your children play, the more unhealthy you’ll become
All children’s sport in Australia has the same fundraising method: the sausage sizzle. They play; you eat. Thus the strange outcome: the fitter they get, the fatter you’ll get.
Rule 10: Photocopy machines never work
This shows how technology has gone downhill since the days of the reliable Roneo machine. (Thus giving rise to the common office cry: ‘Wherefore art thou, Roneo?’)
Rule 11: Radio news bulletins of great personal interest are only ever broadcast when your car is about to enter a tunnel
The broadcast is always cut off one and a half seconds after entering the tunnel and will resume on the last word as you leave it.
Rule 12: The more times you hear the phrase ‘your call is important to us’, the less important it actually is
I
could
go on. For instance: ‘The more inaccessible the light bulb, the more often it will need to be changed.’ Or, ‘The nicer the shirt, the more likely the pen will leak in the top pocket.’ Or, ‘The chance of a baby throwing up on its parent’s shoulder rises with the cost of the garment being worn.’
But, as scientists would know, this can only ever be a partial list. We’ll call you for more suggestions next time you’re sitting down to dinner.
5
Jocasta, cleaning out the laundry, discovers
we don’t actually have three ironing baskets.
We have
four.
And this one has been sitting
around for months. It’s the Ironing Basket of
Death. It’s the Too-Hard Basket.
Interior Monologue
I ‘m kneeling on the bathroom floor, a virtual human sacrifice, armed only with a rolled-up copy of
Home Style Today
magazine. In front of me, an outstretched arm away, is our washing machine — 60 kilos of hulking rust, water and malevolence — about to enter a spin cycle of quite frightening abandon.
As it picks up speed, it starts to shake and shudder and thud, almost jitterbugging toward the door. It’s a big fat square of white and chrome, busy shaking itself to death — sort of like Elvis in 1977.
Right now I’m trying to stuff the copy of
Home Style Today
under Elvis’s front left leg. My aim is to achieve some sort of stability, despite a bathroom floor which is full of sudden depressions. Much like its owners.
The washing machine, it seems clear, has a different aim: to crush me into a bloodied pulp and leave me dead against the bathroom wall. I heave upwards and start pushing the
Home Style Today
under Elvis’s leg; the magazine ripping a little so that I can see a few flashes of its contents. Azure pools. Sunday brunches. Found objects.
‘Back, damn you,’ I mutter as I shove, my cheek pressed up against Elvis’s shuddering side, my frontal lobes getting a most attention-grabbing work-over. ‘A
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’.
The way I’ve folded the magazine, a typical
Home Style Today
article faces upwards as I push it into place: ‘It’s easy’, it says, ‘to achieve a sophisticated but relaxed lifestyle’.
I don’t quite know why Jocasta and I buy these magazines. In theory it’s to get home-making tips. But the main ‘tip’, it always turns out, is to have about five million dollars and a team of decorators and tradesmen. Certainly that’s what everyone featured in the magazine has done.
Take this particular article, on top of which Elvis’s leg is currently shuddering. Brett and Veronica, of Darling Point, have recently decided to build a waterfront home of first-class design, with stables, pool and en suite granny mansion. Interestingly, it appears that Brett is heir to the SaltyBitz snack-food empire, while Veronica’s a freelance design consultant who’s done groundbreaking work in the area of bathroom vanities, and is closely related to the Queen of Sheba.
Must I read on? I must. My head is face down, pressed toward the article, as I struggle with the shuddering Pelvis, my knees sinking into that dip in the bathroom floor where the kids’ bathwater always
All children’s sport in Australia has the same fundraising method: the sausage sizzle. They play; you eat. Thus the strange outcome: the fitter they get, the fatter you’ll get.
Rule 10: Photocopy machines never work
This shows how technology has gone downhill since the days of the reliable Roneo machine. (Thus giving rise to the common office cry: ‘Wherefore art thou, Roneo?’)
Rule 11: Radio news bulletins of great personal interest are only ever broadcast when your car is about to enter a tunnel
The broadcast is always cut off one and a half seconds after entering the tunnel and will resume on the last word as you leave it.
Rule 12: The more times you hear the phrase ‘your call is important to us’, the less important it actually is
I
could
go on. For instance: ‘The more inaccessible the light bulb, the more often it will need to be changed.’ Or, ‘The nicer the shirt, the more likely the pen will leak in the top pocket.’ Or, ‘The chance of a baby throwing up on its parent’s shoulder rises with the cost of the garment being worn.’
But, as scientists would know, this can only ever be a partial list. We’ll call you for more suggestions next time you’re sitting down to dinner.
5
Jocasta, cleaning out the laundry, discovers
we don’t actually have three ironing baskets.
We have
four.
And this one has been sitting
around for months. It’s the Ironing Basket of
Death. It’s the Too-Hard Basket.
Interior Monologue
I ‘m kneeling on the bathroom floor, a virtual human sacrifice, armed only with a rolled-up copy of
Home Style Today
magazine. In front of me, an outstretched arm away, is our washing machine — 60 kilos of hulking rust, water and malevolence — about to enter a spin cycle of quite frightening abandon.
As it picks up speed, it starts to shake and shudder and thud, almost jitterbugging toward the door. It’s a big fat square of white and chrome, busy shaking itself to death — sort of like Elvis in 1977.
Right now I’m trying to stuff the copy of
Home Style Today
under Elvis’s front left leg. My aim is to achieve some sort of stability, despite a bathroom floor which is full of sudden depressions. Much like its owners.
The washing machine, it seems clear, has a different aim: to crush me into a bloodied pulp and leave me dead against the bathroom wall. I heave upwards and start pushing the
Home Style Today
under Elvis’s leg; the magazine ripping a little so that I can see a few flashes of its contents. Azure pools. Sunday brunches. Found objects.
‘Back, damn you,’ I mutter as I shove, my cheek pressed up against Elvis’s shuddering side, my frontal lobes getting a most attention-grabbing work-over. ‘A
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’.
The way I’ve folded the magazine, a typical
Home Style Today
article faces upwards as I push it into place: ‘It’s easy’, it says, ‘to achieve a sophisticated but relaxed lifestyle’.
I don’t quite know why Jocasta and I buy these magazines. In theory it’s to get home-making tips. But the main ‘tip’, it always turns out, is to have about five million dollars and a team of decorators and tradesmen. Certainly that’s what everyone featured in the magazine has done.
Take this particular article, on top of which Elvis’s leg is currently shuddering. Brett and Veronica, of Darling Point, have recently decided to build a waterfront home of first-class design, with stables, pool and en suite granny mansion. Interestingly, it appears that Brett is heir to the SaltyBitz snack-food empire, while Veronica’s a freelance design consultant who’s done groundbreaking work in the area of bathroom vanities, and is closely related to the Queen of Sheba.
Must I read on? I must. My head is face down, pressed toward the article, as I struggle with the shuddering Pelvis, my knees sinking into that dip in the bathroom floor where the kids’ bathwater always
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