The Fratman

Like all apartment buildings in Geneva - and there are lots - ours has a Concierge.


















Now that sounds a lot posher than it really is because he's not a 'I'll do anything for you' smarmy chap at the luxury hotel counter or a French-speaker who offers to walk your poodles.  Nope, he (normally a 'he' as one of the unofficial job requisites is unruly facial hair) just lives in the building and keeps the gardens, hallways, lifts and garages clean.

It's very hard work.  Our guy, let's call him Fratman in a slight nod to his real name and because I've been using it in real life and it's stuck, is a busy little bee.

If he's not up before 6am putting out the green bins for collection on Monday, he's doing something similar for the rubbish on Tuesday and Friday or the 'Papier Receptacles' on Wednesdays.  He brings them in no later than fifteen minutes after the garbage truck has been and cleans up any spills or blow outs.  Considering he has six eleven-storey buildings with several hundred residents who share his street address, he has a huge amount of rubbish, cigarette butts, garden spaces and parking spots to keep tidy. He polishes windows, shared door knobs and letter boxes and - if bored and seeking a do-able dare - you could eat dinner off the parking bays.

He and I have a complicated relationship.

He can't help looking like an Orc with reading glasses (as I can't help looking like a baked potato) but he doesn't speak a word of English and I only speak about four in French.  Like a Middle Earth baddie he seems to believe that if he YELLS AT ME the language will magically ooze its way into my blonde brain and we'll be able to converse eloquently ala Francais.  Invariably he ends up waiting expectantly for my answer and is visibly disappointed when he only ever gets my inane grin and a 'thumbs up' sign.

Sapphire and I were shooed off the lawn when eating our lunch on a sunny summers' day because it is only for looking at not using; and the day I unthinkingly strolled across the just-mopped marble foyer saw his one eye steam up with rage before gesturing at me to "Sortez! Utilisez l'autre porte!" Merde and tete might have been muttered a few times as well.....

Then again, he apparently really loves me because I commented to Anne - a friend who lives on the first floor and is fluent in French - that Sapphire and I have noticed how hard he works. "Fratman never stops; he's like the Duracell bunny but with a big set of keys instead of drum sticks."  She told him and he now beams at me with his one good eye.

Anne is now unwittingly involved in our relationship. The Fratman knows that we are friends. She is, after all, a nurse from New Zealand and I, the clueless cretin from Australia.  Geographic proximity is enough.

"He's going to write a letter to the Regie," Anne exclaimed one morning, slightly out of breath from indignation and eight flights of stairs. "He knows that it's you who traipses mud into the foyer."

We'd had this sort-of-discussion via Anne before. Oh no, I reassured her. I mean him. Tell The Fratman that I wipe my feet very carefully and that mud gets stuck in the tread of everybody's shoes now that it's raining and snowing.

This appeased him for a while until he was out chatting to the gardeners (they literally hoover up the autumn leaves every week. Milly runs out to her dog forest afterwards and is absolutely puzzled at where her crunchy ground cover has gone) and he saw them. My rubber boots.

The Orc inside him knew - these weren't your everyday shoes; they were made for mud.  And that Aussie Idiot was prancing around in them, dropping off clods at every step.  He putt-putted past me in his mini-tractor with six steel wheelie bins trailing on chains behind him towards the bike cave.  There was anger in the clouds of exhaust farting out behind him.

I wasn't surprised that he'd put the blame onto my shoulders and mine alone. "He's been watching you," Anne gasped. "He told me to tell you to leave your boots outside or...." she paused, in a bind between upsetting me and the shock of the information she was about to impart, "......you could be outside."

Since that indirect ultimatum, I now clip on Milly's lead, put on my Dog Walking Parka and head downstairs.  In my other hand is a huge plastic bag containing my rubber boots and a large towel.  When the foyer doors shut behind us, I take off my slippers and step into the boots, making sure they're resting on top of the grate should any chunks of dried mud fall off, and then reach over to fold up the bag, place the towel on top and my slippers on top of that.

