Classic FM. Daycare. Misogyny.

Well, I'm in the swing of it now I think.  Bolstered by nice words from my rent-a-readership (ie my friends and relations), here is the next instalment of my scintillating blog.  M read it last night too, and found it to be not without its charms.  I found this gratifying because, as they say in the business, he's a tough audience.

Today was noteworthy for its encounters with grumpy old men who like to moan about women and mechanics who like to patronise them.

P woke up today on the grumpy side of the bed and I was only too happy to palm her off to her kindy teachers. Not even the calming and dulcet tones of our beloved Classic FM breakfast presenter Emma Ayres could soothe her savage breast this morning.

Australia's favourite cello teacher and Classic FM announcer.
Apart from Margaret "Throbbers" Throsby of course.

My uncle reckons that all the ladies in his bridge club hate Emma Ayres!  I find this inconceivable.  Anyone who has tired of Emma has tired of life, in my opinion.  Although, having said that, I do now remember that M is somewhat ambivalent towards her too.  Grounds for divorce, really.

At one point during her program, Emma played the theme from Schindler's List.  Rather inappropriately, it reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry and his girlfriend are making out in a cinema while Schindler's List is playing.  They get spotted by friends of Jerry's parents and hilarity ensues.  Speaking of Judaism,  did anyone notice the typo in yesterday's post?  Answers on my desk by 5pm.

This isn't from the right episode, but I just liked it.  Morty and Helen at their best.

Dropping P off to kindy set me to a-thinking about my looming return to work, and the dreaded day that I must drop Baby B off too.  3 months away.  B is a mummy's boy for sure and certain, and I have a niggling feeling the whole daycare thing won't go as smoothly for him as it did for P.  My guilt ridden thoughts naturally turned, as they often do when considering the childcare question, to that Leunig cartoon of the baby in the daycare centre.  You probably know which one I mean, but in case you don't, here it is again.  It was, um, a tad controversial.

Depressing.

Leunig's not my favourite. I find him smug and preachy.  Although, in a hilarious twist, I actually have a Leunig calendar hanging on the wall at the moment.    I am obviously a sucker for punishment.  It was free in the paper, what can I say?

Anyway, after kindy dropoff, Baby B and I went to the library.  After we did our library related business and returned to our lovely new car, we discovered it wouldn't start.  I know! I rang M, who rang the RACQ, and so Baby B and I waited outside the library under some shadecloth.  Naturally I was a little...how should I put it...irritated.

As we waited, an elderly gent, wearing trackies and reef sandals sat himself down next to us, a bookbag clutched in his gnarled fingers.

"Said 5 minutes, but of course it'll be 20", he complained to me.
"A taxi?" I asked.
"No, a woman", he clarified, adding in a confiding manner, "You know how unreliable they can be sometimes".

Not wishing to alarm him by alerting him to the fact that I, too, was a woman, I just nodded vaguely.

"Amazing really, if I'm late, ooh better watch out, but if she's late, well that's just fine," he wittered on at me.  "If I'm late, probably having it off with some woman, she says."

A highly unlikely scenario, I thought, but who am I to judge?  Stranger things have happened I suppose.  I blinked at him.

"That's the trouble today, no trust between people, no trust, you see," he concluded this dissertation with.

Yes old mate, I thought, yes, that's the problem. Mmmhmm. Yup.

Luckily, the RACQ truck turned up shortly after.

"Hello there!" I trilled to the two men, "I'm just so glad to see you!"

"Won't start for you, eh?" one of them said.  He was South African.  Imagine Tony Greig's voice.  He seemed like a trainee.  He tried the key and instantly noted it was the battery.

"Look, you've got the ceiling light on!  She's got the ceiling light on!" he gleefully pointed out to his colleague.  "You need to have it on "door", not on all the time.  She's had the ceiling light on, she needs to have it on "door", you know, in the middle!"

The other fellow, the boss,  bobbled his face in front of Baby B, saying, "What's mummy done, hey?  What's she done, what's mummy done?!"

"She's had the ceiling light on", the first man reiterated. "You have to have it on "door", not on all the time."

Naturally I was enraged by this misrepresentation, and wanted to shout, "You, sir, are a buffoon!" to him, or  at the very least haughtily ask "Don't you know who I am!?"  and so forth, but all I managed instead was to weakly protest "I never!".  I was confused, I'd never touched the damn light, and we'd only had the car a few weeks!  Then it occurred to me - a certain naughty 3 year old's favourite activity is roaming around the interior of the car, eluding my clutches while I scream obscenities at her.  The little minx.   "J'accuse!", I thought to myself, inwardly shaking my fist.  Well played, P, well played.

Anyway, long story short, they fixed it, leaving me with a long lecture about how you aren't supposed to have the ceiling light on all the time and to leave it on "door".  The South African trainee certainly got the lowdown today on how to be a true blue dinky die Aussie RACQ man, with a major in Patronising Female Drivers.  It's times like this I wish I was a woman in a powerful position where men wouldn't dare treat me with contempt, like being Prime Minister of Australia or something. Oh, hang on...