Is It Just Me?

by Chrissie Swan

  Deal? Deal!

  30th September 2012

  A comeback for all insults

  There are some things you should never say to a woman. You know what I mean: sometimes things are said to you that strip the oxygen from your lungs.

  The annoying part of such an unexpected assault is that you very rarely have a quip at the ready. Your arsenal of smartness is almost always empty. And you drive home or walk away shell-shocked, only to spend the next few hours coming up with the most brilliantly crafted and scathing retorts. Why do we NEVER get the chance to say these to the actual people who’ve insulted us? Damn them!

  There’s a great TV program called The Catherine Tate Show. In it, Tate plays several characters and one of them is an androgynous man called Derek who everyone assumes is gay. But every time someone says something that infers that, he exclaims in horror, “How very DARE you!”

  It’s something that my friends and I have worked into our everyday language. Here are some great ways to use it (and yes, all these exchanges really happened):

  A woman went to see her obstetrician as she was expecting her second child. She was maybe a size 16. And thirty-six weeks pregnant. In the room were the doctor and a student nurse. The doctor asked if she’d been using the services of a specialist pregnancy dietitian and she replied no, that she’d used one for her last pregnancy and was using the skills she’d learnt during that time. The doctor looked wryly at the nurse and said, “Looks like she ate him.”

  “HOW. VERY. DARE. YOU!”

  Fiona and her husband had been through a rough year. He’d been diagnosed with a terrible illness and things were not looking good. Six months after the grave diagnosis, a “friend” sidled up to Fiona at a barbecue and said in a hushed voice, “You might want to try to lose a little bit of weight, because when your husband dies you’re going to have trouble finding a new one.” (This actually happened.)

  “HOW. VERY. DARE. YOU!”

  My friend Jane was coming home with her first baby – a magnificent baby girl. Her next-door neighbour met her at the gate and asked excitedly, “What did you have?” Proudly, Jane replied, “A girl!” To which her neighbour replied, “Oh. Doesn’t matter. Next time you’ll get a boy.”

  “HOW. VERY. DARE. YOU!”

  About five years ago, I was sitting with my back to the office door. I was deep in concentration reading something. I didn’t even notice my colleague come in the door, so I didn’t lift my head. The first indication I had that I wasn’t alone was an index finger poking me in the back and then under my arm and a familiar voice saying, “Back fat! Back fat! Side boob! Side boob!”

  All right, it’s true that both of those things exist on my ample body … but do you really have to poke them?

  “HOW. VERY. DARE. YOU!”

  A friend was getting a spray tan – now, I’ve never done this, but I imagine you feel pretty vulnerable when you’re nude, apart from a paper G-string, in front of a total stranger.

  My friend is not even vaguely overweight, yet the spray tanner started off by asking her to “lift your saggy boobs”. Great. Step two was to offer some extra service. “I’m going to help you out,” she said, “and give you some definition on your tummy where you have none.” And for the finale: “Arms up! Let’s not forget those bingo wings!”

  Two things. Firstly, my friend will find somewhere else to get both her tan and her insults. And secondly …

  “HOW. VERY. DARE. YOU!”

  So there you have it. The ultimate weapon when someone says something unbelievable to you. It’s my gift to you, and it will let you deal with the offence immediately, instead of mulling over it for days and muttering the ultimate comeback under your breath to no one but yourself. You’re welcome.

  7th October 2012

  The kindness of strangers

  Something happened last month that restored my faith in the human race. In fact, it happened twice. Someone, a complete stranger, changed my tyre for me without having to be asked.

  The first time, I’d taken off on a short trip to get milk. Leo was with me in the car because, Lord knows, even popping up to the servo to get some milk is an adventure when you’re three. After a few minutes I noticed a hideous burning rubber smell.

  Now, I’m no mechanic, but even I know that when a car smells like burning rubber it’s not a good sign. When I followed my nose to the source of the odour I saw my tyre was flat, down to the rim, and about 4000 degrees in temperature.

