FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“I’ve seen this done on TV.”

“This doesn’t taste quite right.”

“Which wire was I supposed to cut?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s dead by now.”

“No, those windows are ok to lean on."

”I wonder where the mother bear is?”

”You look just like Ivan Milat!”

”Let it down slowly.”

”I can make this light before it changes.”

”I can do that with my eyes closed.”

”Don't be so superstitious.”

”Now watch this.”

“Hey what’s that buzzing noise?”

”Don’t worry it's not that deep.”

”Nice doggy.”

"Nah, I don't think we need to go to the hospital."

FAST FOOD FRIGHT

Growing up in the 1970s, my lunch was a squashed Vegemite sandwich, an apple, and a cordial bottle. I got tuckshop every second Friday, and bought a cream bun, a sausage roll and a Sunnyboy iceblock (remember those? They were in those little frozen pyramid shapes and you sucked all the flavour out?)

Breakfast was porridge, boiled eggs, toast and a cup of Bushells tea. Dinner was rissoles, sausages or chops with mashed potatoes and some token green. Dessert, weekends only, was ice cream.

That was it.

Fast food? I think there may have been a pizza joint about three suburbs along, and some rogue Chinese establishment that smelled suspiciously like somebody had died in there the week before and was still decomposing in a wok.

My mum was a midwife, so sometimes she’d have to work Saturday nights. We loved those nights. Dad would ring up and order pizza and my brothers and I would pile into the Falcon 500 to pick it up. We had two choices: supreme or ham and pineapple. Of course we only ordered ham and pineapple. Supreme was waaaay to avant-garde in the 70s. Salami? Mushrooms? Get out! I’m not eating that!

Fast forward 30 years. I see people starting their day with a can of Red Bull and a take-away double shot latte. And these are the 15 year-olds. The 30 year-olds are a bit more hard-core. They skip the latte in favour of a V-shot chaser. They do the lattes later.

Some people drink so much coffee their eyes stay open when they sneeze. They can type 60 words a minute with their feet. They channel surf faster without the remote.

Now it’s common to eat Nandos, Aportos, KFC, McDonalds. To buy pre-packaged pasta and prepared sauces, then chuck it all in the microwave on high for three minutes while you grab your 3rd can of Diet Coke. Frozen dinners, frozen spring rolls, frozen meat pies. Packets of chips, packets of biscuits, packets of fat.

Just personally, I think fast food is the nutritional equivalent of pornography.

No need to make breakfast at home! Grab a bacon and egg muffin or a savoury bread roll on your way to the office. Please, at lunch time come and buy our salad. Salad, my arse. If you look closely enough, you may spot a lettuce leaf drowning forlornly in some tangy creamy dressing. For dinner, shovel up some half-price Chinese from the all-you-can-eat buffet in the food court. I’m sure this food is still ok, even though it has been sitting under the lamps since 7am.

The factors that make fast food so popular still seem to be powerful enough to make the majority of the population ignore the obvious risks of poor nutrition and weight problems. Fast food is easily available, relatively cheap, most people find it tasty and filling and it can be purchased fast.

Although, sometimes I think it’s called "fast" food because you're supposed to eat it really fast. Otherwise, you might actually taste it.
According to a recent article I just read on nutrition, they said eating right doesn't have to be complicated. Nutritionists say there is a simple way to tell if you're eating right. Colours. Fill your plates with bright colours, it chorused. Greens, reds, yellows.

A friend of mine says she does that every day, by eating an entire packet of M&M's.

The big problem with "fast" food is that it slows down when it hits your stomach. And it just parks there and lets the fat have time to get off and apply for citizenship.

Personally, I can’t do it. I can’t even use a jar of spaghetti sauce. Sometimes I even struggle with tinned tomatoes. I’m not sure these days whether the fresh fruit and vegies I buy are in fact fresh fruit and vegies, or if they’ve been sprayed with nitrogen or some other chemical and stored in the back of a shed in Stanthorpe since 2004.

1970s food, for all its scary apricot chicken and beef Wellington carry on, was made the way nature intended food to be made. From scratch. In those days, milk lasted three or four days. Now, I can buy milk with a two-week fridge life. So exactly how much of the white liquid in that carton is milk from the cow, and how much is additives and preservative crap?

