Pinky had no idea there were so many amusing words for 'testicle'!

                             Padraic- Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth!

Unfortunately many of the comical elements in my day to day life cannot be documented due to a small clause in my teacher’s code of ethics titled, ‘Confidentiality’. This worries me in the sense that I wonder what vicious and debauched tales my own children imparted to their teachers over the years. The mind boggles.

When I separated from my first husband, (there I go channelling Zsa Zsa Gabor again) I was alone in a new house with five kids under thirteen years of age, studying full time at University and teaching drama part-time. Sometimes life was a mite feral; especially the frenetic preparation for departure on school mornings. For more on these electrifying times please click … here

Padraic was about nine at the time and not averse to chucking the occasional wobbly. One morning he overslept and feeling feisty, engaged in a ferocious skirmish with Hagar. He was then unable to find his uniform amongst the clothes strewn all over his bedroom and in a fit of Irish temper stubbornly declined my urgent invitation to get in the damn car.

We were late for school already but my relentless blasts on the car horn failed to coerce him from the sanctity of the house. Taking the only option any other reasonable mother would have, I backed out of the driveway and revved the engine Craig Lowndes’ style; but there was still no Padraic in sight.

“Right!” I screamed at the top of my voice, “I’m taking the others to school and boy, are you in for it when I get home!”

When I returned from the thirty minute round trip, Padraic was standing out on the front driveway, fully uniformed and diabolically wielding a cricket bat. No, the cricket bat wasn’t for me but for the ‘bad guys’ he must have imagined were going to get him.

He sat petulantly and silently the entire way to school and only as he slammed the car door did he utter a sound.

“I called Kid’s Helpline because you left me home alone,” he spat self-righteously at me, “and I’m telling my teacher!”

I spent the rest of the day waiting for the police to arrive at my door. I’m still waiting nine years later and I have a vague suspicion he may have been bluffing.

My sister Sam has an even more cringe-worthy tale of “What my big mouthed kid told the teacher.”

Her husband Pedro is a bit of a venturesome lad and when leaving the pub one night became involved in a bit of a scuffle, resulting in him being unceremoniously kicked in the 'nobby’s nuts'. By the next morning his ‘coconuts’ were the size of rock melons and Sam dutifully drove him to the hospital.

As way of explanation to their concerned seven year old daughter Kathleen, Sam and Pedro told her that her Dad had ‘fallen off a ladder’ and bumped his ‘kerbangers’ which were now very swollen indeed.

Little Kathleen seemed to accept this flimsy account of events and months went by as Pedro’s 'plums' gradually returned to a more normal circumference.

It was only at the parent teacher interview, when little Kathleen’s teacher pulled out an explicitly detailed, fully labelled drawing of Pedro lying on a hospital bed; surrounded by doctors who were seemingly probing his grossly enlarged Cracker Jacks, that Sam realised how seriously her daughter had taken the incident.

The teacher, I was informed by Sam, sat poker-faced and serene, while Sam gaped in mortification at the candid sketch with a lovely accompanying story. Apparently the only comment the teacher had written on the page was to correct ‘testacle’ to ‘testicle’.

Pinky's Eagle has Landed

                               Hagar and Theon



As a prospective mum you endure nine long months of nausea, a leaking bladder and general discomfit. This is followed by at least five years of physical exhaustion chasing after an errant toddler whilst trying your hardest to teach them about the imminent perils of the big wide world. The middle years are a mild reprieve but then come the bitter-sweet agonies of the teenage years.

At some point you have to dust off your hands and grant the human being you have created the freedom to follow their own dreams. It’s challenging, but that moment inevitably arrives and today was a perfect example of allowing a chick to literally fly from the nest.

After a build-up of near on two weeks, twenty year old Hagar finally went through with his adventurous scheme to parachute from a plane. The Beavis to his Butt-Head in this grand folly was his long term buddy, twenty-one year old Theon (who is one of the nicest young men you could ever meet).

Theon’s Mum Denise and his Auntie Christine, were down at the beach cheering the boys on, as were Hagar’s girlfriend Meggles, Hagar’s dad Ralphie, and big brother Thaddeus.

The entire experience was too mind-numbingly terrifying for me to relate so I hope you will click on the link below to watch the (very brief) documentary Scotto has kindly created for your enjoyment. :))

Also, thanks to Chelsea from Longboard’s Bar and Grill for being such a good sport! 

Accidents Happen- not as much as you'd think!

                                    Lulu taking a shot!

When all five of my kids attended the same primary school I bonded with the school’s office lady, Monica. She too had been through the nail-biting trauma of bringing up five kids very close in age and was a compassionate, caring source of support.

One day when I arrived to pick them all up, I’d only just skulked through the gate when I espied Monica anxiously scampering towards me across the netball court.

“Pinky! We’ve been trying to contact you. Don’t panic!” she blurted out, “Hagar’s been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but he’s alright!”

My face turned not fifty, but just one shade of greenish-grey.

“Is it his head?” I asked weakly. That was always my first question. You can live without an arm or a leg but you can’t live without a head.

“He broke his arm playing football,” she continued, “but he was a very brave little boy. He walked into the office holding up his dangling arm and said, ‘I think I broke my f#cking arm’. The paramedics gave him some gas and he was giggling the whole time they were putting him in the ambulance.”

It was Monica who rang me when Padraic was hit in the head with a cricket bat. “He’s fine Pinky,” she said calmly, “the PE teacher said he’s seen the same injury dozens of times.”

He certainly didn’t look fine with a lump over his eye the size of an emu egg, but I trusted Monica. Padraic (apart from a headache that night) recovered rapidly, although he cried the next morning when he saw himself in the mirror, the poor little buggar. 

                            Padraic sporting a shiner.

Years later I still run into a retired Monica at the shopping centre. “How are the kids?” she’ll ask in with genuine interest.

