Toothbrush Land

Toothbrush Land

“What’s wrong with you, woman?” I thought when I noticed my toothbrush lying on the floor of the shower recess in our ensuite this morning.

I picked it up gingerly. How did the naughty little bugger end up there? I was already late for work and couldn’t be bothered with social niceties so quickly examined it for cockroach poo. There didn’t seem to be anything obvious concealed in the nylon fibres… still… you can never be too sure.

I washed it under the hot water tap in the bathroom sink whilst staring at my crazy-eyed reflection in the mirror. The Pierrot clown who hadn’t removed its makeup properly… the scared, weird, little guy look.

Hot water kills most germs, I thought.

Then I glanced back at the shower recess. The mould growing on the walls would give a grade fiver’s lunch box a run for its money. What if the mould had leapt across the ravine and attached its invisible spores to my toothbrush. Is mould dangerous?

I was feeling devilish, courageous… so I jumped in the shower, liberally squirting toothpaste all over the suspect toothbrush.

Literally two seconds after the questionable toothbrush entered my ruby lips did I speculate that all was not as it seemed. The brush did not seem to take up as much room in my mouth as it usually did. Its bristles were of a more malleable, more lenient texture than that of their usual torturous, stabby-in-the-gums quality.

Alarm bells rang. 

Could it be this WAS NOT MY TOOTHBRUSH?

I wiped away the steam from the shower glass door and peered through to spy Scotto’s huge toothbrush standing out, loud, proud and spectacularly purple in its special little holder; all alone in its glory.

This must be mine, I mused, scrubbing my calculus away with verve.

Thank God I didn’t accidentally pick Scotto’s up. God forbid I get boy germs. 

But it still felt weird. Something about the brush was alien and deep in my heart I knew I was being an ostrich. This was NOT my toothbrush. But whose could it possibly be?

I must be imagining things, I reassured myself. There are only two of us who use this bathroom, it can only be mine.

I finished my shower, taking extra time to swish my Listerine around before spitting it out on the shower floor.

Then it happened.

As I emerged from the shower recess I suddenly spotted it on the bathroom counter.

It was my toothbrush… hiding in plain sight beside the SPF 30+.

My very own cheeky, fire engine red toothbrush.

So… what the freakin hell toothbrush did I just use???

An unspeakable thought crept into my head and I shuddered in revulsion.

I keep an old toothbrush on the floor of the shower to occasionally scrub out the mildew from the tile grouting. I hadn’t seen it for a while. Perhaps it had deliberately concealed itself behind the plethora of empty shampoo and conditioner bottles. 

That couldn’t be the toothbrush I so carelessly picked up, could it?

COULD IT???

It’s been eleven hours since the harrowing event.

There are still no symptoms of fungus rot invading my system.

Fingers crossed you hear from me tomorrow.



If not take this as a warning: inanimate objects aren’t always what they appear to be. Sometimes they can be malevolent. There have been cases of demons attaching themselves to inanimate objects. 

We’ve called a priest in.

Do you clean your teeth in the shower or bathroom sink?

Ten Questions that Make You Think.

One of my favourite bloggers is little Hugzy (who is much funnier and cleverer than I), from Hugzilla Blog...

and she nominated me for a Liebster award which means I have to answer some questions and pass on the honour... so here goes! I hope it's not too boring.

What was your favourite subject at school? 

How big a moll Linda Fink was after she kissed Rodney Dawson for two hours and let him put his hand up her top at the party the previous Saturday night. Also how she came to school with a love bite on her neck which she tried to hide with a bandaid but we all knew it was there.

How easily do you wake up when your alarm goes off? 

I usually wake up an hour and a half after it goes off while I’m driving to work at 100kms an hour on the motorway. Sometimes I get a bit of a fright when this happens.

You could never miss a single episode of which TV show?

Why Better Homes and Gardens of course on Friday nights, because Scotto and I play a drinking game where we skull a wine every time Dr Harry tells someone their pet is just bored and that's why it's humping/gnawing on the window sills/pooing on the bed every day and merely needs something to chew on while its owners are out.

What’s your go-to dish when you’re asked to bring a plate?
Definitely Coles Smart Buy Paper Plates as they’re very strong, can be used later on in the night to Frisbee at your husband’s head to get his attention when your wine glass is empty, plus your thieving friends won’t ‘forget’ to return them and stash them in their Tupperware drawer.