I think it would be nice if the government mob who monitor warnings about toxic substances just gave me the names of one or two things that are still safe to eat.

I'M A BLOODY IDIOT

Let me tell you about my new pashmina. It's pure wool, pale pink, big enough to wrap all around me when the wind is blowing cold down George Street. Yet equally small enough to twist fashionably around my neck.

For weeks it accompanied me to work. It also came to a Broncos game at Suncorp, enjoyed a long weekend at Mooloolaba, met the girls for lunch at the Regatta and had a plane ride to Sydney. It got a bit cranky at me when I left it in my car overnight. But we made up.

Then I washed it. Now, I'm pretty fastidious about washing. Well, about cleaning really. I've had lots of practice. Usually because I'm the women behind the successful man who cleans up all the shit he's too full of himself to notice.

When I wash, I separate, separate, separate. Soak anything even remotely white. Hand wash all delicates. Warm water for towels, cold water for jeans. Hang everything in the shade.

So what made me throw my treasured pashmina into the same load as my gym clothes and then chuck the whole damp mess into the dryer, I've no idea. I wasn't drunk at the time. I wasn't particularly time-poor. It wasn't raining.

The next morning I opened the dryer and yanked out this pathetic little square that in a former life used to be my BFF pashmina. Needless to say, it now fashions itself as a table napkin, although not very absorbent. And I'm down $85 and back to being cold at work and lonely on plane flights.

If you wash delicate items without paying attention, you're a bloody idiot.

Here's another bloody idiot example. One Saturday afternoon, I was mooching around DFO and happened upon a pair of hot pink stilettos. And not just hot pink. Patent leather hot pink. Couldn't you just die!!

That night, I had a party to go to and these shoes wanted to come with me. Except it was a stand-up cocktail party type party. And those shoes really hurt. They pinched on my little toes and the strap dug into the side of my foot. Ooouch!

I stood against a wall, eased one sandal off, tried to massage my aching toes on the carpet and then like the bevan I can be, hurriedly shoved it back on when someone came over to say hello.

A gorgeous friend, who was midst break-up with her fella, wanted to have a chat. Should she sell her half of their house back to him or should she fight to maintain the property? Who should get the carving they bought together in Prague? Did I think he was sleeping with their neighbour?

I wanted to support her, be there for her, advise her. But the throbbing pain emanating below my ankles deafened me to anything but the screaming need for my slippers.

If you buy stilettos and wear them to a stand-up party without first breaking them in, you're a bloody idiot.

How about the time another adored gal-pal was on the cusp of her five-minutes-of fame? So what if it was as an extra in a Toyota Corolla television commercial which probably constituted four seconds of exposure? Publicity is publicity.

I invited the gang over to my place for dinner to share her moment of glory. And went ahead and broke my own golden rule of never cooking anything for company that I haven't cooked before. I mean, how hard can Moroccan spiced eggplant in a lamb tagine with cinnamon and sweet potato be to cook?

It resembled an autopsy. We ended up eating loads of cheese and a frozen Sara Lee dessert. Thank goodness I had enough wine to compensate.

Don't ever be a bloody idiot and fake an orgasm simply as a means to get a new bloke off the top of you. He'll think he's so spectacular in the sack he'll spend weeks interpreting your being unavailable as a come on.

Don't ever be a bloody idiot and buy that Alannah Hill dress in a size 10 because you have a plan to ditch seven kilos. That same Alannah Hill dress will be hanging in your wardrobe five years from now, when you've probably added another happy three kgs to your beautiful frame.

Don't be a bloody idiot and wear any form of complex buckle-up sandals on any form of aircraft. Today's post 9/11 security checks will see you sitting on your arse undoing 15 buckles per shoe whilst your rock-bottom ticket price plane blithely leaves. Does security think I'm going to stash a set of box-cutters into a stiletto heel measuring half a centimetre diameter? Probably.

Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were Bron McClain. But I repeat myself.

THE SENILITY PRAYER

God grant me the senility

to forget the people I never liked,

the good fortune to run into the people I do,

and the eyesight to tell the difference.

THE MOTHER OF ALL LAWS

What do you do if you miss your mother-in-law? Reload, and take better aim.

Mmmm.

