Diary of a Crap Housewife

by Jessica Rowe

  # CRAPHOUSEWIFE

  The words of Cat Stevens’ song ‘Wild World’ thumped out through my boom box and I turned it up super loud, dancing around the small sunroom that was my bedroom in the unit I lived in with my mum and two sisters. Twirling around wearing the short, black, ruffled skirt that I had bought from Sportsgirl along with the red polka-dotted midriff top that mum had sewn for me on her Bernina sewing machine. There was something about these earworm lyrics that got me fantasising about a jet-setting, glamorous life.

  Each weekend I worked as a check-out ‘chick’ at our local Woolworths and I spent my money on clothes and Malibu. My girlfriends and I would mix that foul coconut-smelling alcohol with giant cups of Coke that we’d buy from the movies before heading out every Friday and Saturday night.

  Make-up was still relatively new for me and I’d taken to disguising my acne with black kohl pencil. I’d read in Dolly magazine that turning pimples into beauty spots was the best way to camouflage blemishes. That might have worked for one or two pimples but it wasn’t ideal for the severe acne that I had on my cheeks. However, I’ve always been an optimist and convinced myself I’d done an okay job at hiding them. Besides, the bright-red glossy lipstick I was wearing was enough to draw attention away from my black spots.

  The Cat Stevens song that I had played on repeat in my small bedroom became an anthem of sorts for me, as I dreamt of escaping what I thought was a narrow, small life. I was almost eighteen, no longer a virgin and like all teenagers naively thought that I knew everything. The big, wide wonderful world was waiting for me and I wanted to face it with my eyes wide open. So I fled, just down the road, to a waitressing job in a fancy cafe where its outdoor tables were the most prized position as it was still a novelty to eat outdoors in Sydney. We hadn’t yet caught up with the rest of the world but this pocket of the eastern suburbs of Sydney was determined to be like Paris or Rome.

  The designer-clad ladies who lunched had no idea we were making their cappuccinos with one giant heaped teaspoon of Nescafé and a blast of boiling water. The only genuine part of the cappuccino was the frothy milk, as the milk steamer was the only reason the owners had purchased the big, shiny, silver coffee machine. It was far cheaper for them to stick with instant and the pretence of good European coffee. Imagine how revolting those short blacks must have tasted with three heaped teaspoons of instant coffee! But they were popular to order as I think some of the customers thought it made them look sophisticated, even if they couldn’t drink them.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t last long as a waitress because I muddled up too many coffee orders and dropped too many Caesar salads into the laps of women wearing their new Trent Nathan blazers and dark-blue denim jeans. Pretty soon I was banished to the takeaway counter in the cafe and it was here that I met the ticket out of my boring life. He was over 6 feet tall, had a deep, raspy voice and ordered a mixed salad and a banana smoothie. And he also happened to be twenty years older than me.

  Let’s call him Mr 37. I was under the misapprehension that dating him would make me sophisticated and sexy. He was handsome, he owned a nightclub, a plane and a yacht but he did have a saggy bottom! Not surprisingly, my mum banned me from seeing him, claiming he was a drug dealer and a sleaze (he wasn’t a dealer and the hardest drug I ever indulged in was Midori and lemonade, having moved on from Malibu). Of course, I raged against my mum, claiming that I was in love and she didn’t understand me. Then I did what all good teenagers do, ignored her demands and kept seeing my cradle snatcher in secret. By then I had become good at subterfuge, organising to stay over at girlfriends’ houses for the weekend, when I was really meeting my older man in his nightclub and dancing the night away to Bryan Ferry.

  My foolproof plan came undone when Mum discovered a bunch of photos. All G-rated—this was long before the era of selfies and sex tapes—but they did show me and Mr 37 riding mountain bikes and bushwalking (I hate bushwalking) on a couple of weekend getaways. She was furious that I had deceived her but was even more worried that the light plane he was flying would fall out of the sky. Mum had realised she couldn’t compete with my ‘massive self-will’ so she stood aside, very unhappily, while I continued my inappropriate love affair.