  I had absolutely no idea what to do. I was stuck with a pre-schooler, a molten-lava wheel and lapsed (of course) membership to one of those roadside-assistance thingies. When I’m in a situation that I can’t see a way out of, I get hot and sort of huffy. And I’m not afraid to tell you that by now I was hot as hell and huffing like a Biggest Loser.

  Enter Paul: kitchen designer by day, anonymous wheel-changing superhero by, er, day as well. He waltzed over to my car, asked where my spare was and got to work.

  I was flabbergasted to see that lurking under a secret trapdoor in my boot was an emergency tyre. And all this time I thought my boot was a mobile storage facility for kid-size hard-hats, dried-out packets of baby wipes, half-gnawed rusks and a stroller I’ve used twice. Who knew!

  If you’ve never seen someone changing a wheel (as I hadn’t), imagine yourself with a stranger who is writhing around on the ground in a fashion not dissimilar to those wildlife warriors who try to tag crocodiles. Those tyres sure do put up a fight, by the looks of things. But Paul got me all sorted out. He even called his mate at the local tyre shop, so when I arrived there they knew what sort of tyre I needed and I was fixed up and on my way in no time.

  I was actually teary when I thanked Paul for his kindness. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.

  Until a week later, when I was turning into an eight-lane freeway and I heard a bang. My first instinct was to check my head for a bullet hole (don’t you worry, I’ve seen Underbelly). My second was to utter under my breath, “Not another tyre!”

  So there I was, stranded again for the second time in a week with a flat tyre and no idea. I should have paid attention to Paul, but I seriously didn’t think I’d need to so quickly.

  However, within five minutes a handsome fellow with a ten-year-old son had pulled over, taken my keys and was reversing my wonky vehicle into the service road. Again, I pushed aside the rubbish in my boot to reveal the by-now well-worn emergency wheel and he set about changing it for me.

  This time he made me work for it a little bit, and I had to loosen a nut. This involved me bending over, bottom in the air, whispering “Righty tighty, lefty loosey” at the rims so I’d get the direction right. Eventually, the wheel was changed and I was on my way. I looked at the handsome man’s son and said, “Your dad is a hero, you realise?” He just shrugged and went back to playing his Nintendo DS.

  What struck me about the kindness of these two gentlemen was that they absolutely did not have to help me. They both had things they were doing and could have easily just stuck to their schedules. I’ve done that. Plenty of times. I’ve seen someone in a broken-down car looking frantic and I’ve thought, “Well … what can I do?”

  Now I’m paying it forward. I paid a lot of attention when the handsome stranger was changing my tyre and, having also done a crash course on YouTube, I’m confident I can now change a tyre without creating a dangerous situation à la Wacky Races.

  And next time I see a woman with a flat tyre, gesticulating wildly while on the phone to someone, I’m going to pull over and change her wheel. I bet it’ll feel really good.

  14th October 2012

  Raising boys

  I think I’m onto myself. Yep, the jig is up, as my gran used to say. I have, I believe, taken the easy way to parenthood by being a mother to boys and not girls. In fact, I think that if I ever have a third child an
d it is a girl, I will fully lose my mind.

  I wonder if other mothers of boys are thinking the same thing I am.

  I have friends with little girls. I feel like they know I don’t really know what I’m doing in the parenting stakes. And I’m talking about the kids, not their parents. Little girls just seem to have my number. They are all-knowing. They are serious and smart and switched on. They seem to know I have no idea.

  I was eavesdropping on a conversation the other day between my six-year-old god-daughter and her grandpa. The lovely old fellow was talking to her about party food and how if she ate too much she’d get a tummy ache. She fixed him with a withering stare and said, “Don’t patronise me, Grandpa.” Boom!

  I have two sons and sometimes I think this is God’s way of acknowledging that, as a parent and as a person, I mean well but am generally too goofy to be trusted with a proper responsibility.