Well, we've all either got one, had one, are one or know one. Like "great-aunt" or "stepmother" it's one of those ambiguous relative categories. Sometimes you hit the jackpot; sometimes the poker machine sucks the very life out of the marrow of your bones and leaves you a heaving, angry, impotent raging mess.

This column isn't about hitting the jackpot. It's more like coming third in the chook raffle at a local RSL.

My own mother-in-law (albeit now ex) had more issues than The Courier-Mail. And was so dumb she wouldn't have passed a blood test. She had the personality of a dial tone. Could have been because she was short, could have been because she was married to a verbally abusive alcoholic, could have been because she ignored her son for his first 20 years of life and right when I married him, she was in the throes of deciding that she needed to make up for lost time.

Her way of doing this was to adopt a fragile, helpless persona and wail away about how she needed things done around her house and how my husband's father was a good for nothing layabout and how her darling boy was the only man she could rely on. Etc.

He could be mowing the lawn, cooking a bbq or watching football and she'd ring, demanding his attention.

"Oh son, I'm just having trouble changing a light bulb."

"Oh son, I can't quite reach the mix master on the top shelf of the pantry."

"Oh son, could you just move Ayers Rock fifty miles closer to the coast."

The dear thing tried so hard to get on with me, but I was having none of it. Not after she cooked my parents a pre-wedding supper at her house and asked them to contribute to its cost. Not after she left my two month old daughter alone on the change table while she went to answer the phone.

My other mother-in-law (interestingly also an ex, but by de facto only) was a nightmare as well. My boyfriend was the youngest of all-girl siblings and he had spent his life being cosseted by females. Until I came along and expected him to pull his weight. He was pretty much incapable of doing this.

And why should he when mummy was always there to rescue him.
She didn't like me one bit. I got in trouble for not making him lunch every day. I got in trouble for not keeping the children quiet when he wanted an afternoon nap. I got in trouble for not bounding to the clothes line to retrieve his work shirts when it started to rain. Etc.

For every great story you hear about a mother-in-law, there is an equal and opposing story.

Things like rearranging of the kitchen cupboards when they house-sit. Feeding children sugar then admonishing you for their hyperactivity. Buying the kids wildly inappropriate outfits but creating the expectation that they should wear them. And then photographing the poor kids in this nauseating get-up. So years later you have huge psychiatrist bills when the kids discover photos of themselves at a school function wearing something akin to the Danish national dress.

Why are mothers-in-law so suspicious of us? Is it because their sons now share all their secrets with us instead of them? Do they not realise that grown men don't usually have thought processes that run that deep? Or that any secrets they have sometimes involve some sort of group lesbian fantasy and frankly we'd rather they kept that secret all to themselves.

Were Adam and Eve the happiest and the luckiest couple in the world, because neither of them had a mother-in-law?

Mmmm.

A DATING DICTIONARY

ATTRACTION... the act of associating horniness with a particular person.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT... what occurs when two extremely horny, but not entirely choosy people meet.

DATING... the process of spending enormous amounts of money, time and energy to get better acquainted with a person whom you don't especially like in the present and will learn to like a lot less in the future.

BIRTH CONTROL... avoiding pregnancy through such tactics as swallowing special pills, inserting a diaphragm, using a condom, and dating repulsive men.

EASY... a term used to describe a woman who has the sexual morals of a man.

EYE CONTACT... a method utilised by one person to indicate that they are interested in another. Despite being advised to do so, many men have difficulty looking a woman directly in the eyes, not necessarily due to shyness, but usually due to the fact that a woman's eyes are not located in her chest.

FRIEND... a person in your acquaintance who has some flaw which makes sleeping with him/her totally unappealing.

INDIFFERENCE... a woman's feeling towards a man, which is interpreted by the man to be "playing hard to get".

INTERESTING... a word a man uses to describe a woman who lets him do all the talking.

IRRITATING HABIT... what the endearing little qualities that initially attract two people to each other turn into after a few months together.

LAW OF RELATIVITY... how attractive a given person appears to be is directly proportionate to how unattractive your date is.

NYMPHOMANIAC... a man's term for a woman who wants to have sex more often than he does.

SOBER... condition in which it is almost impossible to fall in love.

A MOTHER'S DICTIONARY

Arms distance: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping trolleys can't reach anything.

Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2am too.

Defense: What you'd better have around de yard if you're going to let de children play outside.