After our walk, I again stand on the grate and deftly lift one foot at a time out of the boots and into the slippers and then put the boots in the bag. The towel is then used to wipe off any mud and water from Milly's legs, stomach and feet so that, several long minutes later, we can enter the foyer without leaving any significant signs on the floor that we were ever there.

The Fratman saw me a couple of days after this technique was initiated. "Tres Bien!" "Merci Beaucoup" and "Bravo" were gleefully yelled on his side and my go-to 'Thumbs Up' sign was acted out on mine: we'd found a solution that suited us all - Orcs, Concierges, Renters, Dumb Aussies, Dogs and Mud Magnets.

















So can you imagine how annoyed I was when Milly and I returned from a lovely long walk around Parc de Trembly this morning and there was the plastic boot bag, her tummy towel but NOT my slippers?

WHO would want to flog a manky pair of second-hand slippers? They're worn down at the heel, have brownish stains where there was once fluffy blue lining and the outer velvet is festooned with orange dog fur.

..... I'm not risking any other pairs of shoes, so now it's a rapid tip-toe across a very slippery marble floor and a kind of half somersault from the door mat straight into my rubber boots that are still sitting in the bag with the straps wide apart for my landing. It reminds me of the awful first stages of puberty when our mothers would say, "Don't be impatient, you'll grow like the others soon."  

Substitute 'grow' for 'become a glamorous international resident' and you'll see my predicament: will he now complain that I'm making the place look untidy with my amateur gymnastics?

Mole in front of a Mountain

Cadbury have now recently repackaged their family-sized blocks of chocolate by slipping them inside slimline cardboard boxes, presumably to add an extra air of sophistication (because Lindt and Nestle are doing it too) and perhaps to stop rows from snapping loose and trying to make a break for freedom in their foil packs. Truly front page news if ever there was, particularly if sticky leaks are involved.

The trouble is, it's too easy for loser low-lifes in the supermarket to prise open the back flap, eat a row or two, tuck the flap back in like a reusable envelope and put it back on the shelf still looking brand new, inviting and untampered-with. Then, an honest, upstanding citizen and trusting, unsuspecting shopper - such as my good self - innocently pushes her wonky trolley along with the back wheel that jams so firmly I have to lean in with all my might on the far left side like the insane captain standing alone on the foredeck in a life-threatening sea storm. Despite this physical challenge this steadfast shopper - ie me - still manages to notice the chocolates sitting there on special for the week.

Last night, Love Chunks and I were comfortably blobbed on the sofa settling in to watch 'Good News Week' and of course, that most satisfying primeval urge, the one that continues to consume us every single night, was stirring again. We looked at each other hungrily and I knew what was about to happen. His eyes were dilated in anticipation and I eagerly leapt up and left the room, leaning on the doorframe to whisper throatily, "I'll be r-i-g-h-t back darling, don't you go anywhere."

And I was back in a flash with the block of Cadbury in my hot, trembling hands.

Love Chunks paused. "Hey, did you crack into this beforehand?"

I affected my most haughty and indignant tone. "Chocolate may be my lifeblood and the reason for getting up in the mornings, but I do not tell lies and I'm not desperate enough to sneak it."

Love Chunks scoffed. "Of course not - not with the way you shop each week."

OK, that was a fair point. Especially with the lot I’d brought home that day:

My Note To Self remains the same every single time: Don't Shop When You Are Hungry.

Still, despite having a truckload of other brands and flavours available we still eyed this particular block critically. "Maybe we could just snap off the first row and have a go at the rest underneath," I suggested.

"Maybe.... but what if it was done by an insane psychopath with a grudge against society who then injected the rest of the block with something deadly?" Love Chunks flung the block from him as though it was a flat-packed Andrew Bolt carrying swine flu.

"You mean carob?"

We sat there, hands clasped in our laps, thinking hard.

"Plus we have no idea where the perpetrator's hands have been before this most un-Australian act of sabotage, let alone anything about their personal hygiene...."

"Or lack thereof."