If you could be a character from a favourite book from your childhood, who would you be?

Pippy Longstocking because she got to live alone without sucky parents, wash the floors by chucking buckets of water all over the place and skating around with mops on her feet and ride a horse to school.

You’re exploring a scenic beachside village. Would you prefer to do it on foot or by bike?

A bike… but one that someone else was peddling whilst I sat in the back of a rickshaw supping on a cocktail and shouting out orders to the minions.

The reality TV show that you would absolutely blitz, would be what?

The X Factor because until you’ve heard my rendition of “I Will Survive” with an accompanying interpretive dance you’ve never seen raw talent in its supreme state.

Do you prefer your Summer or Winter wardrobe?

Living in North Queensland there’s really no difference. In Winter I occasionally let the hair grow on my legs for a bit of extra warmth and wear socks with my rubber thongs when I go outdoors.

What’s your favourite way to relax?

I follow the famous “Five Cs” philosophy. 

Cheese, Crackers, Chardonnay, Couch and Club Penguin (adult's version).



If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?



I’m a tad partial to Rivendell, Narnia or possibly Hogwarts but if we’re being realistic… probably the Maldives…

Now, who to nominate... You know, I think pretty much everyone has won a Liebster award already so I'm posing the questions to all of you. Please choose a question and answer in the comments or on Facey :) Can't wait to hear your answers!

Linking up with Jess at Essentially Jess for #IBOT

Townsville: Why it's better than Cairns.

I was born and bred in Townsville; sometimes maliciously referred to as Brownsville, or even worse, Bogansville.

There’ve been many changes to Townsville over the last fifty years. (Did I just say fifty??)

When I was a kid, once a week my parents would take us for an evening drive to buy an icecream from the Ozone Cafe on the Strand and we’d sit and watch the fountain change colours. “Oh look! It’s red! Now it’s blue! Now it’s yellow! It’s red again!”

That was about the most exciting after dark entertainment for kids back then.

The only other evening recreational activities in 1960-70’s Townsville were either a James Bond movie at one of two drive-ins or window shopping in the main street in our pyjamas whilst being serenaded by a filthy plague of pigeons nesting in Biblical proportions in the shopfront eaves.

The Ozone Café, fountain and pigeons still exist in Townsville today.

But despite many changes to my home city of late some other things have also managed to survive the halcyon years including the intense rivalry between Townsville and its nemesis, Cairns.

I don’t know how many emails I’ve sent off to the television breakfast show, Sunrise, informing them that Cairns is not the capital city of North Queensland as evidenced by their national weather map.

Dear Sunrise Weather Person, (I politely write)...

Why do you have stupid Cairns on your map and not Townsville? How am I supposed to know what the weather is like today? Cairns is roughly 1700 kilometres from Brisbane. Don’t you think people need to know what the weather is like in between? 

Besides, you’re filling the Cairns-ite’s heads with delusions of grandeur. They’re already up themselves and think they’re better than us even though the Cairn’s city esplanade is pretty much made up of mudflats whereas Townsville’s Strand esplanade is a glorious paradise.

Yours sincerely,

Pinky Smith.

They never answer my emails. but seriously… these are the real reasons I think Townsville is the jewel of North Queensland far surpassing muggy Cairns and its steamy mangroves.



We don’t have an embarrassingly named suburb called “Yorkey’s Knob”… Cairns does.

People don’t confuse Townsville with a French city that hosts a fancy pants film festival every year.

People generally wear shoes in Townsville when they go to a wedding (rubber thongs at the very least).

In Cairns the weddings are BYOFUC... (Bring your own fold up chair).

In Cairns, when people are pulled over by the cops for having five unrestrained kids in the back of their Nissan Nevara tray-back they say they didn’t know there were any kids there. In other words, they lie through their tooth.

In Townsville we don’t make our letterboxes out of old mufflers, coffee tables out of XXXX beer cartons or ashtrays out of beetroot cans.

In Townsville we don’t need a torch, mosquito spray and a newspaper when we go to the toilet at night.