Drooling: How teething babies wash their chins.

Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster.

Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.

Full name: What you call your child when you're mad at him.

Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

Hearsay: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a dirty word.

Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.

Independent: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.

Look out: What it's too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.

Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.

Prepared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.

Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.

Sterilize: What you do to your first baby's pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier by blowing on it.

Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as to not upset the children.

Top bunk: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman pjs.

Two-minute warning: When the baby's face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

Verbal: Able to whine in words

Whodunit: None of the kids who live in your house.

Whoops: An exclamation that translates roughly into "get a sponge."

WHO'S THE BOSS?

In a few weeks, the people of Australia are off for a spot of poll dancing. We should be good at it by then; after all, we’ve been watching our own aspring pollies doing their version of Dancing with the Voters. A few steps forward, a few steps back, then a quick succession of side steps.

We’re going to have to decide who we want to be on top Down Under: a lady who it appears has her roots done every three days (that’s waaaay too much maintenance) or a bloke who isn’t ashamed to flaunt his crown jewels in a pair of budgie smugglers (that’s waaaay too much information).

Why do politicians tell us they represent a party, when there doesn’t seem to be anything akin to a party going on. I don’t see bottles of champagne and Vodka in the press gallery. I don’t hear Abba or the Bee Gees playing in the background of their radio ads. I haven’t even seen Tony Abbott get a bit pissed and sidle up to Julia for a disco pash.


To join one of their so-called parties, you have to pay money. No wonder they don’t have many friends. “Hi, please come to my party, it will cost you $250.” I don’t think so.

Just once, just once, could we please have a prime minister who is a bit of a spunk?

Julia looks just like a man would look if he were a woman. Julia, could we get a frock happening? You’re a chick, you’re running for PM, have some fun with it.

Tony mercifully isn’t carrying an unsightly middle-aged paunch (phew…) but he has that slightly vacant, slightly dumb look about him. Like, if you said something witty, really really witty, you’d just have to explain it to him.


Wayne Swan looks like he should still be wearing a Churchie uniform, or taking a bookkeeping course at TAFE. Joe Hockey needs a week at boot camp.

Now, President Obama is a full-on spunk. Have you seen his arse? He’s fit, smart, articulate, devoted and he gives great speech. And he sneaks out the back for a fag every now and then. Love it.


When Barrack was running for president, he melted the hardened hearts of America by saying, "You came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope."

What does Julia give us? “I am utterly committed to the service of our people.” Zzzzzz. I feel inspired. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Etc.

Now George W may have been a bit of a fluffer, but he said some highly amusing things. I think this man familiarised himself with military protocol by watching F-Troop re-runs. I wonder if he lampooned for an annual “take your dad to work” day?

What about when he said, “Border relations between Canada and Mexico have been been better.” Skip geography did ya Georgie-boy?

Or, "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

OK, thanks for that clarification.

I wonder if the days of charismatic presidents died when Ronald Reagan left the Oval Office. His acting skills alone got him through some sticky moments.

The founder of Reaganomics, ender of the Cold War and bomber of Libya said some pretty funny things. Clever things. "I hope you're all Republicans," he asked the surgeons as he entered the operating room following the 1981 assassination attempt.

Or "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency - even if I'm in a Cabinet meeting."

Imagine Tony Abbott saying that!?

At least here in Australia we’ve got a girl running in the ranks. She's no Maggie Thatcher, but she's a girl. When it was all men, it was frustrating because their campaigns were full of promises and pleadings that never eventuated. As men do.

“Yes darling, I’ll mow the lawn before the weekend.” “Yes honey, I’ll be home in time for the parent-teacher interview.” “Yes, people of Australia, I will fix the public health system.”

Well, we should know who’s our boss by the time we wake up on Sunday 22 August. Let’s just hope whoever gets the top job doesn’t build bridges where there is no river, or confuse free speech with cheap talk.

TRUE STORY

Last night, I went to cook a chicken dish. Earlier that day, I had seen the picture in a magazine and thought it looked fab. It had chicken and white wine and lemon zest and a hint of chilli and a few other gorgeous things. I had skimmed down the list of ingredients to make sure I had them all.

So about 7pm, I saunter into my kitchen to get the magnificent chicken dish underway.

Then I read step one.

"Combine first six ingredients, and marinate chicken in refrigerator overnight."

