You have too much time on your hands!

                                     Marie-Antoinette


I was out (somewhere) recently when a creative friend I shall name Nigella, brought out a lavishly decorated cake she had obviously spent hours painstakingly working on for another friend who was celebrating her birthday. 

Another lady, who I shall name Cynthia, stood behind Nigella as she carefully took off the cover, revealing the sumptuous, meticulously adorned gateau in all its glory.

“Gosh! You clearly have too much time on your hands!” commented Cynthia.

Unlike the wilful and ill-humoured Pinky; who may have been incited to stab Cynthia in the eye with the cake knife, Nigella merely tensed imperceptibly and replied, “No I don’t!”

I’m positive Cynthia didn't intend any malice with her throw-a-way comment as she is a lovely girl, but I believe, 

“You have too much time on your hands” is a passive aggressive statement right up there in the same league as, “You look tired” (You look old) and “You’ve really improved” (You sucked before).



When I first began writing my blog five months ago and posting it on Facebook, a friend, who I shall name Drucilla, made the comment on my wall, 

“You have too much time on your hands”.

Drucilla had never and has never read my blog, however, I still felt p#ssed off. The wound festered for a while, then dried up, scabbed over and fell off but the cake incident started me thinking.

When I meet up with friends and they tell me they spent two hours the previous evening running up and down the mountain at boot camp I don’t say, 

“You have too much time on your hands”.
When colleagues are standing in line at the urn discussing the previous night’s State of Origin match, I don’t say, 

“What? You spent eighty minutes of your valuable evening watching a bunch of blokes you don’t know running up and down a muddy field chasing a ball? You have too much time on your hands.”

Whatever your passion is you will somehow find the time to pursue it.

My sixteen and eighteen year old will regularly lurch into the loungeroom when I’m writing at night harassing me to start dinner. The washing mounts, the barge-a#se gets bigger through lack of exercise, but I’m enjoying myself by utilising whatever measly creativity that hasn’t been sucked out of me after a frenzied day. 

Don’t listen to anyone when they criticise you for following your obsession.

Let them eat cake!

Image credit: www.gogmsite.net

Pinky and Parental Advice.

“I’m so cranky with my daughter right now I don’t know what to do!” sighed my friend Shazza one day in the staffroom.

Oh goody! I thought spitefully. Someone else’s teenagers besides mine are acting up. I wonder what the daughter did? Maybe she was driven home in a paddy wagon by the cops… or perhaps she was sprung sneaking out at night?

“Poor Shazza,” said the wise, experienced Pinky who had been behind the door when the good Lord had been handing out parenting skills.

“She’s been lying to me about where she goes on weekends.” croaked an emotional Shazza.

This is good, I contemplated, I can’t wait to hear this juicy piece of scandal.

“Go on Shazza,” I murmured sympathetically.

“She’s been telling me for the last two months that she’s been at a girlfriend’s house studying.”

Holy cow, if my kids had ever told me that sort of story I would have been instantly on to them. What's wrong with this woman?

“So where has she been going then?” I asked, knowing in my heart it could only be boys!  She's probably meeting up with some loser lout who drives a fluorescent Ute and hoons up and down the Strand, I mused.

Shazza leaned in closely and whispered in a discreet manner,

“She has been going to rehearsals for her high school’s annual musical! I told her she wasn’t allowed to be in it this year because she’s in grade twelve but she went behind my back. Not only that, she somehow managed to get a lead role and now it’s too late for her to pull out without letting the whole production team down.”

I stared at Shazza with a mixture of intense jealousy, resentment and a sense of thespian outrage.

“So what’s the musical then?” I sniffed enviously.

“That’s not the point, Pinky! She’s been lying to me!”

“Lying, Schmying! you big spoilsport!” I snapped. “What’s the musical?”

“Oliver Twist.”

“So she is playing Nancy?” I demanded deferentially.

“Yeah, I think that’s what she said.”

“You should be thankful she has the initiative to go and follow her dreams. This is a fantastic opportunity. She’s a super smart kid, I’m sure she’ll keep her marks up to scratch! Stop trying to make her someone she's not!” I blurted out a bit too passionately for the conservative time of morning.

Do you see what this scenario reveals?

Pinky reliving lost aspirations and pipedreams? No.

Pinky revealing why she has failed as a mother? Yes.

Too much permissiveness. Too many situations where an indulgent and liberal minded Pinky gave way to outright deceit in the name of creative exploration.