In downtown Cairns they don’t have pigeons in the shopfront eaves because the worm-ridden, grey birds are a highly sought after culinary delicacy (along with the Flying Fox).

In Cairns, they serve beer to everyone in the Centrelink queue because the line extends two kilometres in the hot sun.

In Cairns they have custody hearings in court over bull mastiffs and Holden Utes with Chevy badges.

Oh… and did I mention our waterfront?

                         Image Credit- Scott Weaver Photography

*Apologies to my Cairns cousins… my actual, real, related by blood cousins.

Which do you prefer? Cairns or Townsville?

How to Make a Banana Costume

                                           Image credit

Whilst I’m not the nail-biting, uptight, perfectionist, 'A' type personality, I am a bit of a negative thinker. 

I tend to spend a lot of time having lucid visions about an impending disaster of the Final Destination genre magnitude.

Have you ever seen those Final Destination movies?

There’ll be a guy running along with a pair of scissors (which we all know you should avoid doing) when he suddenly slips on a banana. The scissors fly up into the air slicing the cord suspending the ceiling fan. The rapidly rotating ceiling fan clatters down on a platter of knives (which were perhaps used to cut up the banana) and one of the knives flies up, stabbing the guy in the eye right through to his brain and he dies a horrible, lingering death...

I have those sort of scenarios going through my head every day. For example; a young, hot woman (Pinky) is driving along the highway beside a massive truck which happens to be transporting a fleet of brand new primary-coloured Hyundai Velosters to a car dealership. A kangaroo unexpectedly hops out in front of the truck which sharply swerves because the truckie is a vegetarian animal lover and doesn’t want to hurt a small furry marsupial. He crashes into a light pole which violently splits in half and spears into the cabling holding the cars on to the truck. The cars cascade off the truck at great speed and hurtle straight towards my (the hot woman’s) gloomy face in the windscreen, beheading her in an instant...

Despite this somewhat pessimistic and catastrophist view of life I still tend to live on the edge. I have a terrible habit of leaving everything until the last minute. Perhaps I’m subconsciously addicted to the rush of adrenaline and gnawing panic or something… who knows? However, in the interests of my cardio-pulmonary system I’ve decided to reform… a bit.

This time last year I was in a state of alarm because my class of nine year olds were about to perform a play in our local Eisteddfod and at the eleventh hour I still hadn’t procured the two vital sea monster costumes we needed for our pirate extravaganza.

                        Scotto modelling the sea monster costume!

It’s still two weeks away until this year’s class of young thespians grace the stage with their gala performance of ‘Mergatroid’s Adventures in Bananaland’ and I’m happy to inform you I’m already on top of the costumes.

I have six bananas, six slaves, eight munchkins, a witch, a hunchback and two narrators to outfit, which sounds daunting I admit.

The slaves were easy; the kids could wear some raggedy old clothes. The munchkins could wear black jeans, t-shirts and silly wigs and I already had a witch and old monk costume (as you do)… but the bananas were throwing me a curve ball. 

How was I going to be creative, innovative and inspired by such a simple fruit? It addled my tiny brain and kept me awake, tossing and turning in a lather of sweat every night for weeks.

Until, that is… I had one of my best Pinky revelations.



Bananas look a hell of a lot like sea monsters don’t you think?

                         Students modelling banana costumes!

On another note my husband Scotto, has launched a brand new photography blog (it's not a competition he keeps reminding me) and it would be lovely of you to pay him a visit! Scott Weaver Photography (he's using his maiden name!)

Have you made any dodgy costumes for your kids?

Do I write too many posts about bananas?

Are you a Jealous Person?

“Did you make time to go to the doctor today?” I pestered Scotto as soon as he walked in the door after work.

In his typically injury-prone style he’d managed to pop his knee when we were away last weekend. As well as that he had a worrying painful lump on his upper chest rib.

I don’t know about you but I don’t like anyone finding a lump anywhere. Nineteen year old son Padraic, showed me a grape-sized lump he had in the side of his stomach a few months ago and I’d booked a medical appointment for him faster than you could say Munchausen by Proxy. It wound up being a lipoma, which is a benign tumour composed of adipose tissue… in other words, body fat.

I suddenly wondered if that was what was currently residing around my midriff. A gigantic lipoma!

It would explain a lot anyway.