So I ordered pizza.

That will teach me to read the "method" not just the "ingredients".

WHAT WOMEN WANT

#1 Foreplay. It is not a privilege, it is a birthright.

#2 If you take us out to a fancy restaurant, don’t try and steer us away from the lobster.

#3 Less carry on about our power and sanctity as being lifegivers, and let’s get some reliable and affordable childcare.

#4 Equal work for equal pay. Look around you guys. Look at, say, Kevin, the brain-dead tosser in the cubicle next to you. You could shake Kevin because he is such a slack and worthless idiot. Now imagine making 30% less than Kevin.

#5 This one is very important. When you’re having sex with us, don’t ask “Who’s your daddy?” Even as a joke. It’s not funny.

#6 And while we’re on the subject of sex, don’t ask us if we’ve come. You’re a big boy Clouseau, you should be able to tell.

#7 A law passed that makes it compulsory for all over-the-hill rockstars to have women their own age in their videos.

#8 When our mouths move, pay attention. Words could be coming out. Words are kind of important.

#9 Don’t tell us how to merge and we won’t tell you how to ask for directions.

#10 When we catch you cheating on us, and we cut your dick off in your sleep, take it like a man.

So there you have it – we want equal pay, fair treatment, respect, patience, and a genuine effort at understanding who we really are.

And if that’s too much, how about a diamond the size of your head?

THE WEEK I DECIDED TO DIET

Monday: The gig is up. Today is the day. I have beaten the hideous smoking beast into a suppurating mess. Now it is time to do the same to the mess that is my thighs. I've exceeded the feed limit too often.The reasons I know this are:

1) Yesterday, for breakfast, I had a steak, cheese and bacon pie with tomato sauce and a jam and cream donut. One of those long ones, with the cinnamon sugar, like you got from the tuckshop in primary school. Then appallingly, whilst grocery shopping later that day, I bought some brie, rocket dip and rice crackers and started eating them in my car while driving home. No, there was no knife cutting that brie. Just my teeth sinking into the soft cheese. No, there was no scoop for that dip. Just my tongue licking it straight from the tub. I felt alternately like George Costanza (Seinfeld) and Miranda Hobbes (Sex and the City) who will be remembered for perpetuity for happily consuming food that they'd retrieved from their bin.

2) In desperation, and whilst on aforementioned grocery shopping trip, I purchased ten frozen Weight Watchers meals. Even though the taste of them is identical to eating crumbled polystyrene drenched in home-brand laundry liquid, , it will only add five points per serve to my thighs.

3) Since quitting smoking, I have been suffering from a self-diagnosed ailment I've identified as Post Idiomatic Smoking Stress Emergence Disorder (PISSED). Treatment for this illness is to attain an average daily consumption of one 750ml bottle of wine (red, white or combination). Now, I say average, because I might skip my medication on a Tuesday, only take half of it on a Wednesday or a Thursday but think nothing of having a triple dose on a Friday. So it averages out.

4) I injured my foot whilst suffering from PISSED and hence have not worn shoes for a few weeks, let alone heels. Being unable to wear heels means I can't hide a spare 5kg or so by elongating my body. No longer do people look at my arse as I go past because it looks great in heels. They look at it because they are wondering where I could possibly have misplaced my "wide load" sign. And the safety vehicle that accompanies such signage.

5) I paid a nutritionist $220 to devise a 12-week weight loss plan. She gave me a diet and some motivation, and made an appointment for the following week. I did nothing. Nothing at all. She rings me all the time. I screen her.

I arrived at work with a new determination and a home made salad. But the woman who leaves home to set the world on fire often needs to return home for some matches. My first mistake of the day was announcing to one and all via mass email that I was going to diet. This led to one and all being keen to know what I felt would be the secret to my success. Too lengthy to discuss via email, I deduced, so instead opted to gather my clan at my fave Italian joint, Pane e Vino, simply because everyone knew where it was.

It seemed a shame then not to have the linguine with chicken, spinach leaves, semi-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and a rosette sugo with a few glasses of wine. Gave it all away that night and had two slices of inch-thick fruit toast with lemon spread. Oh, and finished off that bottle of red from the weekend.

It's only Monday. And frankly my dears I don't give a damn. After all, tomorrow is another day. Cheers Scarlet.

