Oh for Freekah’s sake!

I’ve done Hating with Honesty One and Two and it’s been a long time between moans. Time for another one; although this time ‘hate’ is too strong a descriptor; more like ‘annoying’ or ‘could do with a swift slap’ kind of moans around here today.

Pompous Provisions. Why do chefs have to include that one whacky ingredient, even in dishes that appear to be fairly easy and accessible? In The Age Sunday Life magazine, Karen Martini decided that we must have Freekah in our salad with easy-to-obtain onion, parsley, almonds, fetta, lemon, oil and pepper. Freekah?

She then writes, ‘If you can’t find it, pearl barley is a perfect substitute.’ Then why not just put the bloody pearl barley in there to begin with?

And Ms Martini is not alone. All of them like to add that one bizarre bit of food we’ve never heard of – let alone where to find – just to remind us that they are godlike, talented and able to make a meal of marinated goat lips, glass shards and angel tears whereas we have to be wealthy enough to find them from an overpriced providore or give up altogether. My response is always the second one.

Dung-like Dog Breath – this is now serious enough for us to consider a visit the vet, but I’m embarrassed to be using up their time – and my money – on Milly’s breath. It is excruciatingly, off-puttingly, shit-stinkingly awful. The poor beast merely has to yawn from her beanbag on the other side of the room and we humans reel back in horror, going ‘Peeee-yoooo!” She has a regular supply of fresh bones and I’ve even had Love Chunks hold her unwilling jaws apart to let me get in there with a toothbrush and some Colgate. Then the poor dog is set free in the garden, foaming ridiculously at the mouth and trying to run away from her own tongue. Not only do dogs miss out on opposable thumbs, but the inability to rinse and spit also has its disadvantages.

Porridge. I want to like it, I really do because it's full of good GI and is cheap and really healthy and all that but I’m afraid that it’s about as appetising as working my way through a bowl of chunky library paste. My grandfather ate porridge for breakfast for every single day of his life whereas I make it every six months, hate every gluggy, dishwater-flavoured mouthful and resolve never to do it again. Which I don’t, for at least another six months. Same goes for any kind of breakfast cereal, especially Weetbix for the hellish cardboard pulp taste and the noble-but-nauseating untoasted muesli which tends to exhaust and bore me whilst I’m miserably trying to chew my way through it all.

Beyonce – the telly is full of advertisements that, at the very least, break up the diet and meal supplements shoved in between the drawn-out-longer-than-a-full-pack-of-chewing-gum program that is the 'Biggest Loser', and are bleating excitedly that Beyonce is coming to town. Trouble is, the only ‘music’ (and yes, the term is used very loosely) we hear during the ad is a kind of annoying wail that surely she emitted during her last eyebrow wax, and not on a single?

Her latest song, ‘Single ladies put a ring on it’ is a crime against talent, taste, intelligence, common sense and all that is holy in pop land and only makes me mutter where I'd like to shove a ring on it..... She should be forced into a cell with Fergie, post-2000 Madonna and Mika for a slap fight to the death wearing nothing but CD covers and those hurty black plastic ear buds.

Extinct green pillowcases – are we the only adult couple in Melbourne who use pale green pillowcases? I can get bright orange, dark purple, sea/forest/olive/puke/lime green, hot pink, ruby red, bone, stone, maroon and black but no pale green. And, similar to the nonsensical cooking ingredient, I refuse to wander into a snooty linen store and fork out $35 for a small fabric rectangle regardless of thread count, brand name, origin of the organic cotton or the first name of the dedicated young virgin who sewed it.

Careless coffee – when a cup of flat white coffee costs four bucks, the least you can expect is that it’s filled to the top, and not an inch shy when Love Chunks got served his yesterday. In spite of Sapphire’s extreme embarrassment, LC called the waiter over, very quietly and politely explained that the ‘tide was out’ on his coffee and could it be topped up?

The waiter then did the thing that we all loathe: he pretended that there wasn’t a problem and if there was one, it was surely with us, the complainers.

“But,” he said, scratching his gelled-up head, “This is what we always serve.”

It was then I piped up with, “Oh no you don’t – look over there.”

On the table next to us were four cups of cappuccino almost spilling over. “Near enough is not good enough.”

Sapphire died a little more, put her head down and busied herself with the colouring-in sheet they gave her (despite only having two blunt grey and orange pencils to do it with) and he very promptly brought back a full cup. We watched the barista boofhead sulkily slop a bit more steamed milk in – luckily for us he was by the window and couldn’t slyly spit into it.