  Surprisingly, my dad and stepmother weren’t as outwardly concerned. They seemed to take the approach that it was better the devil that you know. A couple of times they came to dinner with us at the nightclub, I drank Midori and lemonade, they stuck with wine, and we talked about scuba diving and parachuting. I was acting like an adult even though I still went home to sleep in my single bed in the sunroom above the busy main road with the streetlight blazing through my narrow matchstick blinds.

  Although it sounds terrifying to a parent (and I’m terrified, thinking about my own daughters) it was all rather vanilla. Usually, I was home in bed by midnight and up early the next day to hit the gym with my boyfriend. He was a health nut, so if we weren’t training together we were bike riding, water skiing or sailing. The sex was standard, although I did manage to get him out of his comfort zone! The stairs of the nightclub, inside his Porsche, below the deck of his yacht, and the back seat of the plane while it stayed on autopilot. Okay, it might sound raunchy but he never found my G spot and I had already become an expert at making what I thought were the right sounds. Deep down I realised there had to be something more.

  And there was, as it was time to focus on my dream of becoming a journalist and start my communications degree at Mitchell College in Bathurst, in western New South Wales. Not surprisingly, my simple student life in a country town wasn’t a turn on for Mr 37. He did fly there a couple of times but I kept hearing from my city friends that in my absence he was entertaining international models from Sweden on his yacht in Sydney Harbour. Soon after, our affair ended and I was heartbroken. But when you’re young your heart mends faster than you realise and I become even busier starting my brand-new life.

  # CRAPHOUSEWIFE

  Midway through my journalism studies, I took a year off to travel and model in Europe. It was the first time I’d been overseas and I couldn’t wait to get those stamps in my passport. Now I use the word ‘model’ loosely to describe my job, as that part of my international modelling career was limited to sporting and camping catalogues in Germany. An agency based in Munich had signed me up from Australia because it thought I had potential in the lucrative world of mail order catalogues and television commercials.

  The highlight of my less-than-brilliant modelling career was starring in an ad for washing powder in which I wore white underpants and a singlet while filling up the front-loading washing machine. It was so unremarkable that my part got cut from the ad before it even made it to television. It’s little wonder that I still fail at loading the washing machine all these years later!

  I had been hoping to also try my luck at modelling in Japan after my year in Germany was wrapping up, but I also knew I needed to finish my university degree. I had a carefree and wild year living in Europe and it would have been even longer if university had given me permission to defer my journalism studies again. There wasn’t any rush to leave my exciting life. I’d met new friends and all of us had wanderlust and we were having the time of our lives. No one knew me, so I could be whoever I wanted: desirable, confident and indestructible. Once the sun went down, evenings became a blur of tequila shots, music and nightclubs. It was easy to make friends in this hothouse of hormones and youthfulness.

  This beautiful abandonment when you’re young was typified by a holiday in the Greek Islands that I shared with a girlfriend, halfway through my overseas adventure. Each morning I woke up in my small clifftop hotel room, bright-eyed and clear-headed despite my nocturnal naughtiness. My eyes would squint as I opened the blue shutters of my bedroom to gaze onto the Aegean Sea.

  Later in the day, wearing just black bikini bottoms, I would roast my body under the cloud-free sky, oblivious to the strength of the Mediterranean sun. Lying on my blue, striped beach chair rented for a handful of drachma a d
ay, my bare skin was protected from the white pebbles of the beach and also gave my friend and me a lazy position from which to check out the handsome blokes. That summer we were young, untouchable and bulletproof. And that made it easy to get ‘in the mood’.

  # CRAPHOUSEWIFE

  That island escapade was a lifetime ago. Some 27 years later, I’m far happier in my skin but I miss some of that sexy spirit from the younger me. Lusty, hot and dirty sex is something that needs time to flourish in your mind and body. And now I was struggling to transform from a crap housewife into a sex goddess once the lights were switched off. Getting in the mood and slipping out of your angel wings takes time and patience. We’re great at multi-tasking but the downside of juggling so much in your mind is that it can be hard to switch off that part of the brain that’s filing away parent–teacher meetings, reminders about buying white bread, finding lost library books and solving work politics. None of those mundane matters are sexy.

