Essential Reading

Once, in an Ikea checkout queue, I stood behind a girl buying a coffee mug.

One coffee mug. Clearly, she didn’t get it. And by “it”, I mean the imperative to buy 35 things you don’t need. And obviously the one thing you do actually need. Which won’t be in stock.

But I digress.  One coffee mug just isn’t doing justice to the phenomenon of Ikea Insanity – a sickness that must surely be recognised by the medical fraternity soon.

Who hasn’t found the Ikea catalogue in the letterbox and skipped inside singing “Happy Days Are Here Again!”, made a coffee/tea/alcoholic beverage, instructed the kids to keep outside a 10 metre exclusion zone, and meticulously worked their way through The. Best. Catalogue. Ever.  Ok, that may just have been me.

Still. Who hasn’t walked into what we in Brisbane know as “Sweden of the South” (Ikea being located in a suburb south of the CBD) and not known the inexplicable but inevitable urge to buy

• storage boxes in a variety of sizes (hello, it’s Ikea. Obviously you’ll buy storage boxes)
• kitchen utensils (that you already own but that aren’t as pretty)
• cushions with Nordic prints embroidered onto them (because how good do they look in that display!)
• bags of straws (they’re Swedish so derr, they’re better)
• a selection of photo frames (because a wall of family photos in random frames is so now)
• a set of file trays (because that will get you started on setting up a home office)

The fact that you specifically journeyed to Ikea to buy an Expedit Shelving Unit is inconsequential.  You will need a Färgrik Mellan plate and set of Chosigt funnels every bit as much. Only you didn’t know it.

I felt like tapping One Mug Girl on the shoulder and asking her where the rest of her stuff was. Was she just barring a place in the checkout queue (which is a whole ‘nother issue…) waiting for her boyfriend to arrive with a trolley full of Galej tealight holders and a bulk load of Punktlig napkins (because they’re just so freaking cheap!). But no, it appeared she truly had just taken the two-hour (at least), one-way (and only one-way, people!) journey through the suburb-sized structure that is Ikea. For a mug. Amateur.

Ikea isn’t my only retail crack. I am the same with Officeworks, Kikki-K, Aldi, and chemists.  And I have the 23 different sizes of post-it notes, half a dozen stylish journals, a pantry full of German mini-meringues and animal crackers, and a drawer full of eyeliner and $1.99 nail polish to prove it.

Which retailers draw you in, cult-like?

There's appropriate, and then there's this...

So about a week ago I picked up my sister Kate from the airport on her return from a quick trip to Sydney.  (My family has a thing about picking up people from the airport. We have to do it. It’s a sickness. The Councillor doesn’t get it at all. He figures that’s why taxis and the AirTrain were invented.  We ignore him.)

Anyway, my sisters and I all like flying, and are pretty good travellers. This is largely to do with the fact that sitting on a plane is one of the few times when it is perfectly acceptable to read Who Magazine and drink Diet Coke without feeling as though we should be doing the ironing (me) or writing a best-seller (Kate).  So I was surprised to find that Kate was a stabby ball of crankiness when I retrieved her from the airport footpath.

I wasn’t surprised, however, to discover the cause of her stabbiness. Three words:

Carry on baggage.

Not Kate’s hand luggage.  Obviously. Because like every member of our family we take the rules of air travel very seriously, and she was only carrying a handbag and laptop satchel.

No, the reason for Kate’s crap demeanour was that every square centimetre of the overhead locker was occupied by green bags (of the recyclable grocery variety), enormous stripey bags (like those seen on Border Security being inspected by Customs Agent Brett) and a guitar.

This meant two things.  First, it was apparent that some of Kate’s fellow passengers were breaching the hand luggage guidelines clearly listed on the Jetstar website. Seriously, you could comfortably fit a small hatchback in one of those stripey bags. And unless someone has invented a fold-out guitar, there’s no way it could fit in that metal luggage measuring thingy at the departure gate.

And then there was the fact that Kate had to venture well beyond her row to find space in an overhead locker for her appropriately-sized satchel. By the time she was able to wedge her bag between a vast fake flower arrangement and a David Jones bag carrying what appeared to be a commercial-sized espresso machine, she was so far down the aisle she found herself fighting against the tide of incoming passengers to get back to seat 29A.

I’m totally with Kate on this one.  Seriously, what is it about “appropriate” that people don’t get?

