Don't give up your day job

So it has been many moons since my last post, the more traumatic things are around Crap HQ, the less possible it is for me to bitch about how idiotic the inmates here are. And there sure have been incidents aplenty around these parts, let me tell you. The Nazgul continues to both perplex and torture, her current pastimes are limited to a) insisting that she IS rockabilly icon Imelda May which involves studying this YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhogVvwbwkw&ob=av2e  repeatedly to mimic Ms May's mic technique all while insisting, at age 2, that she wear red lipstick. When prevented from using the PC for this purpose, it just insists on the song being played over and over and over until a piece of me dies (given her poor language skills her requests just involve shouting BOOM BOOM into my face...a lot) b) Randomly shouting ME A BOY, it appears she has some KPI to hit 1200 false gender assertions a day; and c) only eating food from the plate pictured below, this may seem comparatively mild but rest assured the horror that goes along with this cannot be underestimated:

Rainman continues his campaign of special idiocy and recent highlights on this trail include*: having to be told to stop repeatedly walking into a locked turn style; having to be reminded to walk through an open door; and subjecting his mother to a 20 min descent into hell, trying to ascertain whether he did indeed produce the painting she purchased from his school in a fundraising capacity (this non-stop joy ride included him initially claiming to have done none of it despite his photo appearing in 3 separate places on the "artwork", then claiming he had done a small portion, then moving on to an intricate conspiracy theory that involved him having done parts of it but it largely being doctored for some reason only known to himself. It eventually degenerated into him sulking and refusing to look at me while I fruitlessly shouted "Did you draw anything on this page?" over and over, as on-lookers stared and tutted...turned out he did it in its entirety and forgot). And My First Husband...well that is another post and many many years of therapy.

I like to think that the reaction people have to witnessing my housekeeping is "don't give up your day job", mainly because it would tie in so nicely with this post and provide a realistic anchor to the title, and don't get me wrong, I do like to think this, but in reality very few venture into my household and those who do are more likely to be scanning for exits rather than concocting pithy internal dialogue centred around me.  And this fact in itself is a blessing, it would be terribly awkward for the pondering guest to discover, that in amid the turmoil, my day job gave me up. Ahh yes, in a surreal twist of fate a project I do not work on lost its funding so I lost my job and may have been involved in one of the most bizarre sacking interviews post-industrialisation.

I had an idea of what was coming for a few days prior, and instead spending the morning before The Meeting either trying to come up with justifications on why I was indispensable, or uncovering budget adjustments that could be made to avoid the need for this sacking, I threw myself wholeheartedly into coming up with disconcerting responses to the news that my employment would cease, front runners were deadpanning "I don't accept" and then just carrying on the conversation,  narrating the whole scene as if in a very poorly written novel ("The Crap Housewife looked out the window, fighting back tears, she choked out "I understand" knowing this would mean going back on the game after battling so hard to get off that corner...actually awesome Blogstress Field of Dreams came up with a hilarious narrative that I must dig out). In the end My First Husband struck on the winner: - Keeping with the general incompetence theme of my life, every time I have chewing gum I bite the inside of my cheek, having done this moments before scheduled meeting with such gusto that there was blood inside my mouth and I mentioned this to My First Husband in a text conversation where he recommended that as soon as I was told letting the blood dribble from my mouth, begin screaming and then run out of the room reminiscent of the legendary sacking scene in Fight Club (I was going to put a link to this scene but then realised if you don't know Fight Club, then you can fuck right off, you ain't no friend of mine and this includes my remaining grandparent). I was worried that walking in giggling, gittering from my anxiety relieving tactic of excessive coffee drinking, with a mouthful of blood might be slightly off-putting for my superiors imagine my relief at the scene that unfolded where I emerged as the most stable person in the room. Yes, they will write songs about that day.

