Somebody answer the phone....and please know what you're talking about.

"Thank you for calling your bank."

No, thank you for ripping me off at every possible chance and telling giant porkies to take more money away from me than necessary.

"Please press 1 for someone slightly annoying to talk to, 2 for someone really annoying, 3 for someone to patronise and belittle you and 4 if you're really into hardcore verbal abuse. 

I  press 1.

"Please enter your customer number, followed by the hash key. If you do not know your customer number, please hold."

I hold.


"Please enter your customer number, followed by the hash key. If you do not know your customer number, please hold."

URK. I don't know my customer number, muppet IVR, so I'm holding.

"Please enter your customer number," I'm hearing attitude from the IVR, I swear it, "followed by the hash key. If you do not know your customer number, please hold."


"ARGH" and randomly press numbers, to the tune of  Twinkle Twinkle, until I hear ringing.

"Hello, you're speaking with Maureen, how can I help you today?" She says it in a way that can only be described as chirping through gritted teeth, the way I do when I meet someone I can't stand, my voice becomes high pitched as I scream out "Hi - so lovely to meet you", while wearing a Stepford wife smile and internally chanting "twat, twat, twat".

"Maureen, my name is Marbles and I need to confirm some details regarding my banking. I was promised a letter two weeks ago and have not yet received it."

"Sure. Can I have your customer number, please?"

Have I not just been through this? "I don't know what it is. I use an account number."

"That contravenes our banking policy. You have to have a customer number," says Maureen putting on her stern and slightly patronising voice. Steady on, honey, I didn't press 3.

"Okay. Well can I have my customer number?"

"Sure." She says chirping up again."Okay that's done. We know have to set up 15 different sets of security codes that will help the bank identify you. Each code must be a series of numbers and letters and cannot be a birthday or significant other's birthday. Can I set those up for you now?"

"Uhm, no, can we do that next time, please?"

"Well, if we don't,  we won't be able to help you from the call centre - so I suggest we go through the process now and then it'll be done for you."

"Okay then sure," I say, seeing my life slip away from me. Headlines tomorrow will be "Body found of woman bored to death setting up numerous and unnecessary codes with her bank." Key quotes from people that know me will follow the tune, "she didn't enjoy process" "she never much liked talking to people at her bank." "She always prefered to email enquiries, so that she wouldn't get stuck in conversations where there was no way out."


"Thanks for your patience.  How can I help you today?"

"Well as I mentioned, I am wanting to confirm details and wondering if you can either fax or email me the confirmation letter I was supposed to receive a short while ago?"

"We don't fax or email those details. You'll have to request a letter."

"Uhm, yes, I did and it didn't arrive, can we find another solution, please Maureen?"

"No, I'm sorry madam, you'll have to request another letter."

Huge sigh, "Fine, can I please request another letter and hopefully, this one, has the good sense to arrive."

"I'm sure it will arrive," She says, barbed. "However, if you do want another letter, I will have to put you through to one of our Specialists and they can look after your request."

"Didn't I press the right buttons for this request?"

"Oh, yes,  you did, but we have a "Specialist Centre" that can organise the letter for you. I can't help you with that, I'm afraid. I'll just put you through to the queue now. Thank you."

F*ck! If you don't have the authority to post a letter, what is it that you can do? I am beginning to feel that time has come to a grinding hault as I am assailed by aggressive elevator music. I'm reminded of Gotye track and quietly hum to myself, "You've been placed in a queue..." while trying to make eletronic sounds with the bits and pieces on my desk. Several minutes later, I'm transfered to Mumbai.

" 'Allo, you're speaking wth Prakesh, how can I assist you today?"

"Hi, Prakesh, I'm Marbles and I am hoping that you can confirm some details for me over the phone and then send me a letter."

"Of course, can I have your customer number, please?"

Here we go again with the freaking customer number. Here's my series of digits that identify me to you. Where is your customer number, why don't you identify yourself to me? Huh? Urk this bites.

"Okay, can I have your first name, please?"

I think I might have just said this, but okay, let's play this game, "Marbles"

"What was it you wanted to sort out today?"

