Monday, February 20, 2006
New Beginnings
The Present Mrs B and I have decided to have children. It was a momentous occasion. After 3 years of being utterly terrified by the prospect I finally figured that I was ready for it and perhaps I’d quite like it too. Since then it’s been a wild roller coaster ride of what you normally do when you decide to have a baby. In the meantime the PMB has been book shopping.
First of all I would like to congratulate every author that has ever had a book published on how to get pregnant. I could sum it up in 4 words; the first one starts with “f” and the remaining three are simply “quite a lot”. However, apparently women who are in the mood for a bit of baby making will buy any old tat that tells them more about it, and some clever buggers have managed to stretch those 4 words into 200 pages, pretty graphs included. Kudos to you, I’m off to sell snow to Eskimos, or Indigenous Alaskan Americans or whatever we call them today.
She was kind enough to also purchase a book for me, “Pregnancy Sucks – For Men”. In this tome a fine gentleman has been thoughtful enough to explain in excruciating detail just how crappy the nine months will be for me. Words like vomit, seepage and ooze crop up quite a lot as do phrases which amount to “you will be considered the scum of the Earth and will pay for your crimes – crimes like daring to breath in her presence”.
The strangest thing about this decision though is it all seems so easy.
“Let’s make a baby”.
“Ok then”.
I haven’t paid anything for it. Nobody’s done a credit check. I haven’t had to consult Consumer Guide or read the reviews at Amazon.com (“Nice item but be prepared for costly maintenance, plus it turned up two weeks late and I kept having to take time off work to accept the delivery”).
I haven’t even signed a form.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
We All Scream For...
“Oi, shithead !”
I toyed with the idea of saying “that’s Mr Shithead to you”, but as she obviously wasn’t entirely pleased about something or other it occurred to me that I may have been pushing my luck. She picked up the recently purchased ice cream.
“This isn’t Chubby Hubby, where’s my bloody Chubby Hubby ?”
Again, I toyed with the idea of a witty retort along the lines of “well, right now he’s standing behind his chubby wife’s chubby arse” but I’m terribly attached to my genitalia and I’d like for my genitalia to continue to be attached to me.
The PMB is very picky when it comes to ice cream ; she suffers from that most American of afflictions – the love of chocolate mixed with peanut butter which, to an Englishman like myself, is a bit like taking a beautiful piece of Danish bacon and smothering it with dog poo.
This isn’t the first time there have been marital ructions over dessert. I like bread pudding, she likes ice cream. I like a bit of cake, she likes ice cream. I like apple pie with raisins and a drop of evaporated milk, she likes ice cream. In fact, she just likes ice cream an awful lot.
I’ve tried very hard to get her to sample the finest English cuisine but it just hasn’t worked. Toad in the hole ? “Shit.” Marmite on toast ? “Shit.” Beans on toast ? “What the hell would you want to do that for ?” I haven’t bought up black pudding. I have no doubt that she would bring it up in an altogether different fashion.
As luck would have it, whilst wandering round the local “World Market” instant-rip-off-international-food-super-hyper-uberstore ($4.99 for a tiny pack of choccy Hob Nobs thank you very much, have a nice day) we stumbled upon Heinz Treacle Pud, and the essential pud topper, Ambrosia Custard.
She likes it. I know she’s the one for me.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Do You Think She Means "A Charmed Life" ?
Contrary to what some people might say (wife included), I’m really very fond of my wife. She’s the meaning in my life, she’s my inspiration. She’s the wind beneath my wings. She builds me up so I can do something or other to do with mountains. Pick any other pleasant song you like to describe the situation.
However the Present Mrs B does come up with some strange things at times. Conversation in the car today…
PMB : “It’s the celebrities I don’t get.”
Pete : “Err… righty ho then. What ?”
PMB : “Well they could be doing the same thing as us right now.”
Pete : “Talking bollocks, you mean ?”
PMB (ignoring previous comment completely) : “I mean they don’t seem real, celebrities, do you know what I mean ?”
Pete (now resigned to the fact that in 2 seconds I will literally feel my IQ start to drop) : “Absolutely dear”.
PMB : “Like Paris Hilton, she doesn’t seem real but she could be doing something completely ordinary right now. Like getting out of bed. Or taking a poo.”
Pete : “Hope she got out of bed first.”
PMB : “Or like Robbie Williams. While we’re riding around in the car he could be doing his shopping. Like, right now.”
Lets hope it’s not the same Sainbury’s that Gary Barlow frequents. Standing in the queue for the checkout might become really awkward.
I sigh deeply, and shudder as I think about what we may end up adding to the gene pool.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Mr M Mouse, Smoking Nazi
It’s a bit weird being a smoker these days. Every single one of us will tell you that they don’t want to smoke anymore. Even the ones who used to smoke on planes way back when you still could don’t have any problem with spending a few hours without a ciggy on their way to Marbella or wherever. I once spent 10 and a half hours on one of them there Jumbo jets flying from London to Seattle and the thought of a ciggy didn’t enter my mind once.