If you, for argument's sake, were awarded the Order of Australia for services to psychiatry would you think the best icebreaker for the firing of a long serving employee would be not only to open with the recent death of their sister but to say (and I swear this is a direct quote, absolutely no embellishment, hyperbole or surgical enhancement) "So are you and your family over...the...ummm....tragedy?". I kind of sat there shaking my head as this response went through my head "Oh you mean watching the person I felt closest to on the planet die in front of me less than 2 months ago, yeah a bit of time's passed so it's fucking hilarious now. Its not like I cry until I vomit, or that the world makes little sense to me because for the first time in my memory I have to live in a reality without her in it, or I try to text her when something funny happens or go to buy her gifts or anything. My parents on the other hand, shit they are milking it, sure they also watched her die and buried their youngest and best child (to my brother: dude we both know even dead she is better than us at most stuff, shit she was even my favourite child) when their friends with children the same age are welcoming new grandchildren...you know its been a couple of weeks so really...". After this silence I said gravely and very slowly, as if I were addressing a special needs child who was holding scissors and a kitten "Do you mean my sister dying, then no, not even close, its very very recent". Now given the response, the tone of delivery and the fact that the messenger was really working at fighting back tears, do you think said psychiatrist might stop this unique and 'gifted' softening up before some bad news...you guessed it folks he thought now he might ask some medical questions, say useful things like "she was sick for a long time wasn't she" (see because that makes it alright, if she was running a triathlon and was hit by a truck, now that would be sad). And so it continued in this vein but by this stage I had retreated to my happy place (where John Farnham's "You're the Voice" is national anthem and I am queen of all I survey) then he claps his hands together in a "enough of this revelry" fashion and says "Well as you know xxxx didn't get funding, so we have to make some budget cuts to carry the research on at 50% capacity for 12 months, well we maybe, might have to let you go". I have to confess I did laugh and had to help him out by saying "There really aren't grey areas here, I am taking this to say that due to budgeting constraints you are not renewing my contract?". After he responded that yes, this is what he had intended the meeting moved on to me providing industrial relations advice on the non-renewal of contracts whilst staff are on maternity leave. At the conclusion I walked out somewhat bewildered and my immediate supervisor burst into tears (I really had misjudged the situation since I thought that was my role in the proceedings).

At least now I am free to pursue my dream of becoming a Henry Winkler impersonator. And from what I can tell that mainly involves sitting around unemployed thinking about the good old days when we all just assumed Ron Howard was your ordinary, run-of-the-mill twat (never knowing that beneath that goofy ginge surface lurked the future maniacal overlord of the film industry)...and hell, I was thinking of doing that anyway, so as the saying goes all's well that ends well (even if there is a body count, unemployment, a socially delayed psychiatrist and 3 foot tall deranged idiots thrown in the mix).


*NB: Please be aware that the events depicted here took place within one afternoon, and resulted in subsequent hair loss, nausea, dizziness and predictions of impending doom.

***Please note, this is not the original version of this post. Courtesy of RainMan sitting behind me chanting "Type, type, type" as I tried to add a comma (don't know what was wrong with me, as anyone who has read this knows, I believe grammar and punctuation are for the weak), I ended up deleting the actual interview description, which was awesome, it would have made you laugh, cry and wank yourself blind. Unfortuantely since I neither plan nor think about what I say/write or do, it is irreplacable. I apologise if the current description feels like wearing 2nd hand undies but well it kinda is. xxxx CH***