“Aaaah Monica, those boys have been getting into a bit of trouble,” I’ll reply.

“Oh don’t worry about that! We had to pick up one of our kids from the police station lock-up three times when he was in his teens. He got over it. He’s a Doctor now.”

I love Monica.

All of the boys lived on the wild side, playing contact sports and physically pushing the envelope; but strangely they didn't come to too much grief and it was Tomboy Lulu who sustained the more serious injuries, with two broken arms and a broken foot to her credit. 

The first time she broke her arm falling off a bike and, just like a neglectful mother, I presumed it was only a sprain. She had to go to hospital the following morning to have five teeth removed in preparation for braces. The following day after her hospital stay she was still complaining about her arm so I took her to the doctors, who promptly sent her for x-rays. They unfortunately revealed a hairline fracture requiring a cast.

Taking her shopping with an shockingly swollen, bruised face and a broken arm drew some alarmed looks from my fellow shoppers. I felt like putting a sign on her saying, 

“Dental work and bike accident. Don’t judge my mother! She’s not a child basher!”

She broke her arm a second time in the first two minutes of a basketball game and her foot when she jumped out of a tree.

Unlike my own mother who wouldn’t even allow me to own a bike, I wasn’t a particularly over protective mother, but tomorrow will be a true test of my maternal fortitude. 

Tomorrow, as some of you know, is the day Hagar plunges into the air from somewhere around 10 000 feet, with a blanket tied to a piece of string attached to his torso. There’s no coming back from that if something goes wrong.

So stay tuned for tomorrow’s post which will hopefully be a colourfully photographic and hilarious tale describing how I watched Hagar land perfectly on the beach whilst I drained the blood from Scotto’s hand leaving deep talon marks in his wrist.

In the meantime, pass me the Valium and… Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…

Pinky's Interview with the Family Parrot

Farfel the Lorikeet

                               

Farfel, the family’s Rainbow Lorikeet lives just outside our kitchen window and is privy to many of the nefarious goings on at Chez Poinker. I thought he would make an excellent subject to interview in order to gain a more insightful portrait of our day to day lives.

Interview transcript: Warning- this is not for the faint-hearted.

Interviewer: Pinky

Interviewee: Farfel- Rainbow Lorikeet

Interview Setting: Interview conducted outside kitchen window at 3:00 pm on Thursday afternoon.

(Start of Interview)

Interviewer: So I suppose you have some fairly interesting stories to tell as the resident parrot at Chez Poinker over the last five years Farfel?

Interviewee: Oh for f#ck’s sake! Let’s get this straight first… I’m not a parrot you stupid b#tch! I’m a lorikeet which is a completely different f#ckin thing!

Interviewer: (Startled) My apologies… I thought it was the same thing.

Interviewee: Yeah… well you should have done some f#ckin research shouldn’t ya?

Interviewer: Right… (swallowing nervously), Farfel would you like to talk about your interactions with the kids in the house?

Interviewee: You mean F#ckin D#ckhead, Lame W#nker and Smelly Little B#tchface?

Interviewer: (Choking on my own saliva) Farfel! I’m sorry but could you tone down your language please? Why are you calling the kids those horrible names?

Interviewee: What do you mean? That’s what they call each other isn’t it? (yelling) Dinner!

Interviewer: Well… their names are actually Hagar, Padraic and Lulu.

Interviewee: Is that a fact? Well, who f#ckin knew…? (yelling) Dinner! 

Interviewer: Farfel, may I ask why you keep yelling out ‘Dinner!’?

Interviewee: Because at 7 o’clock every night I hear you screaming it out at the top of your lungs about twenty times in a row you dumb a#se. I can’t get it out of my f#ckin head.

Interviewer: Farfel I can’t help but comment that your language is a little vulgar. Could you explain this anomaly?

Interviewee: Listen you f#ckin sook! I learnt it from your a#sehole brats so don’t blame me. I’m in a sh#t box of a cage right outside the frickin kitchen window and it’s all I f#ckin hear all day. They swear like bloody sailors. (yelling) Dinner!

Interviewer: Okaaaaay… Let’s tackle another question. What are some memorable incidents you might like to relate to the readers? 

Interviewee: Well I suppose there was that time when ‘Nerdy B#stard’ came over for dinner…

Interviewer: You must mean Thaddeus?

Interviewee: Yeah, the one that goes to f#ckin university. Well him and ‘Lame W#nker’ got in a massive fight and ‘Nerdy Bastard’ chucked a full plate of Spaghetti Bolognese at him. That was entertaining! (He chuckles at the memory.)

Interviewer: Do you remember what happened after that?

Interviewee: Are you fr#ggin senile Pinky? You remember what happened don’t you? You came storming down the bloody stairs like a she-devil, smacked the b#stards over the head with a tea towel, screamed at them to clean it up and ran upstairs and cried on your f#ckin bed. (yelling) Dinner!

Interviewer: Hmmm… that is true. What happened after that?

Interviewee: From memory you spent the next six weeks finding bits of spaghetti all over the kitchen. I remember hearing you bitterly muttering things like, 
“What… not in the damn toaster as well?” and “Will I ever stop finding freaking spaghetti in the cutlery drawer?”

Interviewer: That’s very accurate, Farfel. You know… I’m feeling a bit stressed out by this interview and think it’s probably time we finished it off. Do you have any final words to impart?

Interviewee: Yeah. I don’t want to be a f#ckin dobber but you need to know a few things… ‘F#ckin D#ckhead’ drinks the milk straight out of the bottle, ‘Lame W#nker’ allowed his friends to stub out their cigarettes in your Nativity Scene at Christmas and ‘Smelly Little B#tchface’ chucks her broccoli down the garbage disposal every night when you’re not looking.

Interviewer: That’s very interesting. Thanks for your time and your enlightening information, Farfel.