Oh well... it’s too late for me now, but I like to think, partly because of my rant, Shazza relented and her resourceful and inspired daughter was permitted to indulge in her artistic pursuits. (Fancy taking Pinky's advice!)

Kyles, Lee-lee, Emmsie and I went to watch Shazza’s daughter perform last night at the theatre. 

She was stunning. 

If she was my daughter I would have bawled my eyes out with pride. 

But the best part was when, in character as Nancy, she Oom Pah Pahed her way up onto a table and sang her heart out… 

just like her Mum, Shazza does every time she has one drink too many!

What won't Pinky bring out of the closet?

                                              

Whenever I buy something new I have to leave it in the cupboard (still in its pristine wrapping) for at least two weeks… at least. Shoes, clothing, books, perfume… it doesn’t matter what the item is, I just don’t like to use it until it has served its mandatory sentence of quarantine.

Scotto is the exact opposite to me and has regularly been observed ripping his old shirt off in the shop and putting the new one on before we’ve exited the place of purchase. He’s weird.

This idiosyncrasy of mine has backfired on me at times; for example, when I bought a formal dress to marry Scotto in I left it hanging in the cupboard for three months. I finally took it out a week before the big day, tried it on, hated its guts and attempted to return it to the store of purchase.

The boutique owner- let’s just call her ‘Cruella’- accused me of fraudulently wearing the dress and unpleasantly refused me a store credit.

“I think this has been worn!” she sneered. “Do you think I’m stupid? Who would have a dress in their cupboard for three months and not wear it?”

Er… me.

The b#stard five hundred dollar dress sat in the cupboard for another five years before I finally gave it away to one of Lulu’s budding fashion designer friends to cut into little pieces.

I’ve actually been banned from that particular shop because of a few angrily exchanged letters but we won’t go into that.

Sometimes I’ll stand in front of my wardrobe complaining bitterly to Scotto that I have nothing to wear. “What about that long-sleeved shirt you bought at Christmas, Pinky?” he will suggest helpfully.

“Aaah no, it’s not ready to come out yet. It’s only May.” I’ll nonsensically reply.

Even when I bought my car, Golden Boy, I didn’t really drive it anywhere for an entire fortnight. I’d open the garage door, walk around it admiringly, then drive to the shop in the old Holden Commodore.

If anyone gives me a gift voucher I hang on to it for at least a couple of months and then whatever I end up buying is cordoned off for a further period of seclusion. My birthday is in September and often I won’t actually use my present until my next birthday rolls around.

I think part of this Pinky peculiarity stems from the fact that I generally hate new things. Firstly, because I expect perfection and I’m so often disappointed and secondly, I hate reading a new set of instructions.

More than one brand new vacuum cleaner has been destroyed after I’ve thrown the useless mongrel across the room in frustration at its dismal lack of suction power. I suppose you can’t expect too much from a thirty-nine dollar vacuum cleaner but the man in the shop had made certain promises and I was hopeful.

Cheapness, could also be another reason for my oddity. I’ve been known to persevere with a hairdryer that exasperatedly cuts out every thirty seconds when it becomes overheated while a perfectly good brand new one sits patiently in its unopened box in my cupboard. I want to get that last cent’s worth out of the old one you see.

Stabbing myself in the eye with an ancient, caked mascara while its fresh, packaged cousin sits good-naturedly in my bathroom drawer, is part of my day.

Shoes are undoubtedly the worst victims. Unspoiled and virginal shoes will remain ensconced in their boxes at the foot of my wardrobe until their disgustingly worn out predecessors finally call it a day and snap in half. Only then will the unsullied, spotless footwear be awarded liberty. Even today as I clattered around in my sandals with both heels falling off; continually checking behind me as I walked to see who was following me because of the echo they created, my only thought was, “I wonder if Scotto has any superglue at home I can use to fix these.”

I’m such a cheapskate I’d probably still be using a pre-paid Nokia 101 if Scotto hadn’t been such a techno-Nazi, forcing me to upgrade my phone every two years.

Yesterday, Hagar presented me with a lovely Lorna-Jane bag containing two new shirts for Mother’s Day. Oh well… they should be ready to come out of the closet by next May.

Pinky's Tribute to Star Trek!

Hagar

                                       Anakin

I know today is the day after the third of May but I refuse to say what you want me to. It’s all over Twitter and Facebook and frankly I’m sick of it. 

It happens to be my friend Kyles’ birthday and she informed me that the only way her husband can remember the date is by using that stupid “Star Wars Day” pun. 

Oh… Happy Birthday Kyles!