Social snob-offs. Look, I’m no oil painting but I’m not an axe-wielding maniac either. I’m sure if you’ve seen me every single morning and afternoon at the same time each term with a friendly orange dog, you might start remembering me. Especially when I look directly into your eyes, smile and say ‘hello’ as I pass by.

But no, this particular mother with whispy hair scrunches her humourless lips up into the perfect cat’s bum, looks straight through me and marches on with her son. Is she legally blind and using her child as a seeing-eye dog or do I really look ugly, intimidating and crazier than blowfly on bin day? Would it kill to acknowledge me, seeing as we have to brush up against each other as we pass?

There. I feel better now.

Come on then, I'm bent over and ready for whatever you want to deliver...!*

As for the house....well, the week ended on just as crappy a note as it began. The brilliant 'buyers' didn't come back with a new contract of sale by Thursday and we asked our agent to contact them to advise that if we hadn't heard from them by 4pm on Friday, the deal was off and our home was back on the open market.

In the meantime, we focussed our attention on the bank meeting - could we please have two sets of paperwork prepared in case we do sell our house before the Melbourne settlement date or in case we don't and therefore need another, oh, the entire treasury of a tiny African nation (no, not those pesky Nigerians) to cover another house, our existing Adelaide house mortgage, real estate agent fees, Victorian stamp duty and the obligatory paper shuffling and conveyancing fees. Sure, the interest alone is more than our actual income but I did note that Flemington has numerous tram shelters that I could perhaps perform some sexual favours in - between school hours only of course......

By 4pm our meeting at the bank was over - both scenarios were approved, and we glumly headed home assuming that the bonza 'buyers' had finally cooled off and were already looking at houses in other postcodes. Love Chunks felt OK enough to get his chest x-ray done and sent to his GP and we hope that his next appointment will kick off with a more positive question than, "So have you been working with asbestos?"

At 7pm I was out in the shed pounding merry hell out of the treadmill and Love Chunks took a call from our agent. She said that the 'buyers' were prepared to offer us another contract of sale, but this time for $15,000 less than agreed previously.

To say that we were disappointed at such a low act - and for stringing us along all week - is an understatement. We felt utterly betrayed and shocked - it seemed as though delaying signing the contract of sale until Saturday morning (instead of the day we accepted it, which was Thursday), gave them the weekend and two further days to work out a scheme that effectively made our week just that little bit harder to deal with.

Not only were these bastard 'buyers' aware that LC's mother's funeral was on Tuesday - the day they formally cooled off - but they still insisted that the SA Water, Murray's Pest Control and a Building Inspector arrive that same afternoon to examine our house and provide them with three separate reports. The agent unwittingly added to strength of their scheme by informing the blatantly bad 'buyers' that we'd bought a house in Melbourne over the weekend and were a mite keen to get the contract situation sorted out quick smartish. Instead, the oh-so empathetic 'buyers' then decided to leave us dangling for another three days (now effectively extending their offer to buy, and then cool off period from the legal two to nine) and hope that by dragging things out to 7pm on Friday we'd be so desperate to sell that we'd accept a lower price.

Then, just to make us sweat even further they faxed - rather than phone and speak directly - our agent with the info that they'd give us until close of business Monday (today) to accept their offer and then had their mobile phones turned off so that she couldn't inform them that their actions were unconscionable or try to convince them to play fair. How they must have rubbed their hands in glee - not only had they screwed us out of $35,000 last week, but they were going to add another $15,000 because of a family death, dodgy delays and a cooling off period - what fun!

The agent phoned us this morning to say how mortified she was and how she'd said to them all last week, over and over again, that we were trustworthy people who loved the house and had not left anything undone or hidden that would be of concern to them - and none of the reports came back with anything negative either. We asked her to not call the blowfly 'buyers' back - we no longer want to deal with them.

In fact, LC still had the beezlebub 'buyers' email address after having to sort out their previous queries re the SA Water backflow device (they need one legally, we have TWO) and this is what he sent to them as our response:

Dear Dr _____ and Dr _______,

We received your adjusted offer. Just wanted to let you know: we won't be accepting it.

We've lived here 8 years, we know this property and we know real estate in this area. We have renovated this house extensively and have undertaken any major and minor form of repair it has needed as well as added other features that have made it into a beautiful home we're very proud of.

We know we had offered you a very good deal - better than we should have at the time.

We are honest and decent people - the type to honour a deal and a commitment. It may well be that we sell the house at a lower value than your offer, if that is what the market dictates - but it will not be to you.

