Category: things that suck

Trip to the market I wish I’d never had

Today, somewhere between the ATM and Lucia’s, my purse – containing the two hundred dollars I was going to use to buy things including fruit and lollies for my youngest boy’s birthday party (the first he’s had); and the piece of paper on which my eldest boy wrote his name for the very first time – disappeared. Off the face of the earth.

That was about fifteen minutes after I scraped the car door against the post while I parked. It would cost several hundred dollars to repair, but doesn’t knock several hundred dollars off the value of the car. That’s the kind of car it is.

On my way out, I said to the woman in the booth ‘I’ve lost my purse and my ticket was in it’, and she was very kind.

The mister dropped everything to come and pay for the lunch youngest boy and I had already ordered before I realised my purse was gone. When I saw him I cried.

I’m a bit of a wimp like that. But two hundred dollars. Gee, it’s a lot. And he’ll never write his name for the first time again.

Fair weather? Foul

The wind, in great and consistent gusts, is hot and drying. It carries dust which fills my lungs. My breaths are shallow, my sneezes many. I try not to rub my eyes, but they are bloodshot (and match my bruised, grazed skin). The dust is a haze down Goodwood Road and across to the hills. The fire danger is high.

I have been wearing a jumper all day, not thinking to take it off. Until now. Relief as stuffiness goes.

The door is left open by boys. The wind has chased even them in from their games of cricket and monster traps. The coats of dust on the floor and the kitchen bench grow.

Even my teeth feel gritty and dry.

I bring the still unplanted trees inside, and put them in the laundry sink. The ones we have planted could die. The water restrictions say buckets only for gardens. But I am thinking of sneaking out with a hose. We need the trees to live. I won’t of course.
I’ve checked the worms. They’re fine. Thriving. They seem not to have bloodshot eyes.

I already told you once. I hate spring. Especially when it comes before winter is gone.

And two hours later, it all sucks again…

You see, this is the kind of thing that gives me the shits. For some reason, the vacuum cleaner, which is by no means old, but I’m sure is out of warranty, though to confirm that I would first have to find the docket, has shat itself.

Which is particularly shitty, because by three o’clock this afternoon, the house was going to look much cleaner than it does, because I reckon vacuuming delivers a lot of bang for your cleaning buck, and I was really looking forward to sitting in front of a DVD and knitting this evening, all the while enjoying the absence of dust rabbits.

And also, it is shitty because, after several weeks (including three when I wasn’t here) perhaps rolling into months, I have just this morning been able to force myself to ring the oven people to please come – at a time of their convenience – and fix the oven so that I can cook again without that niggling feeling of oh dear, are we all going to be incinerated this evening. Which means that I must once again have dealings with the person who came to ‘fix’ the dishwasher, and let’s just say that me and he are never going to be the best of friends.

When did I become this person?

It’s never my fault


soapOriginally uploaded by adelaide writer

On Saturday night, I tanked. I was on stage under a spotlight, with a microphone in my hand AND I FORGOT WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY. Which would have been fine, except that one minute later I DID IT AGAIN. Total, complete blank.

It worked out fine in the end. Because I made a different joke about how things weren’t going so well and that went okay.

And in the greater scheme of things it was the lesson I had to have, and once I’d had it, I realised it really wasn’t that bad. Everyone at some point is going to draw a blank. It was a friendly crowd, and they could see the funny side. And I’ve got enough confidence now that I’m not petrified of the audience. And I’ve also got a bit (a tiny, tiny bit) of backup material, so I could have gone to that if all else failed. Plus, now it’s happened, I’ve got a context for writing my ‘this has gone to shit, hasn’t it’ lines. So I was all around much less devastated than I could otherwise have been. And I got back to the funny part of my routine and ended on a high note. And I have, since, listened to my tape of the night. Yes, it was cringeworthy, but you know. Life goes on.

Nonetheless, I stopped at the bottle shop on the way home. I can’t tell you how badly that just went I said to the mister when I walked in the door, my arms loaded with a selection of beer and wine because I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to drink. Oh, he said I think I can guess. And then I drank more than I should have when you consider that we had to get up at 6 am to be on the road by 7 in order to be at Loxton by 11. And don’t you wish you knew more about that little adventure? And don’t I wish I knew less. Suffice to say, I am an excellent wife.

Anyhoo, after I had drunk too much and was in the bathroom cleaning my teeth, I happened to see this box. The one holding the soap which I had hastily pulled from the supermarket shelves that very afternoon. This is not the soap I normally use. I normally use this body wash thing which, for reasons too boring but numerous to mention here, had run out but not been replaced on Saturday morning.

Do you see what it says? Down there on the bottom? Non-Comedogenic. Have you ever heard of that? No, neither had I.

No wonder I tanked. All my jokes had been washed down the drain.

PS I tried taking a photo of my box, but my camera has been dropped one too many times and the focus button really doesn’t work well enough. So I got this one from here.

Inevitability

If you need to ring me, please use my normal phone, because a replacement charger for one of these costs about $80 and seems to be unavailable anywhere in Adelaide. I have it switched to the function that uses the least amount of power (so can’t make calls or receive text messages) just in case the mister is able to find one at one of the shops he hasn’t yet visited.

Soon I will lose all of the numbers I haven’t transferred from the phone’s memory to the SIM card. And I will lose the last six months of text messages. I already lost the previous two year’s when it went flat sometime last year.

I know no one sends cards or letters anymore, but now we can send messages back and forth from the top of a London bus. Updates from the hospital when we’re too exhausted to speak. Good lucks to people before they walk on stage. How are yous because we want to know, but there’s still the dishes to do and a load of washing to hang.

When I walk past the phone, which I often do, because it is on the bench which is between the rest of the house and the kitchen sink, I take a look at it. I am watching the charge bar drop lower and lower, and thinking about the loss I’m about to have.

A sadness of the 21st century.

A happy tale of woe

The printer, once turned on, makes a soft, but annoying, whining sound and nothing more. No lights, no whirrs, no beeps. I have unplugged it, shifted it, hit it with varying degrees of gentleness, but all to no avail. It’s stuffed.

This limits my choice of readings to those pieces of which I have a clean and readable copy. This simplifies things to the point that I don’t have to think, and I do often like it when life works that way. When the universe says here is how it is. Hopefully, the Easter shopping will be dealt with similarly. Unlikely, I know, so I have started the shopping list.

Of course when I take the printer to the shop, they will say it’s cheaper to buy another one although I am very happy with this one, and at this stage, can’t really justify buying myself another one which also does photocopying.

In the meantime, I have been flicking through a photo album with a man who sighs and says ‘more forgetteries than memories these days’. And then he laughs and so do I, because we both like our own jokes.

I really don’t like buying things

You know those shops – the ones that have no soul of their own and leach the life from yours – that’s where I’ve been.

We bought one table and six chairs.

If you need me, I’ll be on the couch. Please try not to drop anything on the floor as you approach. I’m as close to the edge as you’d like me to be.

If you really loved me, you’d put the table together without asking for my help. And before you did that, you’d bring me a cup of tea. And an almond croissant. And the newspaper. No, not that one, I’ve read it. The other one. Yes, the rest of the day is going to be like this.