Peow

We had Herr and Frau Fossil staying with us over the weekend. I am battered and bruised from the storm of disapproving looks fired my way. The Disapproving Look is swift – a mere ‘up-down’ glance, and were pinging off me by the end of Tuesday like I was caught in a hail-storm.

Saturday night - we sat down to have a glass of wine. After one, they declined more, and started drinking water. I poured myself a second glass. Peow! Disapproving Look. Glass number three – peow, peow!

I have also learned that the very people who say that they "are not fussy eaters – we eat anything," are invariably the fussiest eaters of all. These "not fussy eaters" did not eat:

Red meat, potatoes (althought Herr Fossil did help himself to some, for which Frau Fossil rewarded him with some peows of his very own), soft-drinks (I had a Diet Coke – peow!) and anything that might contain butter, milk, sugar, etc.

We took them out for lunch – the meal portions were too large (peow), but I still managed to eat the majority of my meal (peow) and had a beer (in the daytime! Peow).

They have now been released into the wild – on a grand tour of our fair isles, so I wish to send a storm warning to the South Island. Despite the weather forecast, temperatures over the next fortnight will be chilly, and there will be storms of Disapproving hail.

Relations

Bad news – the next invasion of relatives are on their way. They are not due until February, but due to the nature of the people coming, battle-plans are being drawn up now.

I think I will need to get my sofa reupholstered, and paint! I need paint! And am thinking of asking my cleaner to draft in every relative she has from the islands (probably thousands, knowing how these types like to pop the babies out) to start cleaning. A single mote of dust is enough to provoke Herr Relative's disdainful smirk. Am beginning to think it may be easier to just buy a new house.

Good lord – forget the house, I'll need to send the islanders out to give the entire city a polish up.

Funeral

I'm back. Forgive the unheralded departure; an elderly great-aunt did me the disservice of dying suddenly. This was annoying – I missed out on a really good shoe sale at Sybella.

Anyway, the Smiths thus shuffled forth from their various nooks, crannies, and snake pits for the funeral. I do not like funerals. One is expected to cry, and try hard as I might, the best I can do is make my eyes water a little, but the main reason I dislike them is the assemblage of the elderly. There, but for the grace of God, go my genes. There are an astonishing number of women of la famille in various stages of going bonkers. Really – I am not just being unkind. Fully-fledged, diagnosed dementia. Dementia is, I think, the cruellest thing.

One spinster aunt, having led a perfectly respectable and charming life (decades ago, she used to make babies christening gowns for Smith & Caughey’s), is now in a home, where she wears a stetson hat (not sure where that came from) and thinks other people’s closets are her toilet. Another seemed fine, and untouched by any mental malady, until one Christmas her nearest and dearest were surprised – to say the least! - when her carefully wrapped gifts contained certain items removed from her own body. I shan’t say anymore about that, but it was utterly disgusting.

Also went to a house auction that Mr and Ms W were keen on. A complete dump it was – probably one strong breeze away from falling over – and it got passed in at $1.6 million. Even I was surprised. Someone asked Ms W about the Baby Jesus (she is looking very large now), and she started talking in a loud voice about passing wind. Why do pregnant women always want to talk about such things? Several men within earshot moved away, so perhaps it was a clever technique to put off the other bidders, and not really a hideous lapse in propriety.

I see the rain has continued, unabated, in my absence. I am sick of it, and am going to go on holiday, somewhere nice and warm, free of deranged elderly (counts Parnell out!) and gaseous women. I just have to nag convince Mr Smith this is necessary.

Vulgarity

It’s funny the things your parents teach you, that you can never quite shake off.

Mother was a chain-smoker, although few outside her nearest-and-dearest Circle of Hell would have known this. She never smoked in public, so lengthy shopping trips were constantly punctuated by a quick succession of cigarettes in the car. Mother always said, "smoking in the street is common." Of course, this was back in the glorious days when people could smoke wherever and whenever they wanted (I am sure I have a dim memory of our family doctor lighting up while writing out a prescription), so smoking 'in the street' must have seemed quite unnecessary.

Now the street is the only public place one can indulge one’s vice, so every time I stand outside a bar and set flame to Dunhill, I can feel Mother’s acidic disapproval burning away at my wanton vulgarity.

It’s actually quite a good feeling.

Talent

Mother tried awfully hard to make me a well-rounded individual, and failed miserably.

Every Saturday morning, my sister and I were sent off for lessons in something, despite our lack of discernable talent in any field (I always suspected they just wanted an opportunity to have sex, without the distracting noise of my sister and I screaming at each other).

I can’t remember the order, but there were piano lessons; I couldn’t co-ordinate my two hands to play their parts at the correct moment - my right hand was especially naughty. I used to bandage one of my hands on the way to my lesson, and claim a sprain, so would only have to play with one hand at a time. My teacher never mentioned this; she either had a very poor memory, and didn’t notice how often I was injured, or was thankful that my insults to her musical sensibilities were effectively halved.