LC Lockett

******

Or, in my own personal draft that was rejected:

Dear Drs __ and ____,

May every foul crap that you agonisingly squeeze out of your cracked and bleeding arseholes be born with personalities of their own that allow them to clamber out of the bowl, up your snakelike spines and attempt to strangle you with their slimy, disease-ridden, shit-stinking hands. Or wedge themselves into your left nostrils; whichever is most painful and inconvenient option.

Love, Kath Lockett

******

So it's back to open inspections, hiding the dirty dishes and de-dog-hairing the place.

*Alternative title - To Whom It May Concern - I don't want to be an adult anymore. Please return all this paperwork, cellulite and Crows Feet and give me back my Gnid Blytons, Mad Magazines and Abba records thank you. 1976 would be great, thanks.

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.

Post-migraine Plugger without a Pumpkin = My own natural Halloween costume

Mr Migraine paid me his usual, all-too-regular visit; waking me up at 6am with a king hit to the head and a total loss of my morning. It's left me feeling groggy and hungover (but without the fun of the night before unfortunately) and, as such, in a good mood for a rant.

We blokes and sheilas here in Australia don't celebrate Halloween. Never have, and - if I had my way - never will.

Admittedly, thanks to a force-fed diet of Yank sitcoms from Bewitched, Happy Days, Family Ties, Home Improvement and Friends, most of us can name more US presidents than we can our own Prime Ministers (me included. No, not as a Prime Minister, but one of the telly-tards).

As such, we know rather a lot about Halloween and the tradition of little kids wandering around the neighbourhood trick-or-treating. Bless their sweet hearts: it's all fun when the candy is good, but if some psycho inserts razor blades or wipes the lollies on his arse an hour before handing them out then I'm sure some kiddies will regret not trying a 'trick' instead of the 'treat' they received.

We also know about Thanksgiving, and most of us are under the impression that Americans will virtually risk their savings, relationships, sanity and lives in order to make it home for turkey (surely the worst roast 'bird' in the civilised world) and some kind of pumpkin pie thing that doesn't sound too appetising to me. It seems to be more revered than Christmas which, as someone who is rather fond of presents I don't have to buy, wrap or pay for - seems rather odd.

Until a couple of years ago, our proudly Australian doorstep had never been darkened by any you-beaut ankle-biters asking us for free sweets or threatening to play a 'trick' on us. This has been a great relief considering that we may not yet have gone shopping that week or were on diets and could only offer them sun-dried mango slices or cucumber that wastarting to turn slimy at the bottom of the vege crisper.

Not so last year - about a dozen of the little beggars hammered away on the door and I was too taken aback to reply with 'Eat S**t and Die You Bastards,' but instead muttered something about seeing what we had and ventured out with the flavoured Chup-a-chups from old party bags in flavours that my daughter Sapphire clearly didn't enjoy. There the piss-weakly-clad mites stood, accompanied by their parents, who, being around my age, wouldn't have ever participated in such an American event during their own childhoods. The bloody nerve....

Sadly, my own daughter Sapphire was indoctrinated into the suckiest culture of them all as well, having been invited to a Halloween Party by one of her school mates last year. She went as 'Zelda the Zombie' courtesy of some bargain $2 eye liner and black lipstick that expertly complemented the white and red face paint I still had from my ill-fated (and tragic) efforts at face-painting at the kindy fete some years earlier.

I also took her to K-Mart and willingly shelled out cash to buy an oversized black t-shirt and shorts that we ripped up into shreds to support the concept of just having clambered out of a five year old gravesite. *Sigh*, who was I to pour my cynical lemon juice on her innocent anticipation? Yes, she even persuaded me to buy a few extra bags of lolly pops, fruit tingles and redskins for her fellow Halloweenie horrors who knocked on our door.

At her friend Simone's party tonight, she's settled for a witch's get up - much easier to do with my left-over 1990s-era black dresses and last year's make up not touched since, well, last year. I too have bought more blue-tongued zombie chews, Wizz Fizzers and sherbies in sad acceptance of our doorbell being frequently rung tonight.

Perhaps I should accept this newish trend as one which is overdue. No, not our celebration of everything American but that we've had our Guy Fawkes' Fireworks Night banned for nearly thirty years now, and desperately need a pointless, celebratory replacement. The subsequent declaration of 'Fireworks Night' as being illegal was thanks to scores of stupid Aussie bogans and boganelles who were drunk on Summerwine and Southwark tinnies and ended up blasting off their faces and fingertips as they flung Catherine Wheels and Roman Candles into the middle of their BBQ salad table or inside the rocking Sandman of their best mate.