Scotto wasn’t concerned at all and blamed the lump on a possible injury from erecting a gazebo for our dogs a few days earlier.

Yes. We bought our dogs a gazebo from Bunnings.

“So what did the doctor say?” I badgered Scotto.

“Oh… I may have torn a ligament in my knee. I’ll see how it goes over the next fortnight.”

“But what about the lump on your chest?” I harangued, concerned for my husband’s well-being. 

“She just thinks it’s a haematoma from a hard bump,” he shrugged.

My concern for his lump was swiftly diverted. 

“She? Your doctor was a she?” I queried, wondering what had happened to the usual old fart he went to.

“Yeah.”

“So… was she hot?” I asked in a semi-jokey voice.

“No… no,” he replied, giving an artificial guffaw and extra cough. “She was Russian.”

“Russian, huh? Did she have an accent by any chance?”

“Yep, it was very thick. I couldn’t understand her very well,” he swallowed nervously.

“Was she one of those Russian weightlifting types?” I asked hopefully.

“No…. slim... she was quite tall though. In fact when Svetlana was feeling my chest she was almost as tall as me,” he mused, staring off in a reverie.

“And was Svetlana a blonde by any chance?” I pushed on, narrowing my eyes at him.

He looked at the ceiling pretending to try to remember, “Yes. A bit blonde I suppose.”

“So Scotto, your doctor was tall, slim, blonde and had a sexy Russian accent but she wasn’t hot? I think you might be telling me porkies!”

“No,” Scotto stammered. “She was really quite plain, Pinky. Quite plain.”

Yah Scotto… vatever… vatever.

Are you a jealous person?

Three Revelations from ProBlogger!

“So what’s your blog about?” asked the professional crew from the Stay at Home Mum blog, last Thursday night at the ProBlogger conference. “A load of rubbish, really,” I muttered in shame. 

They smiled politely. You know… one of those puzzled smiles where you don’t use your eyes. Clearly, I was going to need a better answer if I was to have any credibility over the ensuing weekend.

Husband Scotto and I were staying on the Gold Coast with my parents, so at breakfast before I left on Friday morning I grilled my father who occasionally checks in on Pinky Poinker to see what his grandkids are up to.

“So Dad, what should I say when people ask me what my blog’s about?”

He paused, frowning in inscrutable thought. “Silliness?” he offered unhelpfully.

The truth is I didn’t have a definitive idea of what it’s about. So I gave it some thought and came up with a mission statement:

Pinky Poinker is on a one-woman campaign to stomp out being up yourself; the kind of up yourself that makes you pretend you’re someone you’re not. It pains me to see people living their lives pretending to be perfect. Pinky is here to ‘out’ herself and hopes some people can relate the failures and foibles of a wicked old woman to their own lives and see the ridiculous side of life.

The next revelation to come out of the conference for me was that the bumbling, irritating, inappropriate Pinky I describe on the blog is a lot closer to the truth than I’m entirely comfortable with.

All this time I’ve imagined Pinky, as an exaggeration, a caricature of who I really am, mostly designed for comedic effect. 

Wrong again.

Once out of my protected environment where my friends, family and colleagues suffer my numerous atrocities, I soon learned to see myself through the eyes of strangers.

“So which session are you going to next, Pinky?” asked the lovely, serene Renee from Mummy Wife Me, who I’d only just met at the previous session.

                                 Pinky and Renee

“I thought I might go to the ‘Harnessing Social Media’ lecture,” I chirped. “It might help me get more Facebook followers!”

“Um,” she quietly corrected, “I think it’s actually called ‘Harnessing Social Media for Social Good, Pinky.”

“What? Really?” I scoffed. “Oh? Well I’m not into social good. Not at all. Nah, I won’t go to that one. I’ll go to the ‘Monetising your Blog’ session instead.”

Renee gave me a wan smile and stared after me as I flounced off.

Later, sitting in the money-making session, my words began to float around in the dark recesses of my brain like nasty little bats in a belfry.

I’m not interested in social good. I’m NOT interested in doing anything towards social good.

What the hell was wrong with me? Who am I? George Costanza?

Of course I’m interested in enhancing and promoting social good. What must Renee think of me?

I raced around at lunch looking for her. I badly needed to explain myself.