Interviewee: You’re welcome. (yelling) Dinner!

P.S. I really love it when people comment on my posts, hint, hint! Just click below…

Pinky's Tribute to ANZAC Day

 Lulu placing a wreath at the cenotaph 

               
“This morning at ten past nine we are all walking up to our senior school for a very solemn and special ceremony to honour ANZAC day.” I informed my grade four class this morning.

The high school campus is about one kilometre up the road and I thought it necessary to reinforce some of the expectations involved in our mini excursion.

“So what are some of the things we should not do on the way?” I asked the class.

Twenty-eight hands sprang up in the air.

“Walk on the woad instead of the parf?”

“Kick up the dirt with our feet as we walk?”

“Step on the back of people’s heels and be silly?”

“Yes, yes and yes,” I agreed. “We don’t want a member of the public driving past and seeing us walking along the road like a mob of ratbags do we?”

“And you must be very quiet when we stand up for ‘The Last Post’ and the minute’s silence,” I emphasised.

“Who knows which musical instrument “The Last Post” is played on?” I quizzed them and noticing the blank faces I added, “It starts with the letter ‘B’”.

“A bumpet?” suggested one of my more inventive students.

I have to say that the ceremony was one of the most moving I’ve ever attended. The opening song ‘In Flander’s Fields’ by the small but exquisite choir immediately set the tone. The sensitive guest speaker (an army lieutenant) told the story of our fallen soldiers at the battle of Gallipoli and had the thousand plus audience in the palm of his hand. 

Our principal read the “Ode to Anzac Day” and we gravely sang the National Anthem facing the Australian flag at half-mast. 

But the highlight of the ceremony arrived at the closing song. A measured delivery of “Waltzing Matilda” by a young male student with a beautiful voice and accompanied by a guitar, resonated over the sound system. When he reached the chorus, the entire hall spontaneously joined in the singing and the school was upliftingly united. 

Did Pinky sing along, I hear you ask? No she didn’t, because she was too busy trying to swallow the golf ball of emotion and national pride in her throat and blink back the tears before the kids cracked on to her.

And I suppose you would also like to know if my students behaved themselves on the walk up to the school. Well… we were so ensconced in our mesmerising Maths lesson that I didn’t even glance at my watch until 9:20. 

I stuck my head out of the door in panic and observed a completely silent and abandoned school. A tumble weed blew past. Somehow, in my air-conditioned cocoon of a classroom, I’d failed to notice all the other classes leaving. 

Shite! I thought. The Principal is going to kill me!

“Put down your pencils and grab your hats!” I barked. “We’re late!”

If any member of the public had happened to see us on our way along the roadside, they would have noticed a flustered, red-faced and puffing Pinky almost jogging along the path with twenty-eight ducklings furiously scurrying behind her and excitedly discussing how silly and forgetful Mrs Poinker was getting.

Maybe we sometimes get a bit precious about our kids.

Frankenstein, Morticia and Lulu the vampire.

                         

Our Deputy Principal thanked all of the dedicated teachers for their generous presence and supervision at the school disco last Friday night and I’m certain she was giving me the stink eye because I was one of the slothful teachers that failed to make an appearance. 

Now I know she sometimes reads my blog so… I really was overseeing my daughter and her new, virile, hormone-charged, seventeen year old boyfriend on Friday night, Janet, dammit.

You know, I really don’t feel one shred of guilt because in the last eight years I’ve put in plenty of evenings at the school; running fete stalls and directing musical productions and plays, etc.

One year my teaching buddy Lisa and I, decided that we would be extra creative and set up a Haunted House for the school fete. 

On the afternoon of the fete we were in a frenzy of decorating our classrooms with fake cobwebs, bats, skeletons and some seriously morbid paraphernalia, when we received a terse phone call from the office informing us that a parent had made a complaint. 

The cardboard ‘gravestones’ we’d painted and placed out the front were apparently far too frightening. We’d painted epitaphs saying “Gertrude RIP 8 years old” and “Alfred RIP 6 years old” on the props.

“Oh for Pete’s sake!” I exploded. “Isn’t that the point of a Haunted House?” I complained bitterly to Lisa. “Kids love to be scared witless don’t they?”

But in fear for our livelihood, we begrudgingly changed them to “Gertrude RIP 87 years old” and “Alfred RIP 96 years old” 

... and began to question our selection of fete stall and indeed, career choice. 

We enlisted Scotto (Frankenstein) to be the ticket seller and I (masquerading as Morticia) played the part of the sinister guide; leading the frightened children through the dark and menacing house whilst narrating a chilling tale about lost and abandoned children.

Lisa, malevolently disguised as an evil witch instructed her hubby, ‘Mr Pumpkinhead’ to stand at the exit and hand out lollies. 

Somehow I had coerced a reluctant Padraic and Lulu to participate in our corny theatrics, decked out respectively as a mad monk and a pallid, red-lipped vampire.

“Slouch in the corner beside the jars with human parts floating in them,” I instructed Padraic, “and don’t move so that the kids think you’re a dummy; like that one over there with the spaghetti for guts. When I finish my scary story jump up, lunge at them and yell out something disturbing at the same time.”

“Lulu!” I continued, “Lay down on that table and pretend to be dead. Wait for my signal, then sit up suddenly and give a blood-curdling scream.”

Lisa’s job was to crawl around under the tables grabbing kids unexpectedly on the ankles.

Now we hadn’t really thought the entire thing through and we could only safely take groups of about six through at a time. Each grisly session took about ten minutes and by seven thirty, word had spread about the petrifying Haunted House. 

The pack of rugrats lined up at the door, wound around the corner and seemed to go on indefinitely. Hundreds of kids had abandoned the ever popular oval, where all the rides were, and had formed an angry mob hustling to gain access to the Haunted House. Even the parents were impatiently arguing about who was first in line.