At least Halloween is less dangerous - in a life-threatening sense, if not a calorific one.

iPoop












Sometimes, despite all the power-walking, running; having the encouraging ear, shoulder-to-cry-on and hugs from Love Chunks; effective medication and my own homemade version of cognitive therapy; my own little Black Dog can make its presence felt.

It is when I'm at my most exhausted - an unwanted triumvirate of physical, mental and social fatigue that seems to eat away my spirit, overly inflate my disappointments and perceived failings and destroys the ability to see the good things that surround me - this is when the Black Dog arrives to sit by my side, making me lean on him for support; support that's anything but. Instead, his presence makes me stumble and again wonder why my back feels weak, why I don't want to go out the front door and talk to anyone or find the energy to do anything other than sleep.

But sleep is not something that comes easily, if at all. Sleeping during the day would be lovely, the perfect way to escape but I have responsibilities to fulfil - getting my child out bed, her lunch made, breakfast eaten, pets fed, daughter walked safely to school. Start work, take care of the house, respond to phone calls, emails, letters, bills and enquiries. Keep writing; writing the stuff I want to write instead of the stuff I should write, and put it all aside again to pick up Sapphire from school, be a good mother, good wife, good friend, good person.....

"How was your day today, Who did you play with, Did you eat all of your lunch, What did the teacher say about me volunteering for the spring festival, Can Maya stay for dinner, How on earth did you get green paint on your culottes, Where is your water bottle, You'd better go and collect the eggs before it gets dark, Why didn't you make your bed this morning, Do you girls want a cup of hot chocolate and to help me make some apple and cinnamon muffins?"

I prattle on, hating myself, but not knowing quite how to stop. It's as though I want to make up for any disappointments or anxiety I've inflicted on Sapphire and for the fact that the six hours previous I'd hidden away inside, wondering just what on earth was wrong with me and why the Black Dog had arrived again.

The irony is that my little orange dog - Milly - is such a constant presence by my side that she'd be far too jealous to share her space with another. If she was aware. Cars and kids toot and wave as we accompany Sapphire to school in the mornings - Milly's collar jingling as she strains to trot in front of us, proudly leading the way.

In the afternoons, she races for her clip and lead when my alarm beeps at 2:52pm.

"IT'S TIME, ISN'T IT?

It's time for another walk isn't it, time to see Sapphire and get pats from lots of other people and maybe go home the long way via the park and then let Skipper the rabbit out of his hunch so that we can play chasey before coming inside to play with Sapphire and her friend Maya in her bedroom because they like to sing to me, stroke my ears and tie ribbons around my neck while I try to lick them in appreciation for at least a while until I get bored and go and sit back next to you in my beanbag, turning around and around until it's mooshed up just right, giving you my big sad eyes and hoping that you'll soon give me a bigger bowl of dinner than you did last night; with perhaps some stray rashers of bacon draped on top or a crispy fried chicken wing from that Coles BBQ bag that LC didn't eat for lunch today....."

Today I decided not to hide away inside and not to worry about what other parents at the school thought of me, or why having expectations only leads to sadness and failure - no. Instead, today Milly got an extra treat - a walk during the middle of the day. The sun was out, the birds were nesting, the blossoms blooming and there was bound to be a Farmers Union Feel Good Iced Coffee waiting for me at the corner deli. Bonus, Milly's twinkling eyes and lolling tongue said so obviously as her lead was clipped on.

Bugger. As per her primitive instincts, she dropped her - ahem - golden nuggets in the park the second we literally stepped off the footpath, and I didn't have a poo bag tied to her lead or in my pocket.

The 'doggy doo' dispenser was only a few steps away, with two black plastic bag ends fluttering invitingly in the spring breeze.

'Might as well grab three or four or a dozen or so to keep on hand,' I thought to myself, seeing Milly sunning herself contentedly, idly watching my fumblings.

'Bloody f%%kin' thing,' I muttered under my breath. The stupid roll had fallen off the pin and was now sullenly slumped at the back of the iron cylinder, too far for my ET-fingers to squeeze in to reach and too securely locked. (Aside: why, oh Norwood Payneham and St Peters council, is it so vital to lock up the doggy doo dispenser, yet leave the toilets open and freely available for all sorts of drug users, derros and litter?).

I wandered over to the gum trees in search of a small stick to insert into the meagre slot, hoping that it would snag a bag and allow me to grab hold of one of the handles. Frig! Poo-Bum-Bugger-Shit-Fart, the stupid twig snapped and fell inside the dispenser, clogging the recalcitrant roll even further.