  Raising a daughter seems so … complicated. It scares me. How could I possibly navigate the scary minefields of self-esteem and eating disorders so prevalent in the lives of girls? How could I ever live with the guilt if I got it all wrong?

  I have a very clear idea about the kind of men I’d like to raise. I’m raising them to be kind and respectful, with a healthy appreciation of fun and manners. So far, so good. And I suppose raising a daughter would be the same in some respects.

  So why am I so spooked? Are they really that different to boys? They seem so much more sophisticated, even from an early age. Little girls seem more powerful, more formidable. Bringing up a daughter feels to me like a greater responsibility somehow.

  I just feel like I’d be getting away with less.

  My friend was telling me the other day that her daughter gave her a mini-counselling session in the car. After the ten-year-old had stopped singing all the words to the new Bruno Mars song, she turned to her mother and suggested she take better care of her appearance and maybe tried wearing a few “younger” things, because it was obvious she was a beautiful woman but she wasn’t, and I quote, “doing herself any favours”. Ten years old. And she wasn’t being disrespectful. My friend was wide-eyed over her latte when she whispered to me, “Know what the spookiest thing is? She’s RIGHT!”

  How could her daughter, who has only been alive since 2002, know so much? And how would I deal with a daughter of my own, looking at me with my own eyes, telling me truths I knew but didn’t want to, or simply could not, admit? That’s what I’m scared of.

  Girls are strong – the ones I know seem to have been born with a great idea of who they are and it’s up to the parents to figure it out. I’m just nervous that I’ll misjudge them. That I’ll think they’re an A when really they’re a B. Tears, slamming doors and the words “I hate you” will ensue.

  My sons are so straightforward. And I have found parenting them so darned easy. A joy. Lots of cuddles, lots of laughs, lots of running around, lots of stories and away you go. Girls just seem like the real deal to me. Emotional, thoughtful, analytical. Argh!

  I will have to keep my fingers crossed that if a girl ever does come along into our goofy old lives I won’t totally lose the plot and take my parenting cues from Ab Fab’s Eddy Monsoon or The Lohan Guide to Raising Girls.

  21st October 2012

  Letters to your younger self

  There’s a craze that’s gone bonkers, and, no, I’m not talking about the hyper-charismatic Korean genius who goes by the name of Psy and has taught preschoolers and grandparents alike to stroke their own legs while singing, “Heeeyyyy, sexy lady!”

  I’m talking about the trend of writing letters to your ten-year-old self. The letters started dripping in a few years ago and, since then, they’ve become a deluge of pretty much the same warnings. The most common of these include, “don’t let the turkeys get you down”, “you will find someone who really loves you” and “don’t believe that mean girl when she tells you you’re fat and useless”.

  When I turned ten, something extraordinary happened. My mum gave me my own key to the family home so I could let myself in after school and I never looked back. In fact, it was a great year. I wore shoes from Sportsgirl and listened to Wham!’s Make It Big and saved up all my pocket money for a cat which ended up celebrating my twenty-seventh birthday with me. Things were sweet. And, frankly, if I could go back to 1984, all I’d say to myself is, “You probably do need a bra for those sore little walnut boozies but, apart from that, carry on.”

  Not so to my 23-year-old self. So let’s go instead to 1996 …

  Dear Chrissie,

  Are your eyes feeling small and toxic because you ate four home-brand dim sims last night for dinner? Thought so. That’s cool. One day you’ll be able to afford something exotic like rocket and bocconcini, so don’t sweat it. I do, however, wish to point out that if you hadn’t just sunk yourself into debt for that white Grundig TV, you’d probably be enjoying a plate of something nutritious right now. But choices are what define us and, in truth, TV is going to be important. So get another bag of dimmies.