A day in the Life: Wednesday 26th October

The Nazgul has swapped pushing my buttons for violently headbutting them since she woke up this morning. She has varied her activities from throwing sequins and pipe cleaners in the toilet, to subjecting me to long screaming fits of "No Mum, Daddy. Daddy come, Daddy come", attempting to leave home and go to daycare, refusing to wear clothes and a long list of other things my brain has simply repressed. So, for some reason that may one day be discovered by a dedicated team of psychiatrists, I decided I would wear her on my back to collect RainMan from school.
I don't drive, and public transport is rarely kind to us, I am quite often bullied by elderly passengers or denied entry by drivers, and yet nothing could prepare me for what was to follow. I got on the bus and after the driver aggressively pulled away from the bus stop knocking me off balance I realised the only vacant seat was next to what can only be described as a "fat mental", now I am notoriously weak stomached and am particularly nauseated by the unwashed so I was already descending through the layers of hell as I was squished there. The Nazgul decided, at this point, she objected to this gentleman and all he stood for and began attacking him with a frisbee (which she bizarrely insisted on bringing) shouting "NO TOES", repeatedly.
After this I developed the belief that the return trip would be incident free, again this is something that warrants robust psychiatric investigations. The Nazgul had abandoned the frisbee to free up both hands to remove the maximum amount of hair from my head, while shrieking her mantra of "NO TOES". She quickly graduated from this to attempting to forcibly remove my earrings, the resulting shriek from me managed to alert the entire bus to my plight, unfortunately my fellow passengers were not as sympathetic as one might expect. The fact that I proceeded to take my earrings out so enraged the Nazgul that it rammed its finger into my ear and pulled back with all its strength swapping her battle cry to "TWO EARS", I was oblivious to the fact the bus had stopped until passengers started cramming on and one (who mercifully did not look in my direction) was an ex-boyfriend. Now, I have been with My First Husband for over a decade but I still like to imagine any previous pastimes (aka exes) as sitting in a darkened room Miss Havisham style, perhaps rocking and lamenting the day they lost me. To see them walking about apparently unscathed by the events of the late 1990's is bad enough, but to be faced with the prospect of them seeing you, when you are not wearing flattering and stylish evening wear with perfect hair and make up so perfectly applied you look younger than you did then, is too much to bear. Thanks to a morning of repeated assaults by someone slightly taller than a garden gnome, I had actually abandoned my "stain threshold" and was wearing jeans smeared with some substances best not to think to much on, was completely sans make-up which highlighted the wonderful crop of pimples I am cultivating on my chin and my hair, of course, had been styled by the Nazgul only moments earlier. Apparently my blood shot eyes and dull stare complete the grief chic look I have been sporting of late. I remedied this by looking in the other direction (who says I know nothing of strategy). RainMan who was standing in front of me decided saying in his most petulant voice, at volume "Why do you keep looking at me? Stoooooppp iiiiit" while the Nazgul kept just screeching and then chewing on the seat rests. Somehow I doubt he was regretting blowing his chances with me.
When we did finally get off the endless, can only look in one direction, bus journey, RainMan started obsessively fiddling with his watch getting visibly frustrated as The Nazgul just shouted repeatedly "My Daddy, NO MUM. My Daddy". After repeated warnings over the next ten mins (with the Mum is shit/I want my Dad soundtrack provided by The Nazgul the entire time), I ended up confiscating the offending watch and restrained myself from grabbing him by the shoulders and screaming "QANTAS NEVER CRASHED" into his face. He spent the entire trip home crying and giving me death stares and I removed the Nazgul from my back because I just couldn't cope with further hair loss. As I was sending increasingly desperate pleas for help to My First Husband, The Nazgul realised she had forgotten to step in any dog shit so remedied this by running back to a large piece she had spied on the foot path, stomping on it and then laughing, pointing at her bum and saying "pooh".
Now, I recently read a journalist commenting on the proliferation of motherhood blogs about and labelled them as either "living on one wage tips" or "bad mummy confessionals", I think over the progression of this blog it is pretty clear this is not a bad mummy confessional, the problem is clearly THEM rather than me. I am a great mummy, they are just too fucked up to notice.

A Day in the Life: Tuesday 20th September

Ahhh, Music Class Day, and day where the Nazgul pushes my awesome parenting into uncharted territory (RainMan has reserved Wednesdays aka Swimming Day as his very special, how much can I make Mum weep day of the week). Things were going a little too well as I tried to get ready to take her, she had eaten some breakfast and let My First Husband dress her without any evidence of the usual psychosis (e.g.the latest one is, she loved a shirt I bought her recently until I convinced her the picture was of a dog not a cat as she believed, now when she realises that is the shirt she has on she shrieks and tries to rip it off her the same one someone would if their shirt was aflame). And I had even been to the toilet without her attempting to stab me with some sort of writing implement. They only hiccup was RainMan chanting "Mum looks mental, Mum looks mental" then when I told him to shut his cake hole, he said "I am going to put up a sign in minecraft that says My Mum looks completely mental"...like he is ever going to be allowed to use the PC again.