NOT carry on baggage

Kate’s experience with inappropriate hand luggage got me thinking about other examples of “inappropriate”.

Cabin baggage isn’t the only issue on which levels of appropriateness are “fluid”. Remember when getting on a plane meant dressing up? At least a bit? At least wearing shoes? I know there’s no longer a whole lot of romance about air travel (the names “Virgin” and “Tiger” don’t help), but there was a time, not too long ago, when people put some thought into their travel wardrobe. I don’t necessarily mean stepping off a plane looking like the Queen on a state visit, but would it kill the travelling public to wear a nice ironed shirt? Maybe a stylish twinset? Think Michelle Obama.  And ok, my Dad and air travel are a aneurism-inducing combination, but he wouldn’t consider getting on a plane in less than chinos and a navy reefer jacket. I don’t think blokes necessarily need to wear a jacket, but if you’re going to wear a singlet, it should be worn as underwear. And by that I don’t mean “underwear as outerwear”. PUT A SHIRT ON. And doing it up would be awesome.

When flying, pretend you're on Air Force One

It’s not just air travel where I fear standards and appropriateness have gone into decline.

We went to the races two weeks ago. It was a huge deal, this particular race meeting. The Councillor and I were guests of the Brisbane Racing Club to see a horse called “Black Caviar” which was (and still is) considered the best racehorse in the world.

There were records broken all over the place that day.  It was the biggest crowd in the history of the Brisbane Racing Club; Black Caviar won her 13th race out of 13 starts (so my $10 bet paid $10.10 – I am the last of the big punters) and thousands of 19 and 20 year old girls managed to wear so few clothes I feared for their wellbeing. Also, The Councillor kept getting distracted.

Seriously, it was all I could do to stop myself from calling out to these girls “for the love of God, put on a cardigan!” or run up to them with the spare pair of Voodoo pantihose I keep in my handbag.

As my sister Janey would say “It’s the races, not a nightclub”.

No "Fashions on the Field" sashes for these girls

I shall finish this post with my personal favourite example of inappropriate behaviour.

The Councillor and I once went to the movies – it was the old days, before we had kids. Anyway, like regular people we bought a bucket of popcorn the size of a shopping trolley and a couple of soft drinks that should, by rights, last about 3 months. We chose our seats, got comfy, changed seats (what, you don’t do that?), got comfy again, put our phones on mute (see? appropriate) and settled down to watch the shorts. (Because – derr – we were there in plenty of time).

Suddenly and without warning – ‘COS WE WERE IN A FREAKING CINEMA – our sense of smell was assaulted by the unmistakable aroma of a vindaloo.  A VINDALOO!! And you know how a curry is always better a day or two after it’s been cooked? Well, this one had been cooked with love at least three days earlier. I am pretty sure they hadn’t used a store-bought curry paste either – there had definitely been a mortar and pestle involved. It was the type of thing that Gary and George would have knocked up on Friday night’s Masterclass with the contestants knocking each other off their stools for a taste.

Appropriate cinema snacks

Less appropriate cinema snacks

They had it all – rice, raita in a little container, and naan. The only thing they didn’t have were the stable tables. If you looked up “inappropriate” in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of this couple having their vindaloo picnic in the back row of Cinema 2 at the Manly Cinemas.

What have you seen that has set off your “inappropriate” radar?

If there’s one thing I like better than punctuation, it’s punctuality.

The Councillor and I regularly have the following conversation:

Councillor: “What time does (event/movie/dinner) start?”

Me: “7.00pm”.

Councillor: “So we’ll leave just after 7?”

Me: “Umm, no, it starts at 7, so we’ll leave about 6.45pm.”

Councillor “Nah, it’ll be fine if we get there by 7.30pm”.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

That’s what time is for, isn’t it? I mean, what is the purpose of time if it isn’t to provide a scheduling tool?

OK, I get that I may sound a little obsessive here. And I’ll admit that I probably take time and punctuality a little too seriously, but having said that, I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s so hard for people to be on time.

The concept of time should, by rights, make it so easy. You’re given a time – you get there at that time.  Men, of course, tend to get around this (in my experience) by using broad, sweeping windows like “Sunday afternoon” (i.e. we’ve been invited to a barbeque at the McDougall’s place on Sunday afternoon.)