When the first Star Wars movie came out I was seventeen and went to see it with my pimply-faced boyfriend. We may or may not have both been under the influence of whacky tobaccy and I remember leaving the cinema not having a clue as to what I had just watched. 

That was the end of any Star Wars fanaticism for me for the next twenty-two years until The Phantom Menace was released. 

 I took Thaddeus, Jonah and Hagar to see it at the cinema. Throughout the entire movie I reflected on how much the kid playing Anakin resembled my six year old Hagar and consequently didn’t pay much attention to the storyline. 

What was the point when I hadn’t seen the first three episodes anyway? 

“Nooo! You’ve got it wrong Pinky!” Scotto (a committed Star Warsaholic) admonished me when I dared to blurt out this observation to him one day.

“That was the first episode. The one you saw twenty-two years ago was number four.”

“You’ve got to be sh#tting me.” I asserted. “They put the last three episodes before the first three. That’s just stupid! James Cameron is an idiot.”

“It was George Lucas Pinky, not James Cameron. It was to create the surprise about who Darth Vader was and the relationship between Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker!” he argued passionately whilst playing his World of Warcraft game and wearing his Halo 3 t-shirt.

“I reckon he just spent all the money he earned from the first three movies and had to make the rest of the story up as he went along. How did he know he was even going to be alive twenty-two years later anyway?” I retorted self-righteously. 

“Crikey," I added, "I don’t even buy more than a week’s worth of shopping at a time in case I kick the bucket. What a waste of money that would be.” 

Scotto has watched all of the movies many times but I’ve now been banned from watching them with him. This is mainly because of conversations that go something like this:

Pinky: So Princess Leia is the one with the donuts on the side of her head? Who does that Natalie Portman play then?

Scotto: Queen Amidala.

Pinky: Who is she? Is she Princess Leia’s daughter?

Scotto: No, she’s Princess Leia and Luke's mother.

Pinky: Their mother? Wow! Oooooh… so they were brother and sister? Did they have the same father?

Scotto: (sighing) Yes Pinky, they were twins.

Pinky: Didn’t Luke and Princess Leia get it on?

Scotto: (Scotto pauses the movie and turns to Pinky with a feigned expression of patience and speaking through clenched teeth)

No. They nearly did but it didn’t feel right.

Pinky: Damn straight it wouldn’t have felt right. That would be incest. So who was their father?

Scotto: Darth Vader.

Pinky: Dark Vader?

Scotto: (Rolling his eyes and tetchily switching the TV back on) DARTH VADER!

Pinky: Oooooh… Darth, that’s funny… I always thought it was Dark Vader… So just tell me one more thing…where does that Mr Spock come into it, you know … the one with the pointy ears? 

You can see why I'm not allowed to watch it with him anymore.Oh okay then damn it! May the bloody Fourth be with you!

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 has a little rant.

                                  
I used to adore walking in to the chemist browsing through the aisles, checking out mascaras and chatting to the girl behind the counter like an old friend. 

With the introduction of huge super discount pharmacies the service seems a lot less personal. The principal aspect that annoys me though, is how the staff now give you the third degree no matter what you are purchasing. 

If you dare to request cold and flu tablets prepare to be treated like a drug manufacturer on the same scale as Manuel Noriega.

Occasionally I'll buy an over the counter sleep aid which is appropriately named, “Sleep Aid”.

“Have you taken these before?” I will invariably be asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you allergic to anything?”

“No. Does housework count?”

No laughter… no sense of humour allowed in this profession.

“Do you have high blood pressure?”

“No”

“How many do you take?”

“One.”

“You shouldn’t take more than two at a time.”

“I know- it says that on the front of the packet.”

“Have you been to see a doctor about your sleep problems to maybe get something prescribed?”

Now why would taking a strong prescribed narcotic be preferable to me sporadically buying a relatively harmless over-the-counter medication? Frankly this cross examination protocol gives me the sh#ts.

Yesterday I popped in to the pharmacy to fill an acne cream prescription for my eighteen year old son, Padraic.

Optimistic that I wouldn’t have to face the Spanish Inquisition for a simple thing like pimple lotion and avoiding glimpsing my reflection in the two way mirror that makes me look like a blood-drained corpse, I handed the script to the girl behind the counter and went to do my grocery shopping.

When I returned and handed in my slip I watched the girl scurry over and covertly whisper into the twelve year old pharmacist’s ear. 

Putting down whatever pills he was counting into plastic containers he purposefully strolled towards me and my heart sank knowing we were definitely going to talk about the cautions. God I hate the cautions, I thought.