Of course that may have been because I was preoccupied at the time. My mind was filled with much more important things like “Hey, we’re really flying low… or are those icebergs just really big” and “please God don’t let the plane crash, please God don’t let the plane crash, please God don’t let the plane crash”. I am a bad flyer.
Any road, bad flights aside (and it wasn’t even a bad flight), none of us really want to smoke. If someone we didn’t know asked us if we smoked we’d probably feel a little embarrassed admitting to it, and God forbid we should be asked by a Doctor of any sort. Admitting to a Dr that you smoke is a bit like telling the Queen you were quite a fan of her daughters-in-law.
I always said I would quit by the time I was thirty, but thirty came and went in a blur. Then last year I said that I wouldn’t make it a New Year’s resolution because that way I was guaranteed to fail, but I would quite by the time the family came over from Blighty to stay in May. Next thing you know May was here and smoking areas in theme parks are hard to come by these days. Apparently Mickey Mouse is a smoking nazi.
Aside : I can’t wait to see a Google search linking here courtesy of the name “Mickey Mouse” and the word “nazi”.
Of course the biggest problem with quitting isn’t the “hey, gimme more nicotine” thing. At least it hasn’t been for me the couple of times I’ve tried. It’s the habit cigs – one in the morning with a cup of coffee, one in the car leaving work, the last one at night when I let the crazy pooch out to take a Jimmy. Those are the ciggys I actually enjoy, and those are the ones I fear giving up the most.
So here I am sitting on the lanai (fancy Florida term for a back porch with a fly net on it, in case you didn’t know), ciggy in hand, tapping away on the laptop. I actually find it very relaxing you know, sitting out here, mindlessly jotting down random musings in electronic format. I’ve noticed that a lot lately, it’s quite nice, very relaxing in fact, sitting here with a cup of tea, ciggy and…
Oh bugger. I’ve only been doing this for the last 10 days and I’ve given myself another reason not to quit.
Friday, February 03, 2006
I Love My Doggie
Babies. You know, the little pinks things with scrunchy faces. More on this later.
My wife, she doesn’t do too well with gross stuff. Once upon a time we went out to buy a lawnmower and bought home a puppy instead. Long story. But she absolutely had to have this puppy. She was going to take care of it real good. Feed it, love it, take it for walks, look after it and make sure he was adored. As I handed over the plastic to pay for the little bugger I thought “This’ll buy me at least another 18 months without kids.”
Of course, where there’s puppies there’s puke, poo and pee. Apparently the PMB is a wee bit squeamish where such things are concerned and doesn’t react too well. She is, in fact, the inventor of the sympathy hurl. Not many people know that.
Incidentally, I strongly recommend not buying a piece of land, going through the permitting process, spending six months and $150,000 of your hard earned dollars having a house built with lovely new carpet and all new furniture and then buying what is, basically, some kind of gastro-intestinal Tardis with a tail. It doesn’t matter how much you feed a puppy, whatever goes in seems to quadruple before coming out the other end.
So, poor old me got to clean up all the messes. “Oh I just can’t”, she says, “the smell, I’ll puke”. Smashing.
So what about the babies ? My wife is now officially gagging for sprogs and I have I nasty feeling I won’t be able to put it off much longer. But what about the green baby poo ? Well, apparently I have nothing to worry about. Apparently when we have a baby, she tells me, she’s going to take care of it real good. Feed it, love it, take it for walks…
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
How Not To Do A Job Interview
I interviewed someone today.
I’m not a big fan of interviewing. I’m a decent judge of character so I can get a fairly good idea if someone’s going to fit in or not, but it’s the technical side of things that bothers me. Short of sitting them down and making them take a test it’s really difficult to gauge the depth of someone’s skillset.
Fortunately this guy made it easy. The resumé was a train wreck and had I had the time to read it properly and not just scan his experience and qualifications he wouldn’t even have made it to an interview.
The first thing that gave it away was the way he managed to spell his address wrong. The next was the way that on every bullet-pointed line the first (at least) two words were capitalized. Then there was the vast array of malapropisms… it was just a disaster area.
As for the actual interview, make sure your verbal description of your previous jobs matches the written one. Also, try not to contradict yourself twice within the space of a minute. People pick up on that kind of stuff, you know. Please note that describing how you walked out on a job generally is something I would attempt to avoid.
A word about embellishing your resumé. We all do it, but the trick it to embellish it a teensy, weensy bit. Whilst it’s plentiful in supply, in terms of demand bullshit is generally not way up there on people’s wanted lists and also has a very high detection rate. When you claim to be an expert in your chosen field but can’t answer rudimentary questions it does give the game away somewhat.
Finally, I find dressing for the occasion does tend to infer that you actually give two hoots. That doesn’t mean ladies without panty hose would be sent packing but surely, for the gentlemen, is a suit too much to ask ?
Oh, and if you know you’ve been rumbled and the game’s up, don’t be so persistent about getting a second interview. It only makes saying goodbye more painful, and we don’t like long goodbyes.