The offensive non-cat T-shirt

Both my children have a gift, that they can sense when I am trying to apply mascara and they unleash a shit storm. While we were saying bye to RainMan and My First Husband as they left for the day (we are old school so RainMan walks to school with his Dad, it is close to 4ks) I saw that what I had referred to in my mind as "independent play" was actually the Nazgul spitting inside my shoes that were on the floor. Shortly after they left she unleashed the 1st barrage, she lay in wait until the mascara wand was poised to cause the most damage to my cornea and then threw a massive paddle brush onto my toes shouting "Ohhhh Noooo" and pissing herself laughing as I rolled around swearing and sweating until the pain subsided enough for me to assess the damage to my toes and then allow the wave of pain from my maybeline stabbed eye to drown me for a time.
When I had been through my self administered triage and suitably recovered to attempt make up application again, she was careful to bide her time until the mascara wand was back in position and then flung herself off the ground and onto my legs and began twisting, moaning "Mmmmuuuummm, Mmmmuuuummm" when this didn't elicit the hoped for occular injury she reverted to her old favourite of taking a run up and ramming her dolls pram into my shins shouting "No Bubba, Nooo Buubbba, No Bubba" (English translation: I no longer wish to play with my doll and yet for some reason rather than walk away, I keep going. This irritates me somewhat and therefore my Mother shall suffer the consequences). I have to say my new look probably fits in with RainMan's earlier assessment, although I call it "Relentlessly abused by an unbalanced toddler chic".
After much struggle I bribed her with cheese to sit in the pram and we were off. It is fortuitous that I leave my ipod at home when out with the Nazgul, had I had it in I would have missed the soundtrack she provided of "Daaa-iiiieee, My Daaa-iiieee" (English Translation: Daddy, My Daddy) over and over and over until I think some blood came out of my ear. Luckily we ran into My First Husband on the way and following the encounter she added crying to the I want my Dad, you are shit symphony.
This was coupled with the permanent sense of absence that has joined my life since my sister left for Valhalla, so imagine my glee when approaching the hall for music class there was a lone council worker, resplendent in his fluro orange vest belting out, tv talent show style, John Farnham's "You're the Voice". I don't think I have ever seen anyone let rip on the roadside like this guy, with his eyes closed and arms flung wide...I could hear him as I walked down the road with squinty eyes, damaged toes and a mangled heart, and I couldn't help but think "Well things aren't that bad after all".

 Post Script: Since writing the above I have had to take the Nazgul out in extreme wind to pick up RainMan from school. He is in fine form today, as the Nazgul was crying for her father after a massive gust blew grit into her eyes, I am pushing the pram and trying to calm her, he decides it is the opportune moment to shove a mangled pipe cleaner ridiculously close to my face and say "What animal is this Mum?", to which I replied "It's a pipe cleaner not an animal" then through a bizarre combination of elimination and intense frustration we determined he had 'sculpted' it into a flamingo. 30 secs later we rounded the corner where I was disturbed to see a gentleman driving at high speed backwards while smoking cigarillo and scowling, when RainMan saw fit to thrust the abomination into my face again and say "What's this again?" So I said "a flamingo" to which he replied "no no not that",  Ahh a pipe cleaner Rainman, its a pipe cleaner and a yet another piece of my brain died for my own protection. Shortly after we were waiting to cross at an incredibly busy T intersection when RainMan unexpectedly shouts "Now, you can cross NOW",  I instinctively yelled "RAINMAN SHUT UP". Once across the road he said narkily "Well I just didn't see that car" oblivious to the fact there were FIVE at least. And now seeing him run past frantically holding the front of his trousers, I am certain I am in for one of those afternoons.

Grief V's The Toddler.