Each group of kids exiting the House tore out, shrieking in terror and even though Mr Pumpkinhead tried to chase after them with his bucket of lollies, they were too freaked out to care. They’d just excitedly scamper straight to the end of the long queue and wait for their turn again, telling everyone how AWESOME and FREAKY it was.

None of us got a break all night and by ten o’clock, exhausted and mentally shattered, we closed the mausoleum. 

Lisa had sustained major carpet burns on her knees and I had no voice left. It took me all weekend to recover but scaring the willies out of those kids was seriously the most fun I’ve ever had.

Pinky talks dirty.

                                Image credit: en.wikipedia.org

I noticed the other day when checking the stats on my blog, that the most popular post I’ve ever written is ‘Pinky’s Garden of Eden’… here.

Why? I pondered. It’s a little bit funny I suppose and tells the tale of Pinky’s failure as a gardener. Maybe a gardening group is sharing it and having a great laugh at my stupidity, I thought. I Googled ‘Pinky’ and ‘Garden’ and my site was unexpectedly sitting at the top of the page ranking. How?

Then I scrolled down. Oooooooh! ‘Pinky’s Garden’ is a porn website! Unwitting seekers of titillating entertainment must have been clicking on my site unaware of its unexciting and horticultural content. 

Unfortunate, disappointed searchers of erotic diversion those poor souls must be.

So I thought I might include some raunchy stories in my post today in honour of those lovely people who have unintentionally promoted my rankings with Mr Google.

Our staffroom has a scarcity of interesting reading material. Whether it’s a deliberate ploy by administration to discourage the teachers from relaxing too much and not being on top of the game at the front line of the Rugrat warzone I don’t know, but there’s bugger all to read.

One day Greggles, one of the male teachers, discovered an advertisement in a dog-eared magazine hawking products for the “Lady Garden”. It promised to keep the user’s ‘lady garden’ smelling like an English countryside in Springtime and contained so many outrageous and colourful metaphors we all cracked up laughing. Greggles read them out, most expressively, to the amusement of the rest of the staffroom over the next few days. I told you it’s boring in that staffroom.

Not to be outdone, O’Reilly, always ready for a laugh, brought in a flyer he’d found in his letterbox. It originated from a local shaver shop franchise and had a photograph of a male model, naked from the waist up and looking down at his…. you know…thing.

‘Release the Tiger’ the headline exclaimed.

It asked, “Is your tiger lost in the jungle?” and went on to talk about “Allowing your tiger to stand proud on the open plain.” 

Apparently the gist of the campaign was that; the less jungle there was, the bigger the tiger looks. 

I couldn’t help but worry that, with one slip of the razor it might be a case of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Turtle”. 

Anyway, it amused the entire staffroom for both lunch breaks that day and it just goes to show that teachers need to be provided with more stimulating reading material.

Not raunchy enough for you yet? Okay, one more story.

One day Scotto and I were out for a walk along the river. Half way through our ambling I saw a jogger with a dog on a leash, heading towards us. 

As he approached I noticed that he was wearing silky, yellow, running shorts and for all intents and purposes, seemingly no underwear. I could clearly discern the shape of his ‘tiger’ swinging freely as he ran and as I had sunglasses on, was granted free access to an unrestricted viewing.

Just as he passed by us Scotto turned to me and hissed, 

“Crikey! That was a floppy one!”

I flashed an amazed and bewildered look at Scotto. Had he just read Pinky’s mind??

“I knoooooow!” I squealed in enthusiastic agreement.

“It's amazing," he added innocently, "I didn’t know a Cocker Spaniel could have such big ears!” 

Pinky and the Surf Life Savers

Pinky the Surf Girl

       

The subject of today’s post is a particularly embarrassing incident I still cringe over decades after the event.

When I turned nineteen and had recently been dumped by my boyfriend of two years, my mother suggested I use the resulting heart-break weight loss to my advantage. (The boyfriend didn’t actually dump me… he just stopped calling me. Just like that, after two years… bloody b#stard.)

Mum knew a lady who was scouting out a possible entrant for the local Surf Life Saving Club’s Surf Girl Quest.

“It will get you out of your funk, Pinky.” Mum encouraged and put my name forward with my semi-reluctant and sceptical assent. Hanging out with a bunch of beefy life-savers and p#ssing off my ex-boyfriend was a strong motivational factor behind my decision.

I was accepted and spent the next few months in a whirlwind of selling meat tray raffle tickets at the pub, organising beach parties and progressive dinners and desperately trying not to gain any weight.

The end of the quest quickly arrived and I had to fly down to the big smoke to stay in a hotel with the other 50 odd entrants for the lead up to the final judging.

We contestants had to be interviewed by the judges and parade around in day wear, evening wear and swimmers. The judges would decide on the finalists and the winners would be announced on a live telly broadcast on the last night.

The worst thing was we were staying at a stunning hotel, all meals included and none of us could eat anything for fear of nurturing a pot belly.

Anyway, in preparation for the big night all the girls were required to attend a rehearsal with Mike Higgins (the host) for the big glitzy broadcast.

“Girls! This is very important information… ” stressed a world weary Mike, “If you don’t listen and you are selected as a finalist you will do the wrong thing and make a fool of yourself on blah…blah…blah......”

Pinky had drifted off into Pinky Dreamland, visualising Mars Bars, hamburgers and big glasses of chocolate milk floating on pink clouds and had stopped paying attention long ago.

The evening arrived and we all paraded around in our evening wear for the cameras then huddled in the green room waiting to see if our names were called out as finalists.

While I sat dreaming of the decadent food I was going to devour as soon as this boring rubbish finished, I felt one of the other girls shove me in the ribs,

“Pinky! That’s you. They called your name! You’re one of the finalists!”

I must add there was a hint of incredulity in her voice.

“Oh sh#t! What am I supposed to do?” I yelped.