Tuesday: It's freezing! I've been this cold in Europe, but never in BrisVegas. Usually we spend winter wearing our summer clothes with a cardigan. Perhaps climate change is an international conspiracy to get us to pay more tax. Who wants to eat bloody salad when it's 11 degrees!

But nobody wanted to do lunch. Got a few boring responses like "I've got work to do" and "It's too cold to go out". Someone even had the temerity to say "But we just did lunch yesterday". Interestingly no one mentioned that I was supposed to be dieting. Either my friends are very diplomatic or they know I'm full of shit.

So I ate yesterday's salad. How God must have laughed when He decided to make alfalfa non-fattening. Felt forced to pick up a toasted ham and cheese croissant on my way home, simply to alleviate my misery. And annoy God.

Wednesday: Nobody told me it was Alison's birthday. She's part of my team, but located on another floor. She was delighted when I brought her a couple of Shingle Inn cakes to celebrate. So was everybody else. The passionfruit one is so my favourite. I love birthdays.

Thursday: Meetings all morning at our regional premises. The secretary out there is a smart cookie. She rejects the Arnott's Family Assorted and gets these proper heavy chewy chocolate biscuits from this Bavarian bakery. You know, with oats and golden syrup and macadamias and white chocolate bits. I've always liked her.

The meetings were a bit rough. In this place, if you walk on water people will tell you it's only because you don't know how to swim. We kept our wits about us; fairly challenging with those yummy biscuits on the table.


But we really needed a spot of team bonding after that. The Boathouse restaurant at the Regatta Hotel wasn't too busy and had all its gas heaters working. Moroccan chicken skewers with an extra serve of peanut sauce, accompanied by a bottle or three of an Ingoldby Shiraz. It's a good thing that I'd thought this might happen. Which is why I didn't bother getting up ten minutes earlier this morning to make a salad and select a Weight Watchers meal.

Friday: Goodness me, is it Friday already? A ridiculous day to start a diet. Fluffed about at my desk for a while, then got on the net and looked up important things like memorable quotes from Sex and the City and recipes for chocolate cup cakes. And what's a Friday without a long lunch?

Saturday: Grocery shopping today. I don't know why I've written down that I need ten frozen Weight Watchers meals. There's still seven in my freezer ...

How can that be? I've been on a diet!

HAD TO SHARE THIS...

A real man is a woman's best friend.

He will never stand her up and never let her down. He will reassure her when she feels insecure and comfort her after a bad day.

He will inspire her to do things she never thought she could do; to live without fear and forget regret. He will enable her to express her deepest emotions and give in to her most intimate desires. He will make sure she always feels as though she's the most beautiful woman in the room and will enable her to be the most confident, sexy, seductive, and invincible.

No wait... sorry... I'm thinking of wine. Never mind.

I'M GOING TO THE LOO, LOO, LOO

When you have to visit a public toilet, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the cubicle doors. Every cubicle is occupied.

Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the cubicle. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants.

The dispenser for the modern 'seat covers' (invented by someone's Mum, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your bag on the door hook, if there was one, so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mum would turn over in her grave if you put it on the floor) with your pants and assume "The Stance".

In this position, your aging, toneless, thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd love to sit down, but having not taken time to wipe the seat or to lay toilet paper on it, you hold "The Stance".

To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser.

In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying, "Dear, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have known there was no toilet paper." Your thighs shake more.

You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your bag (the bag around your neck, that now you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do, so you crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work.

The door hits your bag, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest and you and your bag topple backward against the tank of the toilet.

"Occupied!" you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, while losing your footing altogether and sliding down directly onto the toilet seat. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late.

Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because you never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try.

You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, 'You just don't know what kind of diseases you could get.

By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl and spraying a fine mist of water that covers your bum and runs down your legs and into your shoes.

The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force and you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too.

At this point, you give up. You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a sweet wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

You can't figure out how to operate the taps with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting.

You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you needed it?)

You yank the paper from your shoe, plonk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this".

As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men's toilet. Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long. And why is your bag hanging around your neck?"

This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with any public toilets. It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other commonly asked question about why women go to the toilets in pairs. It's so the other girl can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you Kleenex under the door.

I'M LOSING MY MIND

I'm losing my mind. But that's ok. Because everything I need to know is on the internet.