Milly lost interest - she had more pressing things to occupy her attention, such as escaping the unfriendly swoops from the magpies nesting in the trees near the brick kiln and to contemplate whether it was worth aggravating the arthritis in her back legs to try chasing the cheeky Mynah birds. Of course it was.

Maybe a discarded Paddle pop stick would be not only thinner, but sturdier and able to flick some doggy doo straps close enough for my clutches. Alas, not so - too bloody short. I threw the broken half at the box in an overly dramatic expression of annoyance.

'Oh, hello. Yes, having a bit of trouble with getting out a doggy bag, heh heh. Gotta do my bit in keeping the park clean you know.' Old Bag - she's the one who lets her three eyed Spaniel crap out a Cheops Pyramid in front of our driveway every sodding afternoon and here I am trying to apologise to her for breaking into a malevolent dispenser in order to pick up some fresh dog shit.....

Rummaging through the bottom of my bag found a pipe cleaner (thanks be to Sapphire's love of all things arty and crafty), a pair of nail scissors and an ancient biro. Fashioning a poking/pulling device triggered at one end by the scissors and with force at the other by a bic-pen lid, a black handle soon became free enough for me to tug through the slot.

'Yesssss!' I gave a triumphant, Lleyton-style fist pump of self congratulation. And then laughed. Laughed at the rage I'd thrown towards an inanimate object, only to pull out thirty six bags in retaliation a few minutes later. Bags that'll last Milly until November.

Speaking of which, she tried her best to be the hunter/gatherer of our small postal area, but only succeeded in getting a stray chook's bum feather in her teeth when we got home.

Thank god for that and all other small failures.

A pox on both your brain cells!

DeepKickGirl aint one to hold back when it comes to an angry rant (and I mean that with the very deepest respect, from the heart of my bottom) and her latest is one that we can all identify with. Gym Gonads.















In DKG's case, these are the selfish gits who take up 'ten minutes only' parking zones out in front of the next door childcare centre for over an hour in order to make their necks fatter than their heads whilst preening in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors in a sweat-soaked, 'roid-rogering orgy of time wasting.

Frazzled and time-poor working parents and carers simply want to rush in, collect their little under-age treasures and get the hell out of there. They only need a brief Stop, Dash In and Drop Off zone before moving on to the next item on their 'to do today' list.

DeepKickGirl saw another frustrated mother, waiting for a spot to park only to have a couple of muscled meat-heads pull in ahead of her and enter the gym for what she assumed would be for at least an hour. In a spot clearly marked 'childcare centre park - ten minutes only.' An angry discussion ensued and the mother was insulted and sworn at - in front of her toddler - and eventually had to leave to find a park much farther away.

Must we give in and instead force ourselves to behave as piggishly and as badly as the Gym Gonads, or should we heed our grandmothers' advice and continue to live courteously and considerately? My own mantra - whispered fiercely to myself on far more occasions than I'd like to admit to - is to live well. Living well is the best revenge, as the wise (and often the senile or very drunk) enjoy telling us.

Or mostly. For social suckheads such as the Gym Gonads, there is the luxury of time.... lots of it and opportunities...... You know that the Gym Gonads are inside trying to emulate the famous 'condom full of walnuts' look that Clive James ascribed to Arnold Schwarnegger in the eighties, and that takes at least an hour or two. One hour for the actual weight lifting, and another for the posing, flexing, mirror-gazing, self-congratulation and crotch scratching that goes on between sets. Or 'reps' or whatever it is that they do with their pecs.

So, if you're a mother driving a kid-friendly station-wagon or people mover, it is likely that there'll be a stray banana, caterpillar-made-from-an-alfoil-roll or cricket stump handy; rolling on the floor under the front seats, hidden underneath used tissues, empty freddo frog wrappers and finger paintings John West rejected. They all make ideal exhaust pipe stuffers.

For those of you that have managed to find a carpark and are brave enough to leave your cars, there's the good old car key scratched along the sides of their turbo-twat-mobile or even a hastily hammered nail in the front tyre. And don't ever forget the raw prawn slipped into the windscreen wiper grille.....

DeepKickGirl is, amongst many other things, a budding scriptwriter. Living in Sydney. It is therefore almost a dead certainty that she'll know a few out-of-work actors who could pose as a humorless parking inspector directly out in front of the gym and childcare centre. That'll get a gaggle of Gym Gonads out of their comfort zone faster than a well-oiled AFL player from an opponent's squirrel grip in the goal square.