“Go out backstage and change into your swimmers like they told us to at rehearsal!” she said impatiently, pushing me towards the door.

It was dark backstage and my eyes were still adjusting to the dearth of light. I couldn’t see any of the other girls. Oh well, I thought, I’ll get changed here anyway. 

Whilst I balanced on one foot, stark naked, in a particularly ungainly stance as I attempted to squeeze my feet into the swimmers, something caught my eye. 

It was a crowd of discomforted, fidgeting stage hands and camera guys waiting to go on stage. Oh… and also Grant Kenny (the famous 80's iron man) who was presenting the awards that night.

Of course the other girls were in the toilet getting changed. They were where they’d been told to go because they had listened to the instructions.

I didn’t reach the dream of winning the Surf Girl crown that night, but you know those dreams you have where you are suddenly naked in front of everyone, I brought that dream to reality.

Pinky trains to be a Ninja

                                                     

Like being granted a last minute reprieve from the Governor, I discovered that my beloved son Hagar is not plummeting from a plane this Saturday, but next. In my shock at hearing of his devastating plan the other night, I must have misheard the actual timing of the risky undertaking. It looks like I still have my cherished son for one more week and another seven days to obsessively fret about it. 

Hubby Scotto, felt it was necessary that I should perhaps go through some sort of rehearsal for the big day.

“Pinky, why don’t we go and have breakfast on the beach and watch the sky divers at the same time so you can be more prepared,” he suggested hopefully.

So we did and I now feel worse after watching the plane circle higher and higher until it was just a speck in the sky; almost invisible to the naked eye.

Breakfast was nice though. Saturday is my favourite day and Scotto and I often go somewhere for a long decadent lunch or just kick back watching videos after the morning jobs are done. 

A couple of years ago we thought we’d shake things up a bit. We’d been watching the video “Kick Ass” and for some reason became inspired by the fight scenes.

“I’d love to be able to fight off bad guys like that!” I said to Scotto taking a sip from my third chardonnay of the afternoon. “Why don’t we take up martial arts? It might be fun and it would be something we could do together to keep fit. But I don’t want to do Taekwondo with all those little kids,” I added firmly, slapping the air and kicking my legs like Jackie Chan, “I want to be a Ninja!.”

I should have known better than to suggest anything new and novel to Scotto when I’ve been drinking, because by Monday night he’d researched the possibilities and already signed us up for Ninja training on Saturday morning.

We were to meet a guy Scotto had discovered on the Internet called Greg, in a park. Greg didn’t sound like a very Ninjary name to me and it all seemed a bit dodgy but Scotto insisted that ‘Greg’ was an expert on Bujinkan dojo, a very old line of Ninja dating back to the 12th century.

We arrived at the park to discover three other people stretching their bodies under a mango tree.

“I prefer to hold my classes outdoors,” commented an athletic- looking Greg as he twisted his arm around his neck in an elastic man fashion. 

“Yeah…” I thought sceptically, “It’s cheaper than a proper venue too.”

We finished the gruelling session two hours later and apart from ant bites and sunburn we left the park devotedly raving about everything we’d learnt. This Greg really knew his stuff and what’s more he didn’t even let us pay for the first introductory lesson.

“We’ll have to practise those moves every night!” enthused Scotto. “But not when we’ve had a drink of course, we could hurt ourselves.” 

And we did practise fervently, every night.

“This is so much fun,” I effused, “Something I can see us doing for years. Maybe we’ll become Grand Masters!”

The following Saturday we rocked up once more to learn how to thrillingly hoist each other over the shoulder on to the ground.

“Bloody fantastic lesson, Greg,” I gushed when it was over. “What a shame you only run these classes once a week.”

“Oh, I do run classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights if you'd like to come.” he casually remarked.

Scotto and I beamed at each other, “Let’s do it!” we chimed.

We were going to be dead set Ninja legends.

We didn’t make the night sessions that week because we were a bit busy. In fact we were so busy we didn’t even practise our moves.

On Saturday morning I rolled over in bed. Shaking Scotto's shoulder I meekly whispered, 

“Scotto, I don’t want to be a Ninja any more. Can we go to lunch instead?”

And that was the end of that.

Are you a stayer or a quitter?

Teenagers Behaving Badly Part 11- How Pinky got someone else to do the housework.

                                                   The uninteresting glass of water



I thought I was hearing things yesterday when I walked in the door after a hard day teaching my Grade Four class. It sounded like the roar of a vacuum cleaner... but that was an unworkable hypothesis; there was no vacuum cleaner attached to my arm. 

No, it was definitely a vacuum cleaner. But how? I pondered. No one else in the house would even know where it was kept or how to turn it on. Perhaps it was a very house conscious burglar?

As I nervously rounded the corner of the hallway an unconceivable phenomenon met my goggling eyes. It was sixteen year old Lulu, vacuum in hand, ferociously hoovering the lounge room!

Espying her gobsmacked mother standing motionless and staring like a stunned mullet, she turned the machine off and haughtily sashayed past me into the kitchen.

“Mummsy,” she said, (that’s what she calls me when she wants something) “Can my boyfriend Jack come over and hang out tomorrow night?”

Hmmm, I thought analytically. That is why she’s cleaning the house. She is so ashamed of the state I’ve allowed it to descend into, she has taken it upon herself to do some housework! 

Yay for Pinky!

“Of course Jack can come over,” I replied jauntily, “I’d love to meet him. By the way, the hallway needs a going over too.” 

Then I added, muttering thoughtfully, “Maybe I’ll write about meeting this Jack in my blog.”

Lulu eyed me condescendingly. 

“That’d be right! Mum you write about sh#t! Why don’t you write about me drinking this glass of water?” she scornfully thrust a very uninteresting glass of water at me in an aggressive fashion. 