Just like I’d desperately chased around that day looking for Martine from The Modern Parent to explain why I’d introduced myself to her ten minutes after meeting her the first time the previous night. I was excited you see and acting like one of those horrible people who just don’t pay attention when they’re shaking hands with you. 

Still… I was sure she thought I was either stupid or ill-mannered. I had to verify that it was, indeed, stupidity… and not rudeness.

                                      Eva and Renee


I found Renee talking to Eva from The Multitasking Mummy. She sweetly accepted my rationalisation that my blog would probably bring charitable organisations into disrepute and that was why I said what I said.

I did learn one other very important fact at the conference.

Mrs. Woog smells lovely.

One of my lofty ambitions at the conference was to speak to one of Australia’s most popular and funny bloggers, the famous Mrs. Woog from Woogsworld!.

I had a justification, which in my mind would prevent me looking like just another stalker. I needed to thank her for publishing my guest post on her site a few months ago.

I waited for the exact right moment. A session had only just finished and I spotted her moving up the side aisle towards the door. Now was my chance. If I moved quickly I could block her path. Her bodyguards were nowhere in sight. I took the plunge...

She was so nice. She even hugged me and called me by my name. But all I could say was, “Gawd, you smell nice! What perfume are you wearing?”

She waffled off the name and I think I got it. 

I’m pretty sure I caught it.

Trembling with childish fan frenzy, I sat down again beside my friend Rae from I Opened my Mouth and it Ran Away Without Me. 

                                     Pinky and Rae

She turned her head and commented, “Pinky! You smell gorgeous! What’s that perfume?”



“Mrs. Woog,” I said. “I’m wearing Mrs. Woog.”

Ever had a crazy fan moment?

How an Introvert Copes at ProBlogger.

                                Lee-Anne from Is it just me?

Apparently I’m an introvert. I’ve always been one but over the last 9 years I’ve been shielded from this fact by having the same job, the same friends, five of my own creations living with me and my wingman, Scotto. 

I’d forgotten how timid I am in social situations. Especially social situations where I can’t hide my reserved nature behind a chilled glass of Mexican fire water. 

The first session at the ProBlogger conference went off like a bottle of wine at an A.A. meeting; excellent speakers and a delightfully friendly event-management blogger by the name of Lulu Perez to sit next to and chat with.

I missed my blogging bestie, Lee-Anne from the famous Is it just me? blog (who couldn't make the conference this year) but I could make more friends... couldn't I?

When the crowd of 500+ delegates milled out to the lobby for morning tea my head pivoted around in desperation. ‘Where the hell are my blogging buddies,’ I thought.

There were groups of elegant ladies draped all over the chairs; a sea of unfamiliar, scary faces. Not scary because they were ugly or anything. Just scary, scary.

I bustled myself out to the hotel foyer in search of someone, anyone to talk to… I sat down on a chair in the foyer, alone and awkward… Mrs Nigel No Friends. Peculiar Poinker. Creepy Lonely Pinky.

Tears were but a blink away. 'What sort of sook are you?’ I growled at myself. ‘You’re a bloody grown woman. Get out there and mingle.’

Instead, I texted Scotto. ‘I’m sitting by myself in the lobby because I can’t find anyone to talk to. I want to buy a coffee from the lobby bar (even though there’s a complimentary morning tea provided next door) but I haven’t any money in my purse. I want to go home. Waaaah!’

He swiftly sent a sympathetic reply to his lily-livered wife, trembling in her melodramatic angst like a Chihuahua in a thunder storm.

‘Bugger it!’ I thought after smelling the tantalising aroma of coffee wafting around me, and dragged myself up, striding purposefully back to where the networking action was happening, the action I’d made the long trip down to the Gold Coast for.

“This is an awful place for introverts,” coughed a fit looking lady standing behind me as I nervously balanced my coffee cup and handbag trying not to spill it over someone like a complete loser.

It was Liz from the Fitter Liz blog and she was just the lifeline I needed.

A few minutes later Kathy from Yin Yang Mother popped her pretty head into our conversation and then the lovely Sophie from The Mother Load joined in.

Suddenly my forlorn and wretched disposition did a 360 turn around. I could do it! Pinky could pretend to be a normal person after all.