Feeling all self-righteous the following morning, I went back to the shop with the offending block and my receipt, ready to ask for a replacement. For equivalent of three dollars and forty nine cents, as per their weekly advertised special.

Despite having a fairly ‘loud mouth’ on this blog, my method of operating largely unnoticed and unmolested by the general populace at large is due to going to great lengths to avoid making a fuss. Tampered chocolate however, was a serious matter. I stood uncertainly by the smokes counter being studiously ignored by a young man packing something underneath it. He snuck a quick look at me and ducked underneath again. Surely I didn’t look too much like a crackpot?

I stuttered, "I'm a regular customer here, y'see, and bought this block yesterday and found out that someone has tampered with it and put it back on the shelf. And um, I need this new flavour to review because, well, it's my job, and..."

He gestured for me to hand over the offending block so that he could study it closely. "OK," he sighed, "Go in and find a replacement block and I'll ring it up on your way out." Yep, another crackpot sent in to waste time that could have been spent sorting through out-of-date risla papers.

This cringeing scenario reminded me of other times I'd been disappointed and short-changed enough to complain, but they had all done by post. Such as the dodgy packet of menstrual pads that instead of being lightly infused with a 'shower fresh scent' were squelchingly marinating in yellow, greasy liquid that must have been destined for an entire suburb's monthly needs and not in ten small white surfboards. As such, any ‘absorbency’ strengths boasted in pink letters on the front were null and void as the merchandise within was already ‘full’ and didn’t have any more room for either the blue fluid used by advertisers or the vermillion favoured by nature. Avoiding any blushing at the Returns Counter, I sent them off to the 'If you are not satisfied, please contact us....' address listed on the back of the packet.

Several weeks later, an enormous cardboard box arrived with what appeared to be at least three samples each of the entire company’s product range. Conspicuously absent was the product I'd sent in to complain about and there was no letter acknowledging mine inside the box. Perhaps they were even more embarrassed than I was. Still, the three x 120 metre rolls of waxed mint dental floss more than covered the costs of postage and the three unplanned days missing that special ‘feeling of confidence’ that all ‘women of today’ expect with a small packet of ten ‘heavy’ strength.

It spurred me on to expect better quality from my purchases. Those Tut-tut Tea bags with staples but not the string and tag attached were considered Just. Not. Good. Enough. Off went an indignant letter of complaint and offending product enclosed in a padded postpak. Again, a large box arrived with a year’s supply of bags – all properly tagged and strung and a heartfelt letter of apology for ‘any inconvenience caused.’ Lord knows what kind of multi-million dollar payout the company was fearing should I have decided to press for legal action.

Having experienced the despair of opening a twelve-pack of ‘fun sized’ bags to find that the twelfth was not filled with salt-and-vinegar chips but air resulted in it being posted back in a box of styrofoam (so that they could see that it wasn’t just an empty bag that had been eaten, flattened and sent back, but was still puffed up with air and not falsehoods) with a letter describing in intricate detail my outrage, suffering and utter disappointment. Again, a box that dwarfed my refrigerator turned up with enough bags of chips to keep me and my flatmates snacked out for months. Perhaps Samboy would be cheered to know my thighs that summer quite truly reflected their generosity in rectifying their original packaging error.

Dad heard my stories and was similarly inspired. His favourite milk flavouring and hot night-time beverage of choice (rhymes with Silo) had changed their lids and he was angry. He read out his letter to me over the phone: “They are fiddly, contain extra packaging to seal properly and make opening a frustrating waste of time and energy. Why did you change what hasn’t needed to be changed and has worked perfectly well for at least the past thirty years?” Go for it, I encouraged him: let ‘em know that you’re not happy. You’ve paid your money!

He did but went a step further than I’d ever be prepared to go. No, he didn’t front up to their head office or factory or post them back a big tin with pellet-holes in it to frighten them. It was far worse. He rang the 1800 ‘Any Questions or Comments’ number listed on the back of the tin.
I shrank in shame. “Oh Dad, please tell me that you didn’t.”
“I did and I’m proud of it. That’s what those numbers are for.”
“Dad, I love you. You’ve been a wonderful father to me – still are – but you’ve now entered that dreaded Zone.”
“What ‘zone’? What are you talking about?”
“That zone where you move from being a fairly normal human being with needs and wants that fall into the acceptable range into the forbidden territory beloved of the Stark Raving Mad Loony Tune who feels sad, lonely, bitter and twisted enough to read that phrase on the back of a packet and actually decide to ring in!”