  How would I cope if my daughters experimented like me? I would freak out just like my mum because I now realise that Mr 37 had taken advantage of my youth and vulnerability. However, I understand that I was also complicit and I knew what I was getting into. I’d been seduced by the ticket he offered me into a seemingly more glamorous and grown-up world. And I don’t regret it for a moment.

  Still, with some years before my daughters become young adults, I’d like to think that I would deal with a similar situation in a calm, reasonable manner. But who am I kidding? If anyone breaks their hearts, I would probably torch that individual’s car. And I don’t think my husband would be as ‘calm’ as me! But I do want my girls to have a healthy relationship with sex as they grow into strong, confident young women. My wish is that they’ll have partners who make them laugh, and who love and respect them. I also want them to grow up realising pubic hair is natural and desirable and that pornography is not what making love is all about. But most of all I want them to talk to me, even if I am the world’s most embarrassing mother.

  WALDORF SALAD

  This foolproof salad is a family favourite! My mum used to make it for my sisters and me when we lived together in our tiny unit over a busy main road. I remember thinking the salad was super fancy as it’s named after the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. It also reminds me of my favourite Fawlty Towers episode when Basil Fawlty angrily tells his fussy American guest that ‘we’re just out of Waldorfs!’

  Ingredients

  1 barbecue chook

  1 big bunch of green grapes

  2–3 sticks of celery

  2 Granny Smith apples

  a couple of good handfuls of walnuts (as many or as few as you’d like)

  mayonnaise (I’m a lifelong fan of Praise—something Mum always had in the fridge)

  Method

  Remove all of the white meat from the barbecue chook and place in a decent-sized salad bowl.

  Next, put in the green grapes. Slice up the celery into medium-sized pieces, cut up the apples and then add celery and apple to the salad bowl. Add the walnuts (I like a lot as they add a delicious crunch to the salad).

  Finally, generously squeeze the mayo over the salad and give it a good stir to make sure it’s all mixed through.

  Season with salt and pepper. Serve with crusty bread.

  Success rate

  Four out of four family members loved this salad! However, I do take the celery and walnuts out for my smallest daughter. This is an ideal summer salad. And it’s my favourite type of ‘cooking’ since all that you need to do is chop and assemble!

  7

  Cleaning

  The opposite of a hot mess is cold, predictable and tidy. That’s not where your magic lives. Be brave and choose the mess.

  ELIZABETH GILBERT

  Flick, flick, flick. I woke to the sound of my husband’s black rubber thongs flicking against our wooden floorboards in the kitchen, the sound echoing around our quiet house. Thankfully, it wasn’t loud enough to rouse our daughters from their dream-filled sleep. I’ve learnt to judge the tone of our morning by how quickly his thongs are flicking against the floor. Oh dear, this was sounding a little too speedy for my liking. I thought, It’s going to be another one of those days …

  Since leaving morning television, my body clock has clicked straight back into its natural state of not wanting to wake up too early. Even as a small girl I was a night owl, never wanting to go to bed in case I might miss out on ‘something’. Last night I read past midnight, slowly sucking on squares of dark Lindt chocolate, desperate to finish Liane Moriarty’s latest book. That time, when even the stars have tucked themselves up, is my favourite hour as I relish being awake while the rest of the house sleeps heavily. The light on my Kindle is dimmed to its lowest level, so I don’t disturb Peter, and I also remain motionless lying on my side, so I don’t wake our elderly grey cat, Alfie. He curls his round, fuzzy-felt tummy around my feet for warmth.

  But there was no gentle wake-up for either Alfie or me this morning.

  ‘Pussycat, up! Up! Come on!’ Peter shouted up the stairs.

  ‘I’m coming …’ I replied, while Alfie leisurely stretched his front paw over my legs and yawned.

  ‘No you’re not. Get UP!’ said Peter, with an extra edge to his voice. Those flicking thongs were getting closer, as my impatient husband walked into our bedroom.

  ‘Pussycat, Christina is coming today. There is a lot of cleaning to do!’ he said.