He asked the usual, “Is this for you? Has he used it before? Is he allergic to anything? What is he using it for?”

I nodded diligently at all the elaborate instructions regarding the dangerous properties of zit killer and how the cream should be applied (with clean fingers; who’d have thought?).

After his long-winded monologue he asked,

“So what does Padraic wash his face with?”

I had to think quickly because I knew whatever I said would be wrong, wrong and wrong. Glimpsing a brand of face wash on a nearby shelf I pointed triumphantly and almost shouted,

“That stuff! That stuff there.”

“Okaaaay,” he said in a troubled voice. “Does he wash his face at the basin or in the shower?”

Perplexed at the relevance of this question I impulsively blurted out, “Shower!”

“Well make sure he is very conscientious while he’s doing it,” the pharmicist replied, looking at me with an expression that invited deep admiration at his profound knowledge and wisdom. “that face wash can be very slippery so make sure he takes care not to fall over in the shower.” 

It was all I could do not to burst into laughter.

Please leave a comment if you find this aspect irritating as well.

Another post about why Pinky hates shopping is...here

Pinky calls to bring back the extended family!

We were drawing up family trees at school today and I was astounded that most of my nine year old students didn’t know their aunts and uncles names. Nor did they know if their parents had siblings at all. A lot of the kids didn’t know much about their grandparents either and I must admit it made me feel a bit sad at the seeming loss of extended families in today’s society. 

Loving as they are, my parents live in another town and really don’t have much contact with the kids. I practically lived at my Grandma’s house on weekends and so did my numerous cousins.

Grandad descended from the Tafe family who were famous on the Show Circuit for their show bags containing homemade sweets. In his retirement years, he regularly made and sold these wares to local shops. 

Jar after jar of Honeycomb, Chocolate Fudge, Coconut Ice, Toffees, Toasted Marshmallows, Peanut Brittle and a myriad of other delights adorned the kitchen shelves. 

It was pretty much open slather for the grandkids. 

Lenient, generous Grandma would agree to us doing whatever we wanted and one day my cousin and I requested that we be allowed to boil up a can of condensed milk on the stove. I had heard in an urban legend at school that if you boiled the can for an hour you could create CARAMEL!

“I suppose so,” said Grandma gingerly, “but don’t make any mess please; I just cleaned the house this morning.”

We plonked the can in the saucepan of water, turned on the gas stove and watched it boil for about ten minutes before getting bored and going off to play in the mango tree. Mum arrived half an hour later to take us home.

Apparently the saucepan boiled dry, the can exploded magnificently and Grandma spent a challenging couple of days attempting to clean the caramel from the walls, shelves, floor and ceiling. Nothing was said directly to us mind you. She was a very understanding Nana.

One Father’s Day, when I was about nine years old, my mother presented my Granddad with a gift of socks, shirts and a box of chocolates. He opened the chockies and generously offered them around carefully placing them in the fridge for another day. 

My sister, brother and I were sleeping over at Grandma’s that night and I became fanatically fixated on that box of chocolates. The thought of gobbling all those delicious hard and soft centres consumed me and when the other two were in bed and the grandparents were busy watching ‘Cop Shop’ on the Telly, I pretended to read in the kitchen.

Every now and then I would sneak into the fridge and nick a chocolate, all the while remaining vigilant about not rustling the wrappings. 

He won’t notice, I thought, I’ll only pinch a couple. My gluttony slowly but exponentially spiralled out of control and before I knew it all the tempting bonbons had disappeared leaving a conspicuously empty box. What could I do now? There was only one thing for it; I had to hide the box and deny any knowledge of what may have occurred.

“Do any of you kids know what happened to Granddad’s chocolates?” asked Grandma the next morning, whilst bewildered Granddad muttered in the background as he searched through the rubbish bin.

We all shook our heads. One of us wasn't quite as convincing as the other two in our renunciations though. 

When my Mum came to pick us up later in the day I heard Grandma telling her about the missing chocolates. 

“I’m pretty sure it was little Sam that stole them,” she whispered, “She was complaining about feeling bilious during the night.” 

I never confessed to the crime.

Deceitful, gluttonous child that I was I did regret my impulsive actions that night. Many years later, when I was sixteen and seventeen years of age, after our Grandma suffered a stroke, my sister and I would take turns to look after her. We would stay with her for five hours on a Saturday afternoon while Granddad had a break away from the house. 

This went on for two years before she was eventually placed into professional care. 