Alternatively, she could get some stickers printed and when they're inside unleashing their lactic acid she could slap a sticker on the back of their cars. It'll be ages before they'd notice it, and in the meantime they'll be read and laughed at by quite a few childcare customers and drivers idling behind them at the traffic lights.

One day I'll find the spare cash to print out sheets of tiny stickers that I'll be able to whip out from my backpack in various annoying circumstances and slap on the back of offending vehicles. Here's a few that readily spring to mind:

• Parking rules are for everyone else except me.
• I am a mono-synaptic, poly-cretinous half-wit who can't read parking signs.
• I have more money than sense which is why I'm begging for a parking fine.

For those who display truly execrable bumper stickers like 'If it has tits or wheels it's gonna be trouble' or 'no fat chicks, the bumper will scrape' or even the 'Here's the posh coat of arms from the private school I send my kids to so you better be impressed' bumper sticker - try:

• I have the sophistication and intelligence of a rain soaked budgie smuggler
• I am a virgin with halitosis, and destined to remain so
• I have lots of money and have spent it on this car instead of donating it to a worthy cause
• This 4WD has never been off-road and is never likely to
• I voted for John Howard

To let you know that my actions speak louder than my words, I really let a bloke have it today. OKaaaay, so he was only ten years old and attends Sapphire's school, but the little ape was trying over and over again to fling a swing up and over the top of the support bar, thus making it useless.

I strode over the bark chips (which is quite difficult to do when you're in a fast-paced huff, holding a viola case, two terms' worth of school books and a fruit platter) and snatched the swing from his hands.
"Get out of here before I call the principal. Oh and I'm a TEACHER in case you didn't know."

Yes, I was a teacher. Once. Back in 1993, and certainly not at his school; but for all he knew I was an undercover educational agent prone to turning green if made particularly angry.

For the first time in ages, Sapphire looked impressed instead of embarrassed.

Bugger it; maybe I should find a local printer who'd be interested in putting together my sticker idea.

Hard Rubbish Hatin'



















In most councils in Adelaide, you're given one or two days a year to leave out any unwanted 'hard rubbish' on the kerb for their truck to come and take it away for you. Every September, my neighbourhood is festooned with ancient dryers, dead VCRs, dodgy gas stoves, busted rattan chairs, mattresses, Commodore 64 computer monitors and broken card tables.

This annual event is closely followed with the nocturnal visits by the trash-n-treasure trolls, who apprise themselves of the 'nicer' council districts' hard rubbish weeks and have an opportunitist sift through the debris. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - if things can be used by another person/household/shed and not end up in landfill, but it was a bit awkward a couple of years ago seeing two beanie-clad bogans nearly end up in a fist fight over who was the first to clap their occy-straps on an ancient sideboard. (I had to offer them each a handful of mandarins from the tree in the front yard to distract them).

As such, most of us are happy enough to see the streets looking shabby for a couple of weeks a year, but not when slackos dump their useless crap out every weekend hoping that someone will find it attractive enough to remove for them.

Every street has such a neighbour, and our amiable avenue is no different. He is, though. A very odd little chap. He lives with his rarely-seen wife and two tiny daughters in a corner house with a backyard just big enough for a clothesline and his kids' swing set out in the front garden, along with a dozen water-filled coke bottles strewn on the lawn to deter dogs or cats from excreting there. Not that he'd catch them in the act as each window has those oh-so-gorgeous shutters with the wind-up handles and they are always closed. Like Nicole Kidman's character in 'The Others', no daylight is to touch them or they instantly turn into dust, or become sane or attain the ability to visit the rubbish dump or something.

Anyhoo, it is he who believes that he can place four broken chipboard drawers from a 1970's dressing table out on the footpath in May and hope that someone takes a fancy to them. Or as the above photo attests, his clapped out air-conditioner with a dud DVD player placed on top of it as an added bonus.

Perhaps I should not have particularly high expectations of someone who drives a lime green Gemini that he leaves out in the street in the evenings with each door locked up but with all the windows open. Sure it's a vehicle that doesn't appeal to the average auto thief (or functioning human being), but it sure as hell encourages the average drunken derro on his way back home from the pub - via a pit-stop at our nearby Maccas - to sling his half-slurped thickshake and McChicken wrappers into what appears to be an electric-booger-coloured rubbish bin.

He never says hello to me, so I now make an even greater point of cheerily calling out 'Hello there' every morning as he walks his daughters and I walk my daughter to school: we're only two houses away from each other for Lindt's sake! This gregarious Gonad frowns at my dog and pulls his kids closer to him if Sapphire so much as glances in their direction. Despite this and his hard rubbish 24/7/365 tendencies, he certainly doesn't arouse anything remotely as interesting as dislike or anger within me. No, I reserve that for folk like David Koch, Brian Harradine or that funny-as-death git called Ryan on the 'Rove' telly show.