For the first time in living memory, he didn’t have a comeback or a justification. There was just silence on the end of the line for the longest time. “Er yes, I used to wonder who’d actually be bored enough to bother to have a question or comment on something like Sard Wonder Soap, cup-a-soup sachets or Chux superwipes and now ----" there was a muffled sound, almost a whimper ---- "I did it.”

“Hey Dad, don’t worry. At least it wasn’t to rant at a harried call-centre employee trying to pay their way through uni about the uselessness of the Deeko paper serviette holder that you won as a consolation prize instead of the first-class-round-the-world holiday you entered on SMS on twenty separate occasions." Now that was baring my soul….

“Yeah but---" *sob* “I gave them my real name and address.”

Oh.

Update Thursday 21st May:

I phoned the Cadbury Consumer Services line and spoke to Eunice.*

Who calls in to the Cadbury phone line?

"Anyone and everyone. People are very passionate about chocolate."

What do they mostly complain about?
"How dare we change things is the most common one. They're also annoyed right now that the blocks are only 210g instead of 250g but we're charging the same price--"

Sounds like a fair issue to me.

"Yes but we've reduced the price of the block we sell to the supermarkets. It's them that are marking up the prices."

I discussed my tampered chocolate issue with her. Anyone else said the same thing?
"No. Maybe it's just your supermarket that has those kinds of people who do that sort of thing."

What? Steady on Eunice, that's being a tad judgemental don't you----

"It'll change as people like you get more familiar with the packaging and check that the back 'Cadbury' oval hasn't popped out. If it has, you know it's been opened already."

Yeah but I was trying to raise the issue of safety, like when a few years back some psycho injected packets of painkillers and now they're sealed so that no-one can get into 'em without it being noticed....

"Oh I don't think that will be a problem."

I applaud your optimism and loyalty to your product line but it might just be a tad misplaced just because I'm the first person to ---

"Recycling fans love the new packaging because it can be put out with the cardboard and paper."

Fine, I give up. Let's change tack - what's your favourite product?

"Cadbury Old Gold Peppermint Cream. Plus we have to be 'familiar' with all of their brand lines, so it's readily available to us to have whenever we feel like it."

Any stonkingly strange calls you can share with me?

"No, sorry. We're not allowed to tell anyone that kind of stuff, but we do have a good laugh amongst ourselves after some calls." Eunice sounded as though she might actually now be smiling over the phone.

Is the rumour that the Full Moon brings out the crazy callers more often?
"I don't really notice until I've had a really bad, weird day and then yeah, I realise that it has been a full moon. Still, it's better than my old job working in retail where the weirdos approached me directly and there wasn't any chocolate to eat!" There was a hint of a giggle. Maybe Eunice wasn't so bad after all.

* Not her real name.

Poo-Bum-Bugger-Shit-Fart.

Be thankful, cautious reader, because my original (and preferred title) was Fuckity Fuck Fuckity Fucking Fuckingly FUCK fuckers but I thought that it might have come across as slightly too self-pitying and maybe - just maybe - a tad aggressive.

It's been a helluva few days since my last post. Dean's mother died at 5:40am on Friday morning and he was there with her during her final hours and last breath. She was already a tiny little bag of bones when I'd visited her two days earlier and Dean noted that after death, her body was even smaller and her face almost unrecognisable when life was gone from it.

We spent most of the day with his family planning her funeral. Hugs, sniffles and awkward attempts at jokes, unhealthy snacks and dodgy instant coffee were the mainstays of the day and I tried to keep my migraine at bay by drugging up, inhaling any caffeine headed in my direction and by being unnaturally unchatty. It had the added bonus of making me seem mature, steady, a 'rock' and I foolishly offered to read the eulogy if no-one else was up to it. Dammit, no-one was.