Honestly. Is it lunchtime, after lunch, mid-afternoon, late afternoon or early evening?! I need specifics, because obviously I’ll be the one getting everyone/everything ready on the day. A lunch barbeque is a very different event to an early evening barbeque so giving me “the afternoon” as a point of reference is about as useful as a back pocket on a shirt.

As a sidebar, can I just say that men do seem to appreciate the importance of time as it relates to oh, watching the Bledisloe Cup on the teev. I’m just saying.

Where was I? Right, punctuality.

I will never get how doctors can be late for the first appointment of the day.

I don’t understand how the Telstra guy can be late for an 8.00am-12.00pm timeslot.

And for the life of me I don’t get how people miss flights. How does that happen? Now, I’ll admit my upbringing has something to do with my commitment to getting to the airport with plenty of time to spare. OK, usually hours. It’s my Dad’s fault. My father spent the best part of his career on an aeroplane, and to this day insists on getting to the airport with so much time to spare he could build his own plane between checking in and boarding.

I so love the fact that there is a whole TV programme about (warning: gross generalisation coming up) dopey bogans who missed their flights because, I dunno, they were in the newsagent buying magazines and Pringles. Like everyone else, I also buy flight supplies at the airport, but I use the time I’ve built in to my airport planning. I should point out that I also build in time to have a wee, time to have a coffee, time to have another wee, and time to sit wasting time on Twitter.

So here’s the thing. If, as part of a journey somewhere, you know you will need to cross say, a drawbridge (I’m looking at you, Manly & Peninsula people), and that bridge closes every hour so it can be raised to allow boats through, and you know that that results in a monumental traffic build-up on both sides, how is that you wouldn’t factor this into your trip planning?

By “trip planning” I don’t mean printing out a map and directions from Google Maps for every trip to the supermarket (as much as that kind of time management puts me in a happy place). I just mean have a bit of a think about what time you need to be at your destination,work back from there, but incorporate something like “geez, I’d better add an extra 10 minutes for the bloody bridge”.  See? Easy.

So let’s do an exercise.

You need to attend the Anzac Day Assembly at 11.00am at your son’s school (because in a moment of weakness you agreed to go).

That means you’ll need to be at school by 10.45am.  Yes you will.  Because you will need time to find a parking space and walk to the hall. You are not Samantha from Bewitched. You can’t magic yourself from the car to the hall.

It generally takes 20 minutes to get to school. Don’t be fooled by this. “Generally” never applies when you have to be somewhere. Never ever. Not ever. You should add, in this example, 10 minutes to allow for traffic. If you don’t, some dickhead will break down in a turning lane. Deadset.

Right, because all parents were asked to bring a plate for the post-ceremony morning tea, you will need to stop at the bakery to pick up a hummingbird cake. I’d be allowing 15 minutes for this, which might seem like a lot, but it’ll be peak hour at the bakery with everyone on their way home from the gym, so running into someone and being caught on the chat is likely to be unavoidable.

And what do you know? By working backwards, it turns out that you need to leave home at 10.00am, not 10.40am.

It’s genius, really. It’s as close to a foolproof system as you can get.

Now, before anyone fires off comments claiming to have no control over their tardiness, or that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things (excuse me while I have an aneurism), or that sometimes it’s unavoidable, let me say that I do actually believe that there is the odd occasion when being late is understandable and even acceptable.  Obstetricians are the only holders of the “I’m late and that’s OK” card, because let’s face it, if your obstetrician is out delivering a baby, he can be as late as he likes. Unless he’s supposed to be delivering my baby.

Two days ago I played squash – for the first time since 1997. I am an idiot.

I would have blogged about it yesterday, but I underestimated – wildly, as it turns out – my fitness level.  As a result, I spent yesterday moving like Robot from Lost in Space.  It’s especially hard to type with arms that no longer bend.

So anyway, my girlfriend Moira and I decided to bring ourselves out of squash retirement, and give it another whirl. It seemed a top idea at the time.

Back in the day – way, way back in the day, when we were in high school, Moira and I and a group of our friends spent every Friday night at the Juniors Night at Corinda Squash. Also, we could meet boys. (We went to quite a stitched up all-girls Catholic school, so we took any opportunity.)

Anyway, 30 years ago (gah!) squash was pretty popular, and not at all uncool. It wasn’t achingly hip (it wasn’t the Zumba of its day) but lots of people played it – business men, housewives, school kids – and there were squash courts everywhere.