  I think it’s great that you’ve enrolled in your dream university course to finally chase your goal of becoming an advertising copywriter. It took a lot of effort and you were right to celebrate it with 14,000 bottles of lambrusco and all your naughty friends. Remember to recycle those bottles as candle holders, by the way. You’ll need them in a few years when you host share-house board-game nights attended by friends and four families of mice.

  About uni, I should bring to your attention that you will need to actually attend some tutorials, and by this I don’t mean sitting in a city cafe, smoking with your hairy mate Nick Swifte, drinking coffee and plotting whose notes you’ll scam. Also, when the other people in your course see you in a lecture and exclaim, “What?! Chrissie’s here? There must be a test!” this is not a compliment.

  Let’s go now to the beauty department. You’re all right. No real problems … but that matte lipstick makes you look like you sleep in a coffin. It also comes off in sheets on those coffee cups you’re so fond of studying during “tutorials”. Give it up. And wax your upper lip. Do it now and you will avoid an embarrassing intervention in a few years from your gay housemate.

  Your boyfriend is a great fellow, and when you finally break up with him after seven years you will think it was a waste of time because it didn’t end in a ring and babies. Don’t. That relationship was a lovely safe house through your whole twenties and meant you avoided most of the types of men you’ll meet in your thirties. And anyway, if you had married that guy and had kids you wouldn’t have the man and little boys you have now and they are awesome and worth waiting for.

  Finally, you are terrible with money right now and are focused on fun over almost anything else. Accept it. You are not going to change. You are in big trouble from your mum right now for buying that apple-green vase for $95. True, this amount represents a week’s rent and half a month’s payment plan on the parking fine debt you’ve accrued for leaving your Daihatsu Charade wherever the hell you like for however long you want.

  Tell your mum to back off. That vase will bring you joy your whole life and give you a thrill every time you look at it because it represents that you had faith that one day you’d be able to afford a few beautiful things and have a lovely house with gorgeous people in it that you made.

  And so it will be.

  Warmest regards,

  Chrissie (at one week from thirty-nine years old)

  PS I mean it about the moustache. And for God’s sake don’t bleach it. Just because it’s orange doesn’t mean it’s invisible.

  28th October 2012

  Naughty schoolgirl

  I was recently contacted by my old high school and I was delighted. For many people, their school years were fraught with a combo of not fitting in, bullying and bad papier-mâché puppets. I’m pleased to say only the latter applied to me. I went to a small priva
te Catholic girls’ school, which is a sentence that usually ends in “and I couldn’t wait to escape” or “and they were the worst years of my life”, but I loved school.

  I was one of those kids who couldn’t wait for school holidays to be over, and I got so worked up the day before we went back I usually had instant-onset insomnia. One time I was so excited that I found myself having a shower at three in the morning so I wouldn’t miss my 7.20am tram.

  So the phone call from the school alerting me to the fact I’d been nominated as an “alumni of note” was met with excitement and internal clapping, not horror and avoidance.

  Part of this honour was that I would be featured in a coffee-table book showcasing the 125 years the school had successfully educated girls in the ways of needlepoint and hymn-singing, human rights and Shakespeare.

  It was, and still is, a lovely school that turns out smart, independent women year after year. A few that come to mind are the brilliant comedians Jane Turner and Marg Downey, as well as High Court judges and innovative doctors. Apparently you can rub shoulders with these luminaries if you make a living talking about boozies, babies and big bottoms … but who am I to object?

  I was invited to come to “the parlour”, a room at the school that was strictly out of bounds to anyone in brown T-bar shoes and ponytails. I was met by two photographers, who told me they wanted me to take them to a spot in the school that held memories for me.

  So, first things first, I asked to be taken to the huge Chesterfield sofas that were parked at reception, where the naughty girls had to spend their lunchtimes. But the Chesterfields had gone. No problem … what about a shot of me at the careers counsellor’s office? This was where I was told one afternoon that my test results had come in and I was most suited to a life spent in the circus. Nope. Those offices were now home to whirring servers.