By 8:30pm that same evening, Love Chunks and I were winging our way to Melbourne; my folks already at our place spending the weekend looking after Sapphire (or vice versa really, seeing as they didn't know which of our three remote controls switched on the tv, how much food the chooks, rabbit and dog needed or where Sapph's tennis session was) and we were reading through my patchy, hand-scrawled notes (done in the wee hours when LC was with his Mum) on properties we thought we worth seeing.

It may seem a bit cold-hearted to be heading interstate on the day of a parent's passing, but it was planned - very reluctantly - a few days earlier, thinking that it was best to go sooner rather than a later weekend when his mother would be even less well and more at risk of 'going' when LC couldn't be there. Oh. Ah well, the funeral arrangements were sorted; my parents had the extremely rare free couple of days to babysit and we'd just accepted an offer on our house with a settlement date of 12th January. It was time to look forward - finding our new home in our new city.

Saturday morning saw us huddled and shivering under a tree in order to stop the golden retriever left on the porch of the house we wanted to inspect from barking incessantly. We also didn't want the family living there to notice us as they dashed outside and into their car. The rain poured down, and a kindly lady from across the road gestured over at me: "Come inside! You'll get wet, come in!" I explained to her that we were waiting for the land agent to show us inside the house and that while LC was moving the hire car to the now-vacated spot in front of the house, we didn't want to get the neighbours off-side by annoying the dog.

"Ah yes," she nodded vigorously, a petite little Vietnamese lady with a kindly face. "He barks alla time. So you could be my neighbour, eh? That's good, that's good."

"Hmmmm" I shook my wet head, pretending to hesitate, "The bad news is that we have a dog too."

"No worries, so do I", she said.

"What sort do you have?" I asked, looking behind her for a glimpse of a small, fluffy thing, perhaps lurking behind the lacy curtains.

"A pitbull."

"Oh."

Said house was a OHS nightmare lacking at least a quarter of its weatherboards, cracks surrounding the fireplaces that conveniently provided a half decent view from the living room into the main boudoir and a bathroom's 'floor' of some wood veneer-patterned contact stuck haphazardly - bubbles and all - over the rotting floorboards and bordered with silver gaffer tape.

Defeated, we sat in the Flemington Maccas, drinking coffee and pondering the other houses on my list and those in Domain. Ascot Vale had an auction at 12:30pm and was the property above all others that appealed to us the most via the many viewings we'd had on the internet. "But that's two hours away. What about this little joint in Bignell Street? It's up for auction at 11am, but why don't we check it out?"

The Welcome To Melbourne weather continued as we ran to the car, me struggling with the $5 umbrella we'd just purchased from the handyman shop that already decided to blow itself inside out and having my mouth fill up with hailstones before I could complain about getting what I paid for.

Five minutes later, and we two Locketts felt that familiar feeling. That peculiar sense that, after only two minutes since walking through the front door, this house was soon going to be our house. And so it came to pass. Bought at auction by the Locketts. No cooling down period, no drive way or car park, but slap-bang in the middle of Phlegm(ington) with Smegma(European) appliances, a great primary school literally around the corner, a good dog walking park and a clear view of the big yellow cheesestick on City Link from our front doorstep.

My brother Rob and wife Wah Chin were taken to see it. The owners had gone out, so we snuck around the back and got them to scrunch their noses up against the glass doors and gained the comment we soooo wanted to hear from people who live in, love and know Melbourne better than we do: "This is GREAT. You've done well."

Fast forward to Monday, back in Adelaide, and Love Chunks was in fever - sweating one minute, shivering the next. Some whimpering echoed in the bathroom and a limp back to bed indicated that maybe there was also a bladder infection to add to the mix and the funeral of his mother the following day.

Tuesday morning at 10am found the three of us at Centennial Park, Sapphire and I waiting outside as LC was the one required to view the body before the service. I somehow got through reading the eulogy and found myself more emotional than I thought I would be, yet also realising that it wasn't a workshop, or a seminar or an occasion where I had to be confident or all-knowing; I was merely the voice for LC and his sibling's words.