  He had a benchtop cleaner in one hand and a cup of coffee for me in the other. Believe me, I know how lucky I am to be married to this man.

  # CRAPHOUSEWIFE

  For some reason, my husband has always cleaned before our cleaner Christina comes for her sometimes weekly visit. She has been in our lives for a long time and first started cleaning up my life when I was a single girl with only one cat—a tortoiseshell called Audrey—for company. And boy, the two of us could make a mess. I still blush remembering my first encounters with Christina’s thorough approach to her job. Opening the door to my rental unit, when I came home from reading the news on Channel Ten, I was hit by the unfamiliar scent of bleach and strong disinfectant. My unit had never been so squeaky clean and organised. My sense of wonder increased when I walked into my bedroom; my perilously high stilettos had been neatly stacked into matching pairs under the frame of my wooden double bed, and the bed itself was far too beautifully made with tightly tucked-in sheets to even consider pulling back the covers. However, when I opened the drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe, my heart sank when I realised that most of my lacy underwear was missing.

  Before I’d left for the work that morning, I’d hastily chucked all of my underwear out of the dirty clothes basket back into my drawers. Why would I do that? Well, I hadn’t wanted Christina throwing my ‘delicates’ into the washing machine. Remember, these where the days long before I even knew that comfy ‘granny whacker’ beige undies existed. Clearly, Christina had realised how messy I was when she first saw the state of my unit but now I feared she would also judge me as a total grot who left dirty underwear in her drawers! From that day forward, I put a sign on top of my laundry basket asking Christina to please not wash it. I’d tried to explain the mix-up over my smalls to her; however, I don’t think she ever truly believed me. Not surprisingly, Christina has a much better relationship with Peter and the pair of them happily compare notes on cleaning products and fresh vacuum-cleaner bags.

  # CRAPHOUSEWIFE

  Most Tuesday mornings, Peter and I have the same conversation, with my husband arguing that it’s respectful to make sure our house is spick-and-span before Christina’s visit. He’s far more decent than me, as I try to reason that the whole point of having Christina is to take the stress out of housework. Clearly, we have very different ideas about what ‘clean’ means as I’ve always been oblivious to the piles of mess in our home. Peter, however, can’t deal as well as I can with unsightly piles of clothes, toys, newspapers, magazines, books and kitsch in the house. It’s a miracle that
he’s put up with me so long, especially given my penchant for collecting cat figurines, cat cushions and snow domes.

  We have this marvellous Harry Potter-style cupboard under the stairs, which has become a cavernous dumping ground for all manner of things. Shoes, schoolbags, recycled shopping bags, beach towels, giant cat masks, ugly prints that were presents from ex-partners and whatever else I can pile into it. This giant cupboard has become particularly handy when it comes to a quick clean before last-minute guests arrive as I’m the queen of shoving a large number of objects into a limited space in record time. This leaves me five minutes to give the toilet bowl a quick check and the bathroom sink a speedy wipe-down. (But for some reason we never have enough toilet paper, despite Peter always buying in bulk because ‘It’s on special’.)

  ‘Come ON, Pussycat! If you don’t get up, the girls won’t get up either. Come on, I really need your help. It’s 6.55 …’

  Reluctantly, I was already out of bed and already singing songs about honey bears, baby bears and all manner of silliness to get my daughters to wake up.

  ‘Mum, stop it …’ said Allegra.

  ‘Sweetie Pea, let’s just get up. I didn’t want to get up either but at least it will stop your Daddy from carrying on a like a pork chop,’ I said, while my gangly, growing daughter rolled out of bed dragging her favourite cat, Daisy, who has been snuggled up asleep next to her.

  ‘Honey Bear, oh Honey Bear, where are you going in your underwear … ?’ I kept singing, as I danced into Giselle’s room.

  Although she pretended to be asleep, tightly shutting her eyes, I knew she was awake because of the sunny smile creeping across her face. Quickly, I lay down next to her, singing quietly into her ear as I inhaled the sweet, soft smell of her hair.

  ‘Get dressed, it’s a new daaaay,’ I sang.