There were no mobile phones back then, or IPod s or laptops and no entertainment for those five hours while Grandma slept. 

I sometimes wonder if my teenagers would sacrifice their free Saturdays to look after their Grandma with the same commitment.

Pinky's Puzzling Questions (the first in the series)

I was watching my husband Scotto cleaning out his undie drawer the other day and I noticed he had laid out thirteen unmatched socks on the bed. 

Where are the missing socks? 

I know this is an age old quandary so one day after a few wines I came up with an ingenious idea. Why don’t sock manufacturers include little Velcro dots somewhere on each sock so you could stick them together before you put them in the washing machine. 

Inspired by the thought of instant wealth and motivated by dry, crisp chardonnay I banged off an email to a sock manufacturer. 

They replied to my innovative idea with an email that basically said 

‘Get stuffed, we have our own marketing department who have marketing degrees (la di da da da) thank you’. 

But seriously, where do those missing socks go? 
Why do our men get addicted to the Bureau of Meteorology (B.O.M.)? Scotto has formed an unhealthy relationship with the B.O.M. I will be standing observing the cloudless, blue sky out of the window in the morning while Scotto reads out the weather forecast from the website. 

“It’s going to be a fine day, no rain.” he declares. 

You think? 

When they forecast rain or storms and they don’t materialise, Scotto (who comes from Melbourne and hates our dry climate) becomes incensed; swearing at his computer and upsetting the dog. 

“Where’s the bloody rain?” he will rage. “They said there was a ninety per cent chance of a storm. Bloody liars!”



What are they putting in sunscreen these days? Taking my class to swimming lessons on the school bus last week the bus driver made the kids sit on their towels. Apparently the sunscreen saps the colour out of the bus seats. What is it doing to a ten year old’s skin then? This puzzling question reminds me of the other night when I accidentally used a Pine o Clean wipe on my face instead of a Dove towelette. It did a good exfoliation job but it stung a bit.

Why do men need so many condiments? When Scotto tags along on shopping expeditions he throws in every sauce imaginable. Tomato Ketchup, Barbeque, Smoked Barbeque, Cajun Seasoning, Chicken Salt, Thousand Island dressing, Peri Peri sauce, you name it. 

Is my cooking really that bad?

Why are teenagers so forgetful? It’s almost as if the fifteen to nineteen year olds are sleepwalking their way through life. Eighteen year old Padraic will climb into my car on the way to football training and listen to his iPod the entire twenty minute journey not saying a word to me. When we arrive he’ll look confused as to how he arrived at this point, turn to me and say, “I forgot my footy boots.” Where did he think he was going?

Should We Smack Our Kids?

If the media is to be believed, there seems to be two trains of thought on this topic. 
Team A, who believe that if it is illegal to assault an adult in any fashion it goes to say that it’s criminal to strike a child and Team B, who believe that the recent spates of youth discord and crime are evidence that a decline in corporal punishment has led to this errant behaviour.

Even though I can count the incidents on one hand I must confess I was not averse to delivering a short smart smack on the bum if it was warranted. 

For example; if one of the kids was about to run into heavy traffic, or the time Thaddeus nearly bit his brother Jonah’s nose off, leaving a ring of teeth marks around the area that persisted for three weeks.

My parents (apart from the time I created a tsunami in the bathroom and flooded the house) never smacked me as far as I can remember. The truth is I was exactly the sort of kid that may have deserved a flogging.There were several instances in my childhood where my behaviour undeniably befitted a smack on the bum. 

The first occasion I recall was when I was about six years old. My mother, my three year old sister Sam and I were visiting my Grandmother. Grandma was showing us an exquisite friendship ring that had recently been bequeathed upon my Aunt by an ardent suitor. 

Just like Gollum from ‘Lord of the Rings’ I was mesmerized by this sparkling prize and wanted to make it my ‘precious’. 

Sneaking into my Aunt’s bedroom I pilfered the trinket and hid it in my knickers. When we got home, realizing the coveted item could never be revealed in public, I secreted it behind the curtains in the living room. 

About an hour later visitors arrived and while my parents were entertaining them, my sister (the snitch), discovered the ring and took it to my mother. 

As they were busy with their friends I was sent to my room to be dealt with later. For the next half an hour I relentlessly screamed my lungs out in fearful anticipation of what was to come. Eventually the discomfited guests went home and Dad came into my room. 

“Why are you screaming?” he enquired softly. 

He gave me a long, sincere talk about the wickedness of stealing. Is that it? I thought.