“Maybe I will!” I retorted, “Maybe I will. Don’t forget to vacuum the stairs, they’re covered in dust. The downstairs’ toilet needs cleaning as well. You don’t want Jack to think you live in a pig sty do you?”

So Handsome Jack is coming over tonight. 

I can’t wait to meet him and I can’t help but hope he’s just a little bit odd. Normal people just don’t fit in here and besides… it will give me something to write about other than that glass of water.

In the words of Cyndi Lauper... "If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting... time after time."

Hagar, Pinky and Meggles

                           

Last night we took Hagar and his adorably petite and sweet girlfriend Meggles, out to dinner for Hagar’s twentieth birthday. I sat across the table from him admiring his handsome appearance, thinking about how he finally seems to be growing up. 

Gosh, I only had to slap his hand once the whole night when I caught him playing with the steak knife whilst waiting for dinner to arrive. 

After all the grief, worry and trauma that boy has put me through during the last nineteen years I could finally recognise and appreciate some primary indication of common sense.

For examples of these traumatic experiences please read …here and …here and …here!... just for starters.

We sat merrily at the table, laughing at family stories and about how Hagar and Meggles, even though they’ve only been going out for eighteen months, first met at preschool and shared their first kiss in the sandpit aged five.

The evening progressed swimmingly until Hagar began shifting uncomfortably in his seat and I just knew something was up.

“Mum…” he muttered. “I’ve got to tell you something.”

Alarm bells began to resonate. What is it this time? My frightened mind began to sift through the possibilities.

Meggles is pregnant? Hagar’s quitting his apprenticeship? He’s lost his driver’s licence (again)? He and Meggles are engaged? He owes the Casino a sh#t load of money? He was involved in a hit and run and he was the run? There are hired guns after him? He’s moving out? ( now that wouldn’t be so bad… I could turn his room into an office for Pinky Poinker… after I get to it with a pressure cleaner of course…)

“What is it Hagar?” I enquired as tranquilly as possible in the circumstances.

“Weeeeeell…” he drawled slowly, “On Saturday I’m going skydiving.”

The room went black. Millions of sparkly stars floated across the darkness that was my field of vision. I desperately fought back the hyperventilation I knew would inevitably lead to a full blown panic attack.

The last time Hagar threatened to try skydiving was when he turned eighteen.

“You can’t stop me Mum! I’m an adult now!” he declared, as I clung to his ankles like a clamp limpet.

Fortunately his proclivity towards wayward behaviour meant he had such a lengthy rap sheet of fines to pay he couldn’t afford the required four hundred bucks to jump out of a plane with a piece of silk tied to his back.

Two years later he has managed to scrape up the funds.

Oh well… I guess Pinky will have to drive down to the beach on Saturday; with her Rosary beads entwined tightly around her fingers, self-flagellating and wailing out Hail Marys, to bravely watch her son hurtle perilously from a plane and float down to the ground.

I just hope I’m not crazed enough to run underneath him as he lands on the beach and try to catch him.

Pinky warns about the dangers of blogging!

                                                        
I began writing this blog during the lazy, blissful school holidays on the 8th January this year. Whoa… that’s only three months ago. So far I’ve managed to write 104 posts, which is about one post for every one of those days. Now whilst I am fully aware that I am by no means an experienced blogger, I do believe a few prickly issues have reared their ugly head, on which I do feel to be a bit of an authority. 

Therefore, here are some sage words of advice on the dangers of blogging for anyone who continues to read on and ignores their gut feeling that this post is just more of Pinky’s pointless drivel.

Blogging makes you put on weight.
Three kilograms! Crap! This is from sitting on my a#se typing out posts, instead of power walking for an hour and a half every day as I did back in the days when I was thin!

Blogging makes your house filthy. 

Some people joke that their house is messy, but clean. My house is very neat, but filthy! The washing piles up now, the floor is sticky and the carpet upstairs has something growing on it.

Blogging makes you absent minded.

I lined up behind five cars at the busy service station today. It was finally my turn at the bowser and I got out of the car only to realise that the petrol tank was on the other side. I’d been thinking about what I could write in my post this evening. Yesterday I forgot to pick Lulu up from work because I was… err... vacuuming. No I wasn’t! I was writing my post! Bad mother!

Blogging gives you nightmares.

I keep having vivid, recurring nightmares about poo dribbling out of my mouth. I’m not joking! 

What do you think it means?

Blogging alienates your friends.

My friends’ eyes glaze over and they quickly change the subject whenever I start talking obsessively about my blog. I’m sure they only like it on Facebook so they don’t get asked every morning,

“So Kaz… did you read my blog last night? Did you like it? What exactly did you like about it? Did you laugh out loud? Huh? huh?”

Also I have begun to talk like a Thesaurus.

“Whadja say Pinky??” they will query in bemused perplexity when I orate in an exceedingly evocative and ostentatiously pretentious manner. Like I just did then…

Blogging leads to addictive behaviours.

To have your blog read by more than your five best friends, your husband and the dog, you have to promote it on Twitter, Facebook and any other form of social media you come across. Bad. Bad. Bad. More distraction from housework and exercise.

Blogging makes your husband cranky.

“So do you think it’s funny?” I’ll ask him prior to posting.

“I laughed didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you might just be humouring me. Do you think it was at all offensive?” I’ll whine persistently.

“No… it was funny.”

“Okay… if you’re sure… so I’m about hit publish… Should I do it? Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Yes Pinky, publish it.” he sighs patiently.

“There… it’s published! What if no one thinks it’s funny…maybe I should have used another picture. I don't think I should have posted it...” 

I will continue carrying on plaintively for the next twenty minutes until someone finally ‘likes’ it. 

Actually, he is pretty patient ... except for the time when in the middle of connubial fun times I breathed heavily into his ear,

"Scotto...are you sure it was funny?"

Pinky's week can only get better.