Well I have been kind of quiet in cyber space, and I guess in general. My beautiful sister and greatest fan died a week and a bit ago and everything I try to say since comes out kind of weird and wrong, the massive dangling snot from my nose when I sobbed my way through trying to read something at her funeral is a prime example of this. Many people came up to me afterwards and said I was "brave" for my attempt, who knew public boogey mishaps could be inspiring.
Like most things, not even the proximity to death could slow the Nazgul down. While on the whole she was tame, by her standards, she does get an honourable mention for unbridled mentalness during a difficult time. Sitting by my sister's death bed I was pouring my heart out, thanking her for introducing me to my husband and whispering many secrets and truths that are only for her and I. As a kissed her and stroked her forehead I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see the Nazgul repeatedly stabbing a banana with my keys, Charles Manson style. Now as a Sydney-sider bananas are to us what cows are to the Hindu, so I was absolutely gutted to see my angelic looking daughter going helter skelter on the precious fruit. Which she subsequently peeled, attempted to eat but rejected due the the texture.
Obviously, things were pretty strange for the Nazgul after her Aunty died and she had an amazing coping mechanism of re-enacting scenes from Riddley Scott's Alien and attaching herself to my face all night and refusing to sleep. It reached a peak one night where while attached to my face her affection tipped over into insanity and she began kissing my face, graduated into repeatedly biting my face, then bit and sucked on my lip resulting in some quite spectacular bruising and teeth marks. I have to admit that at 3am a crazed toddler gnawing at your face can make you more than a tad frightened.
When the family was discussing the funeral arrangements with the undertaker I was quite pleased that the Nazgul was amusing herself quietly, just muttering "Bubble, bubble, bubble" to herself. She had very calmly covered the floor, herself and many of my sisters books in an entire bottle of bubble mix.  While highly annoying and slippery, it did highlight the fact that after spending over a week away from Rainman and My First Husband her speech improved dramatically. Turns out she could talk after all, just couldn't get a word in edge ways.

Big in Japan

It is time to face facts, even for a toddler, the Nazgul is just plain weird. Around Crap Headquarters we are pretty used to some of her more interesting behaviours and don't really blink when a new one crops up, after all we are usually busy wondering why Rainman is biting his own shoes or trying to black out the last 3hr soliloquy on Pokemon. This week she has been ill and has developed a penchant for carrying around, what can only be described as "security cheese", this is a small piece of cheese that she has no intention of eating but is comforted by carrying it around until it has bred enough bacteria to ensure intestinal damage, and then attempting to force feed it to me.
We have become accustomed to the fact that the Nazgul prefers to communicate largely in sound effects and a series of intricate hand gestures that are bordering on interpretive dance. But ultimately we are reliant on The Screech (from which springs the inspiration for the moniker "The Nazgul") and our ability to interpret it's varying pitch in order to understand what the Nazgul wants. I actually didn't think she was "that bad" (My first husband and I now have the catch cry of "well at least she is not as bad as Rainman was at this age") until today, while I was talking to a friend (and proud owner of 3 small psychopaths of her own) The Nazgul didn't get it's own way and therefore subjected me to the shriek, my friend thought it was so hilarious that she asked me to video it and that's when it hit me...no, not all kids do this, just ones I have sculpted (I should had a few clues that perhaps we were breeding something rather special here,  when we went to a sleep centre when the Nazgul was 10 months old, and the nurses who had spent 40+ yrs in the industry heard her down the corridor and said "What the hell is that").
So onto today where I managed to hit a new parenting milestone. The Nazgul was particularly displeased with having to wear trousers to pick up Rainman from school, we had already had a WWE style wrestling session trying to get them on her and I was walking down the street pushing a pram containing a convulsing, shrieking little wreck who was pulling her shoes and socks off (she lists hurling shoes onto busy roads as one of her hobbies) when a group of Asian women were startled by the sight, or more accurately - the sound, of us. One actually made movements to cross the road with the same look on her face as if there were a pack of demented wolves roving the neighbourhood but then had a better idea,  she stayed and one of her friends filmed the tantrum. Yes, bask in my awesome parenting, my kids are now so badly behaved members of the general public video their antics. When I told My First Husband about the incident, he just said "Did you tell them to fuck off*?" in such a way that I suspect he had seen this coming.
So hold on for the next youtube sensation "Dangerously unhinged white baby"