The second instance I recollect was when I was about nine and it was my sister’s birthday. There were two presents I yearned for at this age and no matter how much I badgered Mum and Dad they never materialized. 

One was a horse. I wanted to be National Velvet and own a horse called King. The other was a camera. 

Fairly confident that my parents would never yield to my earnest entreaties for a horse I concentrated my efforts on petitioning for a camera. Years of birthdays and Christmases passed with no success.

“Film processing is too expensive Pinky,” they’d lecture, “Wait until you grow up and get a job.”

When my sister, Sam, was gifted with a camera on her seventh birthday my jealousy was palpable. Chucking the biggest tantrum, I sulked and complained for the entire day and well into the evening. 

I ruined my sister’s birthday with my virulent resentment. I probably should have been given a stinging slap on the derriere and sent to my room. 

The third occasion I remember was one morning when my family was preparing to leave to attend a dog show. Mum and Dad bred poodles at that stage and my father had been up since a sparrow’s fart washing, blow drying, grooming and meticulously clipping the two dogs to within an inch of their life. 

I was in the garden when I made the discovery. 

Months before I had found a dead toad in the gutter. As a ‘science’ experiment I had put it in a glass jar and concealed it in the flower bed. 

On this particular morning I found the glass jar and excitedly noticed that the toad had completely liquefied. Taking the lid off the jar I breathlessly raced into my mother to show her. 

“Get that out of the house Pinky!” she shrieked. “It stinks! Get rid of it!” 

It was time to leave and the immaculately spruced pooches jumped into the car on their way to fame and glory. 

“What’s that stink?” demanded my father. It was an overpowering, sickening smell that had everyone in the car dry retching. It was the dogs. 

“Where did you pour that jar Pinky?” gagged my mother. 

I'd poured it in the garden and the dogs, detecting the lovely aroma of decomposed amphibian flesh, had hedonistically rolled around and smothered their powder-puffed bodies in it. 

We didn’t make the dog show that day, but I was in the dog house big time.

Why breastfeeding sucks more than the latest Hangover movie!

                                    

Geez, breastfeeding women and the divided opinions about discretion and breast exposure seem to flare up in the news again and again. Frankly, I’ve seen more boobies on the blokes at the local swimming pool than you’ll ever see providing nourishment to a baby.

When Thaddeus was born, as a first time mother, I had a lot of trouble getting him to latch on. I persevered through cracked nipples and a few other icky issues and managed to endure three months of it before he was put on the bottle. 

I was able to hang in there until about twelve months with the rest of them and lucky Lulu was breast fed until she turned two.This effort was due to a fundamental laziness at not wanting to sterilize bottles rather than a zealous fixation on breast feeding.

Was I a discrete breast feeder?

No, not particularly.

Modesty was the best policy when I first began nursing Thaddeus but by the time Lulu was born, I’d pull out the old milk jugs while pushing a shopping trolley around a supermarket. ..anything to stop a screaming newborn.

That is not to say I had sacrificed my feminine dignity. 

Not until the glorious, “Tradesman Porn Show Event” that is.

Grabbing a quick shower in the morning before my then husband left for work, was a coveted activity in the months after Lulu was born and there were five children under seven years of age trolling around the house.

One morning, emerging from my steamy indulgence, I realized I had brought my knickers and nursing bra into the bathroom but had neglected to grab my nursing pads.

Now excuse my vulgarity, but Twin 1 and Twin 2 were both fully engorged with incoming milk and I was reluctant to fasten the bra cups as I didn’t want any seepage sullying my clean brassiere. 

My cunning strategy was to make a dash from the bathroom across the hall to my bedroom wearing my knickers and my nursing bra with the flaps down. 

'Surreal' is how I’d describe my emotions, as bursting into the bedroom at high speed, I realized there were two men standing beside the air conditioner.

One of the men was an apprentice electrician; the other was my stupid, stupid then-husband who had invited the young bloke in to the bedroom to check the wiring.

‘Traumatised’ comes close to illustrating the expression on the young lad’s face.

I doubt at his tender age, he’d ever heard of or seen a nursing bra.He was plainly bewildered at the bizarre woman, standing immobilized at the door, with two pointy norks sticking out of her creepy Madonnaesque brassiere.

We did organize to get the air-conditioner repaired but the apprentice never returned. 

His boss probably sent him off on stress leave.

I answered a knock on the door a few days later.

“Hi, Mrs Poinker,” said a leering and more senior Sparky with a barely concealed grin on his face. 

“I’m here to fix your airconditioner.”