But next time I decide to attend a ProBlogger conference I’ll be bringing a friend… and not just a photo of one.

Janet from Middle Aged Mama , Pinky 

and Lee-Anne.

   

       Kathy (Yin Yang Mother), Emily (Have a laugh on me),

       Emily (YLSNED) and Denise (Denise Mooney)

                             and Lee-Anne!

                 Kathy, Pinky and Sophie (The Mother Load)

                               and Lee-Anne!

Do you get shy in crowds of strangers?

The ProBlogger Conference! Am I qualified to go?

In three sleeps I'll be there!!! On the Gold Coast, rubbing shoulders with some of the most famous and successful bloggers in Australia.

I managed to wrangle two days off work. 

Strangely, my Deputy Principal showed absolutely no interest as to where Mrs. Poinker might be jetting off to necessitating two days leave. 

She didn't even blink an eye.

One of my colleagues casually asked me why I needed time off when we were in the staff room one day.

"Oh!" I gushed, thankful one person at least had asked. "I'm off to a blogging conference!"

A few seconds' silence was followed by loud guffaws and heckling... "A blogging conference?" they mercilessly ridiculed... until they saw my crestfallen face.

Nobody takes my blogging seriously.

Even my kids looked at me skeptically. "Oh yeah..." they smiled. "So will you be going to the theme parks while you're there?"

They just don't know how important it is to me.

This is how I think my family and friends see the blogging confo...

What my colleagues probably think I'll be doing...

What my boss probably thinks I'll be doing...

What my kids probably think I'll be doing...

What my husband probably thinks I'll be doing...

What my parents probably think I'll be doing...

What my dogs probably think I'll be doing...

What I hope I'll actually be doing...

Are you going? If not... why not?

Thanks to Scotto for the excellent Photoshopping!

Would you hold an Eighteenth Birthday Party?

I like to live on the edge, push the envelope, and play by the seat of my pants. That’s why I didn’t bother with any party preparations until 9:00am on Saturday morning even though we were expecting roughly 70 teenagers to descend like bats at dusk in ten hours’ time.

I’d planned it in my head though. Vacuum filthy house, clean toilets, hose back patio, shop for party food, set up seating, wash hair and pour a drink… in that order. 

I’d brought up five wild and woolly kids you see, I rarely get in a flap.

Mrs. Unflappable Poinker, they call me.

Imagine my elation when, as I turned the vacuum cleaner on it blasted a hot hurricane of thick dust into my face. I checked for the bag inside; it had gone AWOL. Not only had the bag been removed but so had the plastic device whose job it is to hold the bag in place. Thrown in the bin with the bag by a negligent teenager I surmised. Again. Twice in the space of a month had Mr Nobody thrown the baby out with the bath water.

“Scotto!!!” I screamed calmly. “We have to go to fudging Godfrey’s to buy another fudging vacuum cleaner!”

I’ve had a few abusive relationships with vacuum cleaners over the last twenty-five years. At least one VC has been thrown across the lounge room causing electric sparks to cascade over the carpet because of its substandard suction ability. I’ve savagely bashed more than a few extension tubes on the floor like a shrewish, mad woman whilst attempting to extricate an obstructive article consequently cracking the offensive tool. 

I've had a colourful vacuuming career.

So it was with nervous trepidation when Scotto pointed out a bagless Hoover model on sale for $69. 

“You won’t have to buy bags anymore, Pinky!” he promised. “And they’re not cheap are they?” He was playing on my thriftiness.

We took it up to the counter.

“How often do I have to wash the filter thing?” I asked the salesman.

“Every time you use it,” he said as I rolled my eyes to the back of my skull. “But the filter is made of paper so it’ll break down after a couple of washes so I suggest you buy a spare one while you’re here.”

“And how much is a new one?” I queried.

“Twenty-nine ninety-nine,” he smiled. “Or you could upgrade to a more expensive model where you don’t have to change the filter and pay it off on a monthly basis.”

But, Pinky Cheapskate Poinker took the inferior model, knowing in her heart it was going to wind up being angrily flung from her bedroom window and smashed down on to the driveway one day anyway.