However Gonad Guy had clearly got right up the nose, firmly into the sinus cavity and was tapping on the back of the eyeballs of the man on the next corner block. From what I know, this man is extremely well off - his primary-school aged kids attend the poshest establishment in Adelaide even though their home - a brand new, sickly cream brick, boxy monstrosity known all over as 'The Mausoleum,' looks directly out on to Sapphire's beautiful school oval. He owns a famous continental gourmet store that frequently gets media attention and raves from famous chefs, and seems to have more than his fair share of childcare, gardening and cleaning help.

One day, Gonad Guy left a cheap plastic outdoor chair out on the footpath with the lazy hope that some poly-cretinous, mono-synaptic half-wit would take it. Said chair languished there for weeks, getting gradually covered in a fetching coat of Magpie droppings, bottle-brush strands and street dust. Not surprisingly, one of the Maccas-munching drunkards picked up the chair one night and, eventually discovering that it only had three legs, staggered onwards a few paces and discarded it in front of Mr Mausoleum's property.

Surely Mr Mausoleum's 'help' would dispose of the chair, or find room for it within their expansive garage/indoor pool/outdoor gym/entertainment/mini-skip storage area? But no - Mr M flung the chair back to Gonad's house, with a hand-written message on the back of it:

Closer inspection reveals the extent of his annoyance:

Crikey! I'm bloody glad he didn't see the sneaky crap that Milly did in his agapanthus plants....!

Danger Danger Will Robinson - there's a full on RANT heading our way!

Geez it's disheartening to be a reader sometimes. According to the enlightened, cashed-up, metrosexual, pro-feminist, militantly male readers of FHM magazine, a third of them want to marry a virgin. Yes, when they grow up. *Sigh*

Caroline Marcus of the Age writes that "Of 57,000 men polled by men's magazine FHM, 28 per cent hoped to marry a virgin, while 41 per cent wanted a bride who had five partners or fewer, and just 5 per cent wanted a bride who had slept with more than 15 men.

The survey, which ran on the magazine's website for two weeks last month, attracted mostly men in their late 20s, who had jobs and were university educated."

Hmm, would these survey sods be smug little Generation Y Gits who still live with their parents, don't pay any rent, don't help out around the house and still have their meals cooked and washing and ironing done by Mummy perchance?

Tertiary educated? What did they study at uni - abstinence and chastity? No, wait - that's what the girls should have been studying, according to these unworldly wankers. But hey, aren't these the same girls that they would have pursued, caught and slept with (albeit in a beer bong fug) at uni? The same ladies that, several years later, these boofhead blokes assume are not only also grown up, educated professionals but have somehow magically converted back to being virgins?

Marcus goes on to point out - but hey, let's face it, any FHM readers would have turned the page after the first paragraph in order to read their horoscope and see if they understand the day's Calvin and Hobbes comic by now - that findings from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships show that only 11% of women and 5% of men in the FHM readers' age group had slept with just the one partner.

Instead, the Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships shows that Aussie blokes had an average of 9.5 bedtime buddies (the 0.5 was a fellow FHM reader during their 'experimental' phase) and women had 4.7 (the 0.7 was an FHM reader after staying the night and holding a semi-intelligible conversation with their random root).

So whilst a lot of females might be flocking to the cinemas to see an increasingly haggard Carrie and Co get it on with shoes and shags in 'Sex and the City', their blokes are NOT going to actively pursue such gals for longer term activities such as marriage, motherhood or weekend trips to Bunnings.

It also seems to say:

a) some men might lie a teensy weensy little bit about how many women they've bumped uglies with; or

b) there's a much smaller pool of women who shag a great deal more blokes than they're prepared to admit to in surveys; or

c) a bit of both?

Why the emphasis on virginity? Do you buy a house purely from the photo in the Real Estate section? A car from seeing it flash by for five seconds on TV? And what if you survive the courtship, spend your parents' live savings for the bloated wedding reception and find that you're both duds under the doona? Whatever happened to 'try before you buy' and 'practice makes perfect'.

I look to my own experience for evidence. Even after a relatively low-key wedding in my parents back yard, no speeches, $12 worth of material for my outfit and 60 guests, we were so exhausted by the end of the night that our ~ahem~ 'sexual celebration' was a fairly perfunctory effort done only out of duty. It certainly wasn't the most memorable, erm, session, and to think it might be the first foray into fooling around for someone is so very sad, tragic and desperately wrong.