                             

Monday 3:30pm- notice phone call from teenage son Padraic’s school… what the hell now? He’s not in trouble again is he? If he’s done something wrong and has been banned from going on school camp tomorrow after I’ve already paid the $300 I’ll bloody kill the little sh#t.

3:35- ring school back, no-one knows who tried to contact me. I ponder the possibilities.

4:00- arrive home to find Padraic sprawled on couch in boxer shorts. He seemingly has no knowledge of why school wants to talk to me. I’m still suspicious.

6:00- Teacher calls me. She is in unhappy state about Padraic’s insolent behaviour at school that day. I promise to deal with him.

6:05- I heatedly berate Padraic and threaten lots of ‘consequences’. I tell him his friends who are supposed to be staying over that night before they leave for school camp can’t come over any more. 

“Ring them!” I bawl, “You don’t deserve to have friends over. Here take my phone and ring them NOW and go away and get out of my face. I’m very disappointed in you!”

6:10- Padraic raises his voice making all excuses under sun, 

“The teacher’s a b#tch Mum. I didn’t do anything.” 

"Well I believe the teacher!" I answer emphatically.

Then, just as suddenly, Padraic retreats to sit quietly in his bedroom like an admonished lamb.

6:25- Padraic emerges from room and asks pleasantly if he can put on a load of washing for camp tomorrow. 

“Of course,” I answer in a reasonable tone, nudging husband in ribs in self-congratulatory manner.

6:26- “There,” I say to husband Scotto, “I showed the little sh#t. He must be feeling pretty remorseful right now. I know how to put him in his place.”

6:45- The doorbell rings. Padraic’s two buddies, Null and Void are standing at door with backpacks and sleeping bags. It swiftly dawns on me that the little sh#t didn’t ring them and now I am put on the spot. I can’t be rude to them and send them home and besides, their shrewd mothers have already made their escape with tyres loudly squealing down the street.

6:48- Padraic bounds down stairs and greets his buddies, flashing me a quick look conveying arrogance, insubordination and victory all rolled into one.

6:49- I look at Scotto. He looks at me. 6:55- Scotto hands me a glass of Chardonnay. 

“At least we’ll be rid of him for three days,” comments Scotto in an attempt to cheer me up. 

It will be worth the $300, I think dejectedly.

Pinky gives Kim Jong-un a telling off.

                        

The threat of nuclear war is no joke but then again we often make fun of the things we fear the most. I’ve seen quite a few Facebook jokes about Kim Jong-un with a myriad of comparisons drawn to Gangnam Style singer PSY. I heard a reporter the other day use a metaphor alluding to a tantrum throwing spoilt child, “Kim Jong-un has thrown all of the toys out of his pram.”

We seem to hear plenty about his late father and grandfather but not too much about his late former opera- singer Mum. I tell you what, if he was Pinky’s son he’d be getting a bloody clip over the ear for his shenanigans.

“Kimmy! You come out of your room right now! And you can get that surly look off your face. I’ve had enough of getting phone calls from other mothers telling me you’re not allowed over to play anymore. That Mrs Putin just gave me a big serve about what you did to her son. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you play nice with the other kids? What’s that? You’re a dictator? Listen son, you’re not a dictator… you’re just a very naughty boy. 

For God’s sake put some pants on, I’m sick of seeing you walking around in your jocks. And why do you insist of cutting your hair like that… you look like Sweeney Todd. Who is going to want to be friends with someone with a haircut like Sweeney Todd? 

What about those nice boys from One Direction. I like that little Harry, why don’t you grow your hair like him? 

Where have you been all day anyway? Inspecting the concentration camps! Well you could afford to spend a bit of time there yourself Fatty Boombah. You’ve been tucking in to a bit too much Western food lately. Ever since you made friends with that Dennis the basketballer you’ve been feeding your face on Maccas and KFC. Well if you send a nuclear bomb over to America where do you think you’re going to get your fried chicken from then eh?

Can I smell cigarettes? Have you been smoking again? I can always smell it you know. Where are they? Right! Haven’t you embarrassed me enough after lighting up a bloody cigarette when you were inspecting operating theatres at the hospital? What were you thinking Kimmy? What sort of role model are you for the citizens?

Now I’ve made up my mind Kimmy. You’re grounded until you can cut out this weapons nonsense and start focussing on learning to get along with others. 

Isn’t it time you thought about getting a real job. I’m sure you could get a car mechanic’s apprenticeship at Hyundai if you apologised to South Korea for being such a little nasty little sh#t. 

That Barack’s a lovely bloke! Why don’t you invite him over for a play? And while you’re at it get rid of this internet and media censorship you insist on, I want to find out what’s happening on My Kitchen Rules! Now go to your room and have a good think about your attitude!” 

                           

Pinky almost faces a mother's worst nightmare.

                                Hagar posing for his Mum.

When my youngest and fifth child, Lulu was born my eldest child was only six years old. Casually dropping this fact into a conversation with people would produce murmurs of admiration, sympathy and understanding. It was a fantastic excuse to circumvent a lot of the dreary, tiresome obligations in life (as well as explain my generally dishevelled appearance).

“Pinky, can you come to my Tupperware/jewellery/linen party on Thursday?”

“Would you be interested in helping on the tuckshop committee, Pinky?

“Which fete stall do you think you could help on Pinky?”

All to which I would earnestly answer, 

“I’m soooo sorry but I have no one to look after the kids.”

This excuse carried me through until Lulu turned eight and I was forced to face up to my tedious parental responsibilities.

Then fortuitously, another Indian Summer came along when Lulu turned thirteen and Thaddeus was still nineteen.

“I’ve got five bloody teenagers at home and I’m a bit bloody stressed out!” became my pity seeking catch cry.

Tomorrow Hagar turns twenty which means there are now only two teenagers residing at Chez-Poinker and my feeble apologies have become as flimsy and brittle as an octogenarian’s hip bone.