*Please note, this is a pretty standard response from My First Husband, who one day announced "You know a stranger is just someone I haven't told to fuck off yet"

Danger Words

This morning as the Nazgul force fed me a grape of indeterminable vintage, I got to thinking about how being alerted to imminent danger has changed. In the past, the warning of potential hazards and unsafe situations was pretty standard "Fire", "Run" and "Last Drinks" being the most notable. While the word gravity is now positively sinister, it is more of a slow creep than one that immediately freezes the bowels and makes legs twitch.

It has become accepted around Crap Headquarters that the word "igh-ees" (rough English translation: eyes), is usually immediately followed by a sharp poke in the eye and corneas scratched by sharp, dirty little fingernails and shrieks of delight from the Nazgul. In a similar vein, hearing the mutterings of "busybee, busybee, biz biz, busybee" is pretty much a sign to head for the fallout shelter, it is the signal that the Nazgul is rampaging through the house destroying then coating the debris in sunscreen or moisturizer. Recently I was trying to send a text message when I heard the dreaded mutterings to look up and see the Busy Bee sculling soy milk (football hooligan style) while attempting to key the glass doors. Busy Bee also has a penchant for throwing things into the bath (particularly electrical goods), putting popcorn in the toilet and ramming herself into the protective barriers we have placed around everything until she can get close enough to the TV to attempt to key that. I am not sure where she got the idea that a Bee is a vandalising serial killer but it has caused me to add one of those suits that police dog trainers wear to my birthday wish list.

The Busy Bee is not the Nazgul's only alter-ego. We often have prolonged assaults from "The Little Cat", who plays the sociopath to the busy bees psychopathology. The warning bell for the appearance of the Little Cat, is the Nazgul crawling up to you on all fours going "Ahhh Ahhh", then crash tackling you in a head butting frenzy of over enthusiastic kisses, cuddles and general unbalanced love, the Nazgul cuts an elegant figure with the body shape of a front row forward so this little game always ends with a shriek and an agonised "GENTLE, WE DON'T HURT MUMMY". Unfortunately, the main characteristic of the little cat is that is doesn't heed any advice, instruction or pleas for mercy. In the past fortnight alone, she has attempted to decapitate me with the broom on three occasions, attempted to tear my earrings from my ears daily and I suspect has caused life long damage to my septum with the kisses.

The reinterpretation of danger words is not the Nazgul's doing alone, Rainman has the superhuman ability to make a noise that can instantly induce rage in the listener. I am sure some sinister military agency will one day synthesise this sound to play at enemy insurgents - a modern version of the fabled 'brown note". This noise is usually an indication that you will turn around to find Rainman punching his own shoes, pulling at chunks of his hair or biting his own trousers leaving you on the verge of the parenting faux pas of screaming "What the fuck is wrong with your brain?". This is not the most dangerous or most psychically damaging of Rain Man's sounds, as soon as he utters the words "Pokemon", "Munchkin" (some overly complicated imaginary game he plays with his friends) or spies, you know that you are in for a 3-4 hr monologue which eventually degenerates into a nonsensical diatribe or argument (recently he claimed he had already completed some spy training as he had medical knowledge and went into a rant about 'clerics' and healing, when I gently mentioned he was talking about something made up from a role playing game, he had a fit that he was talking about the real world not a game and became so frustrated he was almost frothing at the mouth).


Similarly, I am alerted to danger from My First Husband when he says "Hi, I am home", but that is another post entirely.....

***The Crap Housewife would like to apologise for the delay in posting, she has been under constant terrorist attack in the form of an imaginary bee and kitten and has not emerged unscathed from the encounters. However she makes no apologies for the spelling and grammatical errors, she just can't be arsed***

Best served very cold.