But what do I know - half of marriages end in divorce anyway.

So girls - the first question you ask a bloke who catches your eye is not 'What's your name' or 'What do you do for a crust', it's 'What magazines do you read?'. If 'FHM' is the answer, fling your alcopop into his eyes, angrily thrust the empty into his crotch and get the hell out of there.

End of rant. Off to find Love Chunks and give him a big, grateful and heartfelt hug.

Feature Garages

The other day I was walking around the 'hood with Milly the dog, pausing to let her sniff each tree for her boy buddies' scents or try her luck at finding a dead bird under the leaves when this scene of devastation and demolition faced us.

The house next door to it is a fairly good replica of the house they were knocking down: a solid brick, 1940s-style house that was in good condition, on a quarter acre block with the original groovy wooden windows and sandstone frontage.

It was certainly in much better nick that the (older) and much-less respected house further up our street:

This place is infamous in ~ahem~ 'my parts' for an owner seldom seen but who clearly adores old Ford Lazer cars. At one stage he had five bodies of varying condition in the front garden, and the bush to the left of the picture also housed about 40 chickens. People who live either side of him have described him as being about as cheerful as a hillbilly with a hangover so it's a perfect case of the home suiting the owner.

There are only two car bodies now (the other is at the head of the driveway), but the 'look of love' is maintained via the backblocks fence, the wood placed where some glass in the window should be and a verandah so cracked it groans when it rains. As such, no-one will cry when Mr Chuckle Trousers finally sells up and the place gets knocked down.

But what will replace it, or the 65 year old sandstone around the block? Another interminable brick-venereal with a feature garage? Or worse, three of them crammed together and enticingly advertised as 'Low Maintenance City-Fringe Courthard Homes for the Busy Career Couple'?

Having a gander in my stolen copy of Adelaide Matters didn't do anything to assuage my fears:

Have a gander at this little pearl. Dontcha love the flat roof and no eaves, except above the two upstairs windows so that the end result is a house that looks rather astonished at its own ugliness? Payneham or Painham?

No verandah for shelter from the sun or rain and air-conditioning required all year round. Add a thin layer of cement render that will:

a) crack within six months; and

b) require the poor owner to repaint the entire outside of their house every couple of years...

and voila! Dream home worth knocking over a WWII classic for! A bright blue door reminiscent of council flats via TV's the Bill just adds to the aura of success and style. Grrrrrr.......

Even nobby old Burnside is falling victim to the Feature Garage folly. But wait - there's a two storey box stuck on the back so that humans can live in the house's arse-end and the car resides at the front! Lovely.

But hey, at least this one has a verandah, albeit a tiny cage-like vestibule. But it doesn't have any eaves on the front windows or on the back air slits. No green stars for this design. Grrr grrr *snarl* grrrrr...

Now What. The. F**k. Is. This. Unlike the Burnside bunker directly above, this joint doesn't even bother with any front rooms or windows, it's all garages - nay two garages. Oh and a little door hidden under a welcoming gas-chamber installation.

So they drive their two petrol guzzlers off the road and straight into their custom-built hangars, and when safely installed, they continue to wend their deluded way through the small intestines of the building to the rectum at the back for living in. Ni-i-i-i-i-ce.

This design'll stand the test of time won't it? I'm sure it will be standing for far longer than the WWII home that got smacked flat last week..... Think of the generations of children that will be raised here - "Mummy mummy what's that noise?" "Shut up and polish the cars kid, looking out at the world outside aint for the likes of you"..... Puts a whole new meaning on neighbourhood gossips twitching their net curtains - they'd need a mighty quiet garage door remote to get their fix of scandal these days.

So economists tell us we have a severe housing shortage and that people are erecting whatever they can afford at the cheapest price. Fair enough but the houses I'm seeing are in city-fringe suburbs that aren't being paid for by first home-buyers or low income earners. These shockers are being bought and sold by people earning good wages and usually driving two cars. How many of these butt ugly buildings house at least one 4WD whose only off-road action is when Mum overruns the kerb at footy training?!! Grrrr, grrr, *snarl*, grrr, chomp...grrrr.....

The only thing that cheered me up about the demolition was the graffiti painted on the side of the dozer - You Suck. Yes, you do. I hope that all the greedy renovators end up living in a Feature Mock Georgian Garage Box themselves with faulty air-conditioning and a family of narcoleptic snorers, throat-clearers and fast-track farters that can be heard all-too-distinctly through the wafer thin veneer walls...