We got home a few hours later to find Ann, our real estate agent, on our doorstep with a bunch of flowers in her hands. "I've got some bad news. Your buyers have cooled off."

Fuckity Fuck Fuckity Fucking Fuckingly FUCK fuckers! Just as Ann was explaining that the 'buyers' (the term is now used very loosely and very optimistically) hadn't managed to arrange a building inspection before the cool off date which was midnight that night. Try and picture the scene - Love Chunks, Sapphire and myself, standing anxiously in our own home, still dressed in our sombre funeral clothes as the real estate agent sat on a bar stool and a bloke arrived to tap our skirting boards, flash his torch up the hallway's man hole and check out the drip watering system.

Several minutes later and another white minivan arrived with the Murray's Pest Control chap there to check our place for termites. He'd already been to do just that for us back in July but the 'buyers' needed more assurance. Then the SA Water bloke was encouraged, rather passionately and energetically, shall we say, by an irate Love Chunks to ring Mrs 'Buyer' in Melbourne and explain in non-Anal and non-Cardigan terms just what their encumbrance was and why it was considered utterly bureaucratic and pointless by two plumbers, the entire staff at Tank World and the watering installers at Akers Lawn and why it endangered no-one living or visiting our home or using any of our water supply.

Mrs 'Buyer' managed to inform our agent that, in between the responsibility of doing several crown installations and root canal operations on her patients, she'd be able to review the reports and make a decision on whether to heat up again by putting together another contract of sale by lunch time today. Love Chunks went to the doctor and found that yes, he had a bladder infection, along with a too-fast heartbeat and some fibroids on his lungs from the bronchitis he had in September that can't be re-x-rayed until he's over his fever and infection. To be asked, "So, have you ever worked with asbestos?" by the doctor but not being able to get another photo of your lungs for a fortnight is about as much as enduring a cooling off period on a *&^&%ing housesale multiplied by oh, I don't know, sixtyeleventyseventieth.

It's now (looks at watch) 8:27pm and no contract, no assurances, no news. Poo-Bum-Bugger-Shit-Fart.

AWW




















No, I don't think the spoiled tennis brat and his soapy wife on the cover are cute; AWW is an acronym for the Australian Women's Weekly. I got a couple of mentions on page 246 and it's enough to cheer me up and distract me from nervously wiping everything inside the house 6 foot and below with a damp chux.

Plus, I've just vaccuumed and mopped all the floors and have trapped myself in the study, waiting for them all to dry. You'll be pleased to know that the anal -retentive part of me has thought this scenario through carefully, and I'm in here with the laptop, the phone, a Farmers Union Feel Good iced coffee and some vegemite and cheese-slathered cruskits.

Actually, eating cruskits are a bit of a challenge in my current Nazi Housefrau mode because they're crumbly little buggers. I've been biting into their cardboardy shells by leaning my head back and letting the wholegrain shards plop directly in, hoping like hell that the neighbour on my south side isn't treated to my silhouette from their courtyard.

Milly's asleep at my feet in her beanbag, slightly huffy because I kept her outside when the vacuum was on and because I haven't dropped anything edible on the floor for her own little wet black hoover attachment to suck up and enjoy.

Back to AWW:




















And:


















As I gaze down at my crackly, wrinkled hands, worn out from too many excessive rinses and wringings out of the chux superwipe, the irony of the article's title (and the uncanny likeless of the insanely laughing lady in the photograph) does not escape me:




















I never wear yellow and she's probably flopped out on the ground because she's already sold her flippin' house.....

Perhaps, when the floors are finally dry and I've carefully put away the mop and bucket, un-fingerprinted the class coffee table, de-spotted the kitchen sink, cleaned out Skipper's hutch and finished sweeping up all of the pesky bark chips and bottle brush blossoms outside I'll take my own advice and pick up Sapphire from school and head directly to Cibos for gelati. Do not pass go, but feel welcome to collect $200......