Here's how I know. Take last Saturday. I woke up, I stripped the bed in readiness to wash the sheets.

I took the sheets to the laundry and on my way back, I saw the Saturday papers on the front driveway. It always delights me that someone has a good heart and a robust spirit to rise at midnight, wrap newspapers in clingfilm and drive around my suburb chucking them out a car window.

I'll get back to the laundry load, I think, just after I read the front page.

Walking back pick up the papers, I see that no one bothered to collect yesterday's mail. I open the letterbox and see the Ikea catalogue. I walk over to the outdoor setting and sit down to make plans for the Swedish-inspired minimalist lifestyle I aspire to.

As I open the catalogue, another letter falls out. It's from the gas company. I open it up, and notice that it is marked 'overdue'. Oh shit.

I get up from the outdoor table and head straight upstairs to the computer to log onto the internet to pay the gas bill. But when the internet starts up, it takes me straight to a news site and I start reading how three to four drinks a day can ruin your eyesight.

I panic and google optometrists in an attempt to make a booking for Monday to have my eyes checked. I wanted to write their number down and when looking for a pen, I noticed that there were two wine glasses on a book shelf in the hallway. How on earth did they end up on the book shelf, and not in the dishwasher?

I tried to remember what happened last night and then it struck me. I had been taking them to the kitchen, but had realised my bladder was doing an herculean effort to not burst its dam. So I dumped the glasses on the nearest flat surface and went to pee and then forgot about them.

Being a Virgo, I knew unequivocally they could not remain there and scooped them up and raced to the dishwasher. Which was clean, but full. So I started to unpack it.

Holding my favourite tea cup in my hand, I realised I hadn't made a cup of tea yet, so filled the kettle with fresh water and turned it on.

While waiting for it to boil, I looked out over the deck and noticed that the plants needed some water. I grabbed the watering can and began soaking the plants, admiring the blooming gardenias I had in matching tubs.

What a great idea, I suddenly thought - to cut a few and put them in shallow dishes around the house so the wonderful aroma that is characteristically gardenia would fill my home.

Back inside, I started looking for a pair of scissors when my cat swirls around my feet. Dear little thing, I think, patting her absently. She is probably looking for some food. I get her dry food from the top of the fridge, pick up her bowl, and notice it's still a bit dirty from her dinner the night before.

I head to the sink to give it a quick rinse when I notice steam rising out of the kettle and my longing for a cup of tea overtakes my desire to feed poor kitty cat.

I'm in the pantry getting out a tea bag when I notice the honey jar is sitting in a sticky puddle. I wet the dishcloth to clean up the mess before the ants do. Oh well, while I'm here, I may as well do a bit of tidying and rearranging of food items.

It is then that I discover a box of tea light candles that I hadn't been able to find. Oh goodie! I can replenish the candles I keep on the dining room table. I walk to the dining room and find the remote control sitting forlornly on its walnut table top.

Not even bothering to wonder how it got there, I pick it up and take it to the living room to return it to its rightful place. Mmm, may as well see what's on TV while I'm here, don't you think?

Foxtel is playing Bridget Jones's Diary. Even though I own the DVD for both BJD one and two plus the books, I sit down to watch our favourite single gal (it used to be Carrie Bradshaw but she up and married Big!) run the gauntlet.

Halfway through I remember that a single gal-pal of mine went out with her new bloke last night and give her a call to see how it went. We chat for a while and agree to meet up for a quick lunch to dissect details and analyse the text message he sent her this morning (it read: Hi baby, had a great time last night, looking forward to seeing you again x).

Did he call her baby because he couldn't remember her name? Or was he simply being affectionate? Did he only want to see her again because she didn't sleep with him or is he really into her? Is a single kiss enough or should he have put two or three?

Home from lunch, I think a nice lie down for an hour is on the cards.

I walk into my bedroom and stare blankly at a bare mattress.

Where the hell are my sheets???

And then it all comes back to me: the sheets are sitting in a messy pile on the floor next to the washing machine. I have a gas bill that is overdue and still unpaid. My cat is hungry. The Ikea catalogue is still outside on the table. The dishwasher needs to be unpacked.

And I have officially lost my mind.

Whatever makes me tick obviously needs winding. Sure, I can soar like an eagle, but I have a lot of trouble with the landing.

