of their taste in plush animals. Does it shape their attitude from the beginning? Was it suppressed anger on seeing that pristine white teddy which caused Rocco’s crib-rage? If he’d been given the spiky black gorilla his heart craved, it is entirely possible he would have been a different type of animal altogether.             There are businesses these days called Clutterbusters, the staff of which will come to your home and throw out the stuff you can’t bear to get rid of. They are brutal and unsentimental, and able to stuff 40 years’ worth of Aunty Valmai’s birthday greetings into the incinerator without batting an eyelid. It is best you go out for the day whilst they are doing their thing, so you’re not tempted to trot all your crap back inside again the minute their backs are turned.             At our place, we need Pantrybusters. There are items in the back of that cupboard which haven’t been manufactured for the past 20 years, or even been seen by human eyes. There are noises coming out of there which food isn’t supposed to make. Sometimes you might catch random glimpses of strange feathers and mysterious bits of fur. There is a whole other world behind those defunct cereal boxes – only the bravest housewives would go there.             In the same vein, there is a definite role for Schoolbagbusters. Most mothers are too frightened to put their hand in to retrieve this week’s school bulletin. They will never know they were supposed to send in a lamb costume for the play on Friday. They will never know their presence was requested for canteen duty. They are only aware of the truth – there are undocumented things which can happen to you if you come into contact with uneaten devon and banana sandwiches. The effect is amplified if the sandwiches have been in existence for more than several months. There is no antidote for Jurassic Lunch Attack – the only prevention is not going there in the first place. Similarly, there are horrible things under beds. Some of them are on missing person lists. Sticking your vacuum cleaner underneath is an act of faith, bearing in mind there is always the possibility it will not come out again.             Regarding the common and garden shed, there is not much point in the first place. Sending Clutterbusters into your man’s garage is not worth the phone call. Torch it instead. There is nothing in there you could possibly want, unless you are a man yourself.             The trouble with having all this stuff is the way it ties you down. You can’t move house because you can’t be bothered sorting out the junk. You’re too frightened to die because you don’t know what your living relatives might find. Besides, it’s your history. Without it, you might never have existed in the first place. Life is a long journey during which you gather moss. Throwing it away would be like ripping pages out of your life story before you’d got to the ending.             I once read about a man who didn’t have any family of his own. He went to junk shops and garage sales, and bought photographs of people he thought looked interesting. A mother, a father – brothers and sisters. A ready made family. If you don’t have your own junk, someone else’s will do. Even bag ladies have shopping trolleys full of discarded polystyrene coffee cups and left-footed sandals.             Streamline your life today – clean out your handbag! I’ve been having a good fumble around inside mine, and darned if there aren’t handfuls of strange feathers and peculiar bits of fur. Plus something threatening and clammy which is stuck between my fingers and doesn’t seem to want to come off … And nobody hears me when I scream.   .oOo.