The shameful thing is that I almost forgot about Hagar’s birthday. Yesterday he stood at the front door, backpack in hand, and announced cheerily,

“Goin’ to Airlie Beach for the weekend with some mates Mum. I’ll see you Sunday night.”

“Really? Hagar why are you driving all that far, you know how nervous I get when you travel on the highway. Who’s driving? I hope you’re not driving your Starlet, it’s barely holding together as it is. Don’t drink too much and behave yourself. I can’t believe you’re putting me through this again. Here let me take one last picture of you in case you perish in a car crash.”

Grudgingly, he posed for a photo, kissed me goodbye and fled the scene like a thief stealing away with his mother’s poor despairing heart in his backpack. 

Okay… that was a bit melodramatic, but it wasn’t until he’d gone that I realised it was his birthday on Sunday and I hadn’t mentioned it.

A few months ago I discovered Hagar suspiciously stuffing a mattress into the back of his teeny Starlet.

“Where are you going with my mattress?” I asked.

“Goin’ to Ingham for a twenty-first party.” he answered laconically.

I spent the entire weekend in a ball of anxiety, nervously anticipating a phone call from the police informing me that Hagar’s body had been discovered in a wrecked, burnt out Starlet on the side of the Bruce Highway.

On Sunday morning my phone rang at 7:15 am. Oh God! This is it, I thought, this will be the call I’ve been dreading for the last five years, NO one rings me this early on a Sunday. It must be bad news.

“Hello!” I barked sharply into the phone.

“Is that Mrs Poinker?” asked an unrecognisable man’s voice on the other end.

Adrenalin shot through my body, bile rose in my mouth and I almost shouted a terse, 

“Yes! Yes it is!”

“It’s the ‘Springfield’ police station here. I was wondering if you are the owner of a car with the registration plate, 123 KGB?”

“YES I AM!” I roared into the phone, “WHAT”S HAPPENED?” 

I was very close to having either an aneurism or a major coronary event. My heart was about to explode in terror. Get on with it you STUPID FOOL POLICEMAN, I thought, I’m DYING in anguish here.

There was an agonising pause.

“It’s nothing serious,” he went on in a somewhat startled manner, “It’s just that your car was seen dumping a bag of rubbish in a vacant lot at around 2:00 am this morning. If it’s not removed in a couple of hours you’ll be getting a six hundred dollar fine.”

The dust began to settle and the dawn of comprehension rose in my befuddled brain. That rego was not Hagar’s car, it was my car, the car I’d loaned Padraic the night before.

“Just a minute,” I said to the lovely, nice policeman and marched purposefully down the hall.

“Padraic!” I yelled banging savagely on his bedroom door.

“Get up! The police want to speak to you RIGHT NOW!”

Happy Birthday Hagar and I pray you make it home safely x

Pinky's Bizarre and Disturbing Inner Thoughts continued...

                              

After yesterday’s post it has been spectacularly revealed that I am not the complete nut bag I feared I was. I have been inundated with comments from other people who also get the urge to shout out inappropriately at solemn events. Okay there were only four people and one was my husband but I’ll take that number as confirmation that I truly am not a threat to society.

One friend Briony, declared that she too felt the compulsion to scream out raucously during the more sombre moments of our conference yesterday. 

Another friend Jo, admitted to sometimes experiencing the urge to sporadically yell out at an unsuitable moment during a funeral (not that there is ever a really suitable moment). 

Now I must admit that both of these ladies have been extremely encouraging towards me during my journey of writing this blog which may indicate that they're merely tarred with the same kooky brush as I am; but nevertheless, I will take validation where ever I can find it.

Perhaps humans have some primeval instinct to do the opposite of what is sociably acceptable. 

I thought I might do some research on the subject and Googled, ‘inappropriate shouting at funerals’ but all I found was a list of symptoms for Dementia and a catalogue of 26 (tempting) but inappropriate songs to play at a funeral including; Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ and Peggy Lee’s ‘Is that all there is?’.

Since I seem to be in the mood for revelations I must admit other inappropriate thoughts enter my head on occasion. For instance I’m terrified of heights but it’s not because I’m scared of falling. It’s more that I’m worried my brain will misfire and compel me to jump off the edge.

A similar feeling comes over me sometimes when I’m driving very fast on a highway and a semi-trailer is approaching from the other direction. I become paranoid that just as I’m about to pass the huge truck, the evil side of my brain will take over and force me to swerve in front of it and I’ll be smashed to smithereens. 

I’ve never mentioned this frightening train of thought to my passengers mind you; I don’t think they’d like it very much. 

If someone hands me a delicate, fragile item I’m always afraid that a malevolent brain snap will induce me to drop it deliberately on the ground. The more precious the item is to the donor the more likely I am to have this compulsion. What is wrong with me?

Apparently (according to my research on a few dodgy sites) it’s a bit like people who smile when they’re delivering bad news. I investigated all of these weird notions and evidently they’re a universal phenomenon. So Pinky is relatively normal after all.

While I was discussing all of this nonsense with my friend Jo today, she divulged a family quirk concerning her ‘sister-in-law’ (yeah I bet!) who apparently suffers the same affliction as I do when cruising through bookshops. No longer can she frequent a bookshop to browse the empty hours away because not only does she get the overwhelming urge to pass wind, she goes one step further and needs to find a toilet sooner rather than later, if you get my drift.

Did I bother to research this strange singularity which Jo’s ‘sister-in-law’ and I seem to share? You bet I did.

I composed my intriguing and captivating question as eloquently as I could and typed it into Google search, 

‘Why do I always need to f*rt in the library?’ 

... and sure enough, at the top of the page was the site I was looking for. 

According to the judicious au.answers.yahoo.com, Jo’s ‘sister-in-law’ and I must have both been looking for “Gone with the Wind”.