Well as it is generally known amongst my friends and arresting officers my mantra is "Any day without a stabbing incident is a win", which at first people laugh at but then they meet my family and the "unattainable goals" conversation invariably follows, it is with this in mind I think of my poor friend stuck crying in the bathroom while one demonically possessed child calls her a "meanie pig" and the other just destroys beloved possessions. While I am forever grateful for the phrase "meanie pig" (which incidentally I may use on the employee appraisal section of my next performance review), I also have some advice for my friend whose only crime was the desire to shit unobserved...There's is absolutely nothing wrong with planning revenge on your children.
It was an idea that my first husband and I developed when Rain Man was a toddler, neither of us believe in hitting children and after Rain Man had rampaged through the house and subjected us to many prolonged hours of SAS style torture (this kid was born knowing to go for soft tissue areas), My first husband turned to me and said "On his 18th Birthday I am going to jump out of a wardrobe or something and beat the crap out of him...of course I'll be old and he'll be in his prime so I'll leg it afterwards but it'll be worth it" and with that statement a bit more magic entered this jaded old world.
I call it my Revenge Diary, but while I may forget social niceties and to cook food before serving, all my tactics are so firmly etched in my mind that I have no need to write them down. I look forward to my son nervous before his first date, and when I go to kiss him good bye and lean in, screw up my face, gag and say "Oh my god you have BIN breath", or the first meal he cooks for us when he moves out, so painstakingly prepared, which my first husband and I will claim has dirt in it, refuse to eat, up end the plate and throw a chair. We shall also phone him up in the early hours of the morning and scream for no explicable reason, unmake all the beds in his house and piss around his toilet rather into it. You may think this sounds a little uncharitable but these ideas have all been lifted directly from him.
Now he is older and his foul treatment of us isn't so easily translatable I have had to diversify my revenge portfolio a little, this year alone he has earned himself (to be delivered at age 15) when his friends come over me wearing a t-shirt of his favourite band (ill fitting of course) singing along and dancing, being the mum who tries so very hard to be cool, and of course my First Husband and I being extremely candid about our sex life.
So to my unit bound friend, grab an exercise book and a pen and plan on how you will get those little bastards back...

A Day in the Life: Tuesday 2nd May

Snapshot of Tuesday 2nd May:

The Nazgul was starting her first music class that morning, she was pretty subdued being a new situation and I even managed a few smiles (to and from) a couple of the other parents. Unfortunately I quickly established myself yet again as the parent who gets way too into it (plenty of woos and hair whipping dancing). Cue the loaded silence as I look up after a particularly enthusiastic song from me, to see all of the blonde, lycra-cladded, surgically enhanced Mums staring unblinkingly right at me. Luckily this being my 2nd child I am used to public humiliation. Unsurprisingly, there were no "how old is your daughter? Are you from around here? Have you been here before?" comments afterwards.

Then I was forced to do that weird jog thing that only big boobed woman can do, around the super market because My First Husband was/is having one of his mental fits and refusing to the drive car so we can't do the groceries (I can't drive). As a result I needed to get something that required no prep to give some Mums from school for lunch and then to arrive home before they got to my place with enough time to wipe the sweat from my brow, brush my hair, safely put The  Nazgul to bed and then practice smiling and murmuring “Oh no really it was no bother at all”. They arrived about 4 ½ mins after I did and came in very quietly so not to wake The Nazgul, however this unnecessary because she was in the middle of the kitchen, wearing a raincoat, stinking of shit, licking individual pieces of pasta and putting them back in container, while doing her infamous screech whenever bed, taking the raincoat off, nappy changes or stop licking that bloody pasta was mentioned. Fortunately for me the unaccustomed find the screech quite confronting so I did not feel the need to explain why I looked like Tim Minchin or offer any insight into the workings of The Nazgul.