As well as Friday night squash, we played junior fixtures, and – allow me toot my own horn – we were pretty good.  If I’m being honest, Moira and the others were truckloads better than me – they had been playing for a few more years than me – but I wasn’t far behind.

And I was waaaaaaaay better at squash than I was at tennis.  Still am. After playing squash, a tennis racquest feels so enormous you’re dead certain you’re going to topple over if you try to hit a volley.

Squash had many of the benefits of tennis without many of the disadvantages. It wasn’t weather dependent, it was cheaper, but most importantly, you got to wear cute racquet sport fashions.  Back in our heyday, it was all about the pleated skirt (also seen on netball courts at the time). Obviously, given our tender ages and hotness (truly we were), we didn’t think twice about wearing flippy little skirts and singlet tops. Hell, we barely needed to wear bras back then, we were so pert.

Things have changed. A bit.

First of all, where the hell are all the squash courts? They always seemed so omnipresent – ugly blonde brick buildings with a giant “Squash” painted on the front wall, and often with a massive squash racquet perched atop a pole at the entrance to the carpark.

In 2011, I found a total of 4 squash courts on Brisbane’s northside, only one of which opened before lunch because they weren’t busy enough. Honestly, mid-morning was peak hour at Corinda Squash. You had to book weeks in advance, and even then you had to work around fixtures.

But Moira and I only had a certain post-dropoff window to play so we schlepped to Club Coops at Carseldine for our 9.30am booking. Turns out we didn’t so much need to book. The once state-of-the-art glass courts at Coops (glass courts were way cooler than the ummm, not-glass ones…) were deserted – all six of them. Still, it meant that our sons (on holidays, they’d been dragged along with the promise of a movie afterwards) could faff about with their various devices without annoying any serious players. The boys were just pleased there wasn’t anyone else around to witness their mothers humiliate themselves.

As it turns out, we didn’t humiliate ourselves. Not straight away. That didn’t happen until, oh, 5 minutes into it. when we nearly passed out. Not before we high-fived each other for “still having it” – i.e. the ability the hit the ball – and pretty well as it happens.  We just needed a little lie down between each point.

To clarify - we looked nothing like this

And there are the fashions.

The only flippy skirt I’ve worn in recent memory was attached to the plus-sized but comfy bikini bottoms I wear in the privacy of my own pool. And obviously, this time around, there were major supportive undergarments involved.

Not realising we could have played naked, given the absence of any other players, we both chose to wear 3/4 leggings and polo shirts. The leggings were a crap idea. Wearing them helped me finally understand the difference between those “compression” skins and my Country Road leggings which might be flattering under a winter swing coat, but they hold bloody nothing in place.

Our undergarments were more supportive than this

After the match (and I use that term lightly ) we were far too shagged to even consider showering and changing, so we decided to embrace the “post-gym yummy-mummy look” and head to Westfield Chermside as we were. With deodorant on board.

By the time we deposited the boys at the movies, the endorphins had kicked in (even they were exhausted) and we headed straight for Rebel Sport to kit ourselves out more appropriately for what we decided would be a twice a week squash habit. Obviously we had to replace the leggings. With skorts. Skorts are genius – skirts with built-in shorts. In flattering suck-in fabrics. How good is that?

Well, not as good as the PINK FLIPPY SQUASH (ok, tennis) DRESS I found. Yes, I’ve gone from playing squash in almost-trackie pants to frocking up like Maria Sharapova. I was a little disappointed that one can no longer buy frilly undies (unless you’re 3), so I also bought – are you ready – compression bike shorts to wear under my pink dress!

How I will look in my dress

Obvioulsy, given the seriousness with which we intend to take the squash caper, I can’t be using manky old hire racquets, so I also needed something more suited to our style. And this century. So I also shelled out for a new racquet that bore absolutely no resemblance to what I used to play with. I had been outraged when the Councillor put my old squash racquet in the Council Cleanup Pile (and even more outraged that it hadn’t been picked up by the cleanup trawlers looking for awesome stuff to offload on Ebay). But it did give me the justification I needed for a new racquet – yay me.

So, I may be $190 poorer, partially crippled, but I will look the business next Tuesday.

What sport or activity from your youth would you like to revisit?