The tennis lessons were spent eyeing up the boys in the club-room; badminton came to a dismal end after I came last in the club tournament, and refused to go back. With athletics, I ran looking behind me, hoping I wasn’t last. Perhaps if I had run looking straight ahead, coming last wouldn’t not have been such a certainty.

As a last resort, I was also packed off to Brownies. Working for my first badge - a sewing one - I had to hand-sew a pin cushion. I laboured over it, spending the entire Brownie class painstakingly stitching the item together. I was so pleased when it was completed - but my jubilation was short-lived. I had the sewn the pin-cushion to my uniform, and it had to be cut off (the pin-cushion, not the uniform).

Brownies also attempted to hone my empathy by having us take morning tea to the old people at a local home. I thought the old people quite frightening, and stood back, until I spotted one kindly-looking woman sitting alone. I approached, holding out my dish of cake. The sight of the cake fired up her diminishing neurons, and she lunged at me, teeth bared. I dropped the dish, and ran away. I never returned to Brownies again.

There was a point to this – I can’t remember what it was anymore. I think it had something to do with Girl Guide biscuits. Never mind. I suppose the moral to the story then can be that you don’t actually have to be very good at anything to have a fabulous life. I’m living proof.

Skinny

By the age of ten, I was already well-versed in various blow-job techniques.

My sister (somewhat older than I), had a stack of Cosmopolitan magazines in her room, and when she went out, I would spend furtive hours studying the articles on How To Please a Man. I believe every quizzical child should be made to read these things; the sealed sections (with graphic, colour photos of disease-ridden genitalia), guaranteed my virginity for many years.

Cosmopolitan also provided diet advice. I remember these diets, because my sister followed the Cosmopolitan regimen with a fervour that she failed to apply to any other aspect of her life. Breakfast was half a grapefruit, a slice of dry toast, and a cup of black coffee. Carrot sticks, or an apple for a snack. Lunch was half a cup of cottage-cheese and some grilled chicken; dinner a green salad (no dressing).

After her second child, my sister efficiently by-passed the effort entailed in chopping carrot sticks, and gave up eating almost entirely. A bottle of the purgative Ipecac in her bathroom cupboard, (purportedly there in case her children 'swallowed anything poisonous') was emptied and replaced with a regularity that indicated either her children were especially careless, or that she had discovered that one could actually have one’s cake and eat it too. As long as it was followed by a bout of vomiting.

My sister is far from unique. I used to know a staunchly feminist art-curator, who would disappear to the toilet after any meal, and return with watery-red eyes (she really needed to buy eye-drops, like everyone else); a top Auckland lawyer who actually lost weight during her pregnancy; the model who would proudly crow "I can eat whatever I want," when apparently whatever she wanted was prescription appetite suppressants, and celery.

The female members of my social group, can move food around their plates with such dexterity it actually looks like they are eating. It is an illusion of which David Copperfield would be proud. Mrs S's husband told her that the marriage is contingent on her maintaining her weight. She fears divorce proceedings are only ever a couple of kilograms away.

I suppose I am expected to add something sage and empowering now. Write how we women should all eat whatever we want, accept ourselves for what we are, and be happy.

It would be an elegant way to end this, but it would also be utter bull-shit.

The End.

Father

My father 'left' my mother some years ago. They never formally separated or divorced (that would have required them agreeing on something), and I write 'left,' as he really had no choice in the matter. He arrived home one day to find my mother had changed all the locks. He got in his car, drove off to his place in the country, and I haven't seen him since.

That is, until just before Christmas. I rang him. I decided if I can forgive him for being an argumentative and unpleasant arsehole, he should certainly forgive me for taking after him. Driving out to see Father was difficult; I had no idea what to expect. I had to pull over and have a few nervous cigarettes before driving up to the house. What would we talk about? As a child, he was hardly ever around, and when he was, anything he had to say disappeared until the full verbal tide of Mother’s sherry-drenched shores.

I needn't have worried. He was delighted to see me. "Hello, darling!" he roared. "Merry Christmas! Here’s some money for you." He thrust an envelope at me, containing six hundred-dollar bills. We had coffee in the kitchen, the only room that showed any sign of occupancy. It was stuffed with a bizarre assortment of items; the family silver, fishing gear, tomato plants growing in buckets. I perched on a box.

"You just missed your sister. She was here, getting the girls' school fees. They are going to St XXXX, now." I hadn't seen my sister in years either, so was secretly thrilled that she was apparently short on money, but also extremely annoyed that my future inheritance was being squandered on her children. "Things not going so well for dear X?" I asked, feigning concern. "No, she's fine," was the reply. "On holiday at the bach in Paihia. I have these curtains I don't want. You can have them. An early birthday present."

I fumed. My sister gets tens of thousands of dollars for stinking school fees AND the use of the bach, and I get some cunty mother-fucking curtains. Second-hand, bottle-green, cunty curtains. I planned on how best to contest his will, so the school fees and bach could be deducted from her share. I was going to set fire to the curtains the moment I got home. And changing my phone number so the insane old coot couldn't bother me any more.

I chatted tersely for a while, until it was time to leave. "Lovely to see you again," he said, happily. "I think I’ll put you back in my will."

Bastard.