CUT to trying to get into the house after school pick up where, Rain Man over excited by getting a book in the post, grabbed the mail off the pram knocking it backwards, which started The Nazgul screaming (who by the way was standing on porch tearing up my pap smear results) this sent Rain Man psycho. Of course they did this while I was putting in the alarm code, I stuffed up the numbers and set the alarm off which made the little mental patients scream even more. So there we stood in full view, with the alarm blaring, them screaming and me desperately hammering on the alarm keypad as my brain melted and I completely forgot how to shut it down.

40 mins later The Nazgul was still chucking fits over every single thing that happened, so being the model parent I am I retreated into facebook (to some beautiful souls who peer-pressured me into this blog) but it came at a price, putting ABC kids on the TV and allowing The Nazgul to coat me, herself and my brand new mohair/wool jumper, in zinc based sunscreen. Unfortunately what I forgot was that while I was doing this I had turned my back on Rain Man for an entire 10 mins, I had asked him to get out of his uniform. Obviously I was not specific enough because when I turned around he was getting extremely into Play School, while jumping like a deranged orangutan and thus grinding all the sultanas that The Nazgul had spread over the floor into the rug (I estimate based on the debris that it was 2 packets worth), still dressed in his uniform. Realizing my folly I rounded him up, made him get changed and start his home work. This prompted The Nazgul to decide that climbing onto a chair (now wearing a beanie with the tags still attached), dancing and singing (in baby language) to the Smiths was the way to deal with her brother's struggle with calm.

At this point I asked My First Husband via text to pick me up a bottle of wine. It was while I was pondering whether to knock myself up a nail polish remover and meths aperitif that I heard the beeps of a series of text messages hitting my phone. Due to The Nazgul's proximity to the phone and my reflexes being dulled by years of aperitif's, she intercepted the phone and proceeded to hold it in front of her shouting "HI YA", when the phone failed to give the appropriate response she stared at it, grinned, shouted "OOOPS" and threw it forcefully on the floor laughing as the back, battery and phone flew in different directions. By now Rain Man was bouncing on his seat, twitching and saying "Can you stop her screaming? It is starting to really annoy me" (thanks Son, I look forward to you having your own toddler and repeating this useful and inherently calming phrase back to you). When the phone was finally reassembled it immediately began ringing, imagine my unbridled delight as My First Husband frantically declared that he had had to leave the bottle shop because he went in to get the wine but there were all these bottles and it freaked him out. I guess I'll never know whether it was my diplomatic and charming response to this statement, the sound of The Nazgul and Rain Man in the background gearing up for a new and ingenious attempt to make me scream till blood came out of my ears or his deep-seeded (and completely unjustified) fear of me in all my shoe-throwing glory, but he had a change of heart, faced his newly acquired fear of bottles and the world was saved.

The Cast

The Crap Housewife: President and founding member of the Crap Housewives Association, extremely qualified in the role, Career highlights include - Stapling as a form of hemming, completely cooking all moisture out of a potato, and dubious parenting behaviours such as paying son $10 to leave her alone. Also as you will note in posts, is never, ever, ever in the wrong. Currently played by Christina Hendricks (Well I dye my hair red and have big boobs, and like anyone in cyber space is gonna know the difference).

My First Husband: Also current and only husband to the Crap Housewife.Could be termed a lovable eccentric but that would be a fucking lie, he is an acerbic mental case who is hell bent on driving the Housewife insane. They have been together for 10 years and he is yet to stop talking.

Rain Man: The first born of the Housewife and the Husband, so named because when things go wrong he has the tendency to over-react in the same way Dustin Hoffman over-acted in the crap 80's film Rain Man. At present Rain Man is seven years old and appears to have no short-term memory and yet can monologue about computer games for upwards of 3 hrs.

The Nazgul: The 19 Month old daughter of the Housewife and the Husband, so named because she can screech like a Tolkien creature whenever she is displeased, the housewife quite often checks the Nazgul's back to see if she is indeed carrying a ring-wraith.


Together this mentally unbalanced group form the basis for a bizarre daily sitcom that no one really gets but kind of likes because watching them makes everyone feel better about themselves. There maybe a snap-shot of the Crap Housewife's day every week or so, or maybe just the bitter ramblings of someone who just doesn't understand when to shut up.