And I still haven't had a cup of tea.

POP PSYCHOLOGY

Anyone who reckons that kids say the darndest things hasn't had a conversation with my father.

You know that saying "dad jokes"? Those irritating, repetitive comments made by fathers globally that are marked by two distinct features. They are not funny and they become less funny the more they are repeated.

Here's an example. You give dad a bottle of wine for Christmas and he shakes it saying, "I know, I know! It's a book!"

He looks at the roast that mum has just pulled out of the oven, casts a glance at the kids, picks the serving plate up and says, "I'm not sure what you lot are eating for dinner, but here's mine."

My dad is one of those dads. He indisputably believes he is funny. He has this repertoire of jokes which he has been repeating with appalling regularity.

Take Christmas Day lunch. My mother painstakingly bakes this plum pudding then goes about shoving all manner of imperial coinage into its centre. The task being that as we eat, we chorus over who scored a shilling and who got a sixpence. (Go figure.)

Not so for dad. He's eating away, aware that nobody is paying him the slightest bit of notice, when he starts this phoney coughing routine. After a few good snorts and the satisfaction of having grabbed everyone's attention, he makes a big production of pulling money from his mouth - except it's a $20 note not a 20 pence coin that he's carefully hidden in his hand.

He brought new meaning to Norman Lindsay's "The Magic Pudding". The wrong meaning.

It is interesting to note that as higher denominations were introduced by the government, so dad introduced them to us at the Christmas table. When the $100 note hit mainstream currency, we knew we only had to wait till Christmas to see it

We've also been through Bankcard, Mastercard, Visa, Platinum Amex, Diners, Medicare, Qantas Club, Fly Buys and more recently, the Seniors Card, all apparently excavated from dad's pudding. Along the way was a DJs card, Myer card, Harvey Norman card - exactly how many credit cards does my father have?

Every time we go over a speed bump in the car he hollers "oh, there go my false teeth". Every time we drive past a cemetery he comments "people are dying to get in there".

Once we were driving down a street like quite normal people when he pulled up suddenly. "What's the matter dad?" I foolishly asked. "There's an ant crossing."

Dads are biological necessities but social accidents. They're always getting excited about something. When I moved into my first flat (yes, it was a flat, not a townhouse, not an apartment, not a unit - but I was poor) I did the right thing and had mum and dad over for dinner.

Excited or what! He rang me every morning for a week to tell me that he was bringing my favourite bottle of bubbles (tragically, at the age of 19 it was Asti Riccadonna, don't hate me). He rang every afternoon for a week to tell me mum was making a lasagne to bring (tragically, at the age of 19, I couldn't cook and mum had to supply the food, don't hate me).

It's only dinner dad, I would placate, not an audience with Oprah.

Dads are also very good at being protective of their daughters. Sons don't bother them so much.

At the tender age of 16, my brother did not come home for two nights following a win in his soccer grand final. Now, this is 1979 in the Pre-Mobile Phone Era. Was dad worried?

But when I went to my school dances, dad would unashamedly walk into the hall 15 minutes before finishing time and come looking for me. Once, I was doing something naughty like having a fag in the loo or pashing a boy under a table, and heard my dad's voice over the speaker, "Bronwyn, this is your father, come home with me now please."

I would rather have been at work and heard Osama bin Laden's voice on the PA system saying, "This is your building security manager speaking."

Dads have patience. In the swimming pool, my father would stand astride about two metres from the pool edge for seemingly hours, so his three children in military order could dive in and swim between his legs.

I tried it once with my daughter when she was about six. I grew bored by the third dive even though I was holding my wine, and had to get her father to relieve me. Of course, as he was a dad, he was fittingly capable of remaining in that position all afternoon or until our young princess grew weary - whichever came first.

In my defence, I brought him a beer and the cricket score.

They also have a touch of Captain Obvious. One time dad rang me when I was in my doctor's waiting room. After telling him where I was he replied "so are you waiting to see the doctor?" Or when I hand him a cup of tea he says "is that for me?"

"No dad, it's for the guy next door. He sells vacuum cleaners for a living, listens to AM and is completely hairless but I'm attracted to him.

"Of course it's bloody well for you! "

Save the earth. Not only is it the only planet with chocolate, it's the only planet with dads.

Love you dad xxx