We finished the rest of the shopping and I set about my cleaning chores. My new VC and I made a pact as we hoovered our way through the house. If it managed to get through the entire house without clogging or overheating and conking out, I promised not to yank it roughly by the cord and sadistically drag it along the ground every time it fell on its stupid side or got stuck behind a corner.

The whole time diligent Scotto cleaned and hosed the backyard and I swore and ranted around like Cranky Consuela, the birthday girl, Lulu, was out shopping with her girlfriends.

When she finally arrived home with the sisterhood at about 5 o’clock I tapped on her bedroom door. “Um, Lulu. You know how you promised you’d help us clean the house for your party?”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply.

“Well… we’ve finished cleaning and you didn’t help us.”

Silence.

“Do you think you could possibly blow up some balloons and stick them around the place?”

“What! I have to blow up balloons for my own birthday party? That’s lovely that is.”

     "Party? Does this mean I'm going to be locked in the laundry... again?"




In case you’re interested, the party went smoothly and the police didn’t even have to come once... which is more than I can say for the last party Scotto and I held here. The kids partied quietly and disappeared off to the nightclubs at 11:00pm.

                                     The wrist bands.

                                       Pinky with Lulu and her besties.

                                            Lulu's boyfriend, Jock.

                                              Lulu and big bro Padraic.

N.B: I brought the new VC out for another spin this morning to clean up the aftermath and although we're not friends we're tolerating each other, for the time being.

And there was a considerable mess... which we cleaned up...

while Princess Lulu slept.

Just Fudge It!

                                                                  



I was in a happy when I left work today. I had every minute of my afternoon planned; grocery shopping, a walk with the hairy dogs and a nice coffee and feet up for thirty minutes before wine time with Scotto at 6:30pm.

As I hurtled along the motorway at breath-taking speed on my way to Pinky Palace, I heard my phone ring.

“Poinker!” yelled a voice transmitting through the blue tooth device in my car. I recognised it immediately. It was my arch nemesis Rachael, ringing from the school staff room.

“Where’s your wallet, Pinky?” she said. I detected mischief in her tone.

“In my bag, Rachael. Why? Where else would it be?” 

I replied, wondering what the hell she was up to this time.

“No, it’s not,” she said primly. “It’s here in your pigeon hole.”

I fished around my bag in disbelief. There was no wallet.

“FUDGE!” I yelled at the dashboard. “What the fudge? Now I’m going to have to drive all the fudging way back to the fudging, fudge-wit school to come and get my fudging, stupid wallet. For fudge’s sake! That’s all I fudging need at this fudging moment!”

There was silence on the other end of the line. For a fleeting, sickening second, the thought that perhaps the staff room phone was on speakerphone flashed through my head.

I could picture in my mind’s eye our conservative school chaplain and even-tempered principal, sitting down together sipping on a nice cup of tea, listening in appalled shock at Pinky going off her ‘fudging’ nut. 

You see, I didn't really use the word fudge. I used a much more satisfying word. A word that inexplicably cuts through pain and frustration.

I really shouldn’t swear as much as I do. It’s crass according to my mother. The language of the ignorant according to my father.

'I’ll stop from now on,' I thought. 'I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll use better word choices.'

“Are you there, Rach?” I squawked like a frightened bird.

“Yes.” she answered.

('Phew,' I thought. Seemed we weren’t on speakerphone after all.)

“Are you sure it’s my purse? Mine’s black and white. Is that one black and white?”

“Yes, it certainly appears to be, Pinky.” she pipped.

“Eeurghhhh! Fudgity fudge, fudge fudge!”

“But… guess what, Pinky?” Rachel interrupted my profanity. “Megan’s g…….”

The line seemed to cut out, crackled a bit and went completely silent.

“Hello! Hello! Megan’s what????” I screeched. “Rachael! Answer me! Rachael!”

The line miraculously came back.

“Megan’s going to drop it off to you on her way home. She lives around the corner from you.”

“Thank the fudge for that!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Tell her I fudging love her. She's fudging brilliant!”


The reason my wallet was discovered on the staff room floor in the first place was because I was paying Lee-lee back the six bucks I owed her for a blue shirt. Tomorrow is the National Book Week parade at school and a bunch of us teachers are dressing up as the same characters.


We have blue shirts, white pants, shoes and caps. 

Bet you can’t guess who we’re going as?