You have to be kidding me right? Did I not just say this? Deep inhalation, think yoga thoughts. "Prakesh, I need to confirm some details and I am hoping that you can send me a letter to confirm?" My eyebrows are raised in what I hope are a cheery expression and the corners of my mouth turn upwards in what I believe to be a smile, in a bid to curtail my growing frustration at having to repeat myself. I actually just probably look like Jack Nicholson's:  The Joker.

"Marbles, I can see that you've been sent a letter two weeks ago confirming that information."

"Precisely, Prakesh, it hasn't arrived yet, that's why I'm calling. I need it in writing from your bank. Since it's only being sent from Adelaide, I think it's safe to say it's probably got lost in the mail."

"Well, Marbles, it still might turn up, we allow three weeks for postal delivery. I would wait until next week and if it hasn't turned up by then, call us back."

"But, Prakesh, I've been on the phone for some 40 minutes now, and I just would like you to verbally confirm something and then re-send the letter, I don't have time to call back next week and have this same conversation."

"Marbles, I cannot send you the letter, you'll need to wait another week."

What the hell? Why not? "Prakesh, I'll pay for the paper, envelope and the postage, I just want the agreement in writing, please."

"No need to pay for these items, madam, the agreement is in writing, in the mail and will be with you next week."

"Okay fine," I say, verbally stamping my feet, "Can you please confirm the details with me over the phone, so I know that what the bank says is going to be done has been done?"

"Of course, madam, I will have to put you through to another section of the bank and they can help you with your enquiry. Just transfering you now."

Come the f8ck on.

Headlines now read, "New inmate for Mental Asylum. Husband said bank literally drove her mad."

The sordid truth

She wasn’t just any stripper. She stripped at only the best strip clubs in town. Or at least that’s what she told us. Not that she stripped all the time, of course, just when she the singing, dancing, modeling and acting contracts were running low.

She made over three grand a night, when she was stripping. That must stand for something, right? Again, so she told us. Time and time again.

During the day, I’d see her catch herself in a reflection, any reflection – mirror, glass, metallic paint on a car, puddle, and stop to preen herself – pouting, lips slightly parted as though ready to give some dirty, pervy old man a massive snog, or a heart attack. She’d turn dramatically, thrust her meagre breasts and buttocks out in opposite directions and do a part of her evening act. She’d open her wallet exposing her cash and a dog eared naked photo of herself that she’d been passing around to anyone who cared to see a skinny, small breasted woman pushing her bits against a metal pole.

She lived in a universe of her own creation. In her mind she was a movie star, and actress held in the highest esteem for her creative, film noir efforts. Impervious to our rolling eyes and bored sighs as she waxed on about her success at “work”.

She told me once that her burgeoning modeling career meant she had to have late night meetings with casting agents from around the world. To me, this meant she was stripping. This became pretty clear after one night she professed to be meeting the casting agents for Vidal Sassoon and she didn’t bother to wash her lank, greasy and slightly dandruffed hair. Apparently she got the gig and the shots were being shown in Germany.

She would tell ludicrous stories, with conviction, about how she would drink at exclusive bars, with the rich and famous clamoring to know her. She told us once that she drove Julian Lennon’s Rolls Royce into a lake on his property and he just laughed at her inability to drive, rather than punch her head in for ruining both his lake and his car.

Nowadays she’s in film, making movies. Her career as a catwalk model ended, shortly after it began, as did her photo-modeling career. I haven’t bothered to find out how the movie career  is going. I can only imagine. She’s likely to tell me that she’s rubbing shoulders with Cate Blanchett, when the reality is she’s likely rubbing other body parts belonging to a mustached bloke who’s stage name is Hugh G. Rection.


It's all a bit sordid and definitely deserved of a dirty, month old, found at the bottom of the rubbish bin, brown. Paper. Bag.

A fur child's tail (sp. intended - in case my boring attempt at wit appears as though I'm a twit).

This little dude, posing for photo taken by Steve Parish, has made me screech oosh mooosh iddle baby over and over He is a six month old dingo and potentially the cutest little thing I have ever seen.

He reminds me of my own dog, a German Shepherd cross Red Cattle Dog, who is often mistaken for a Dingo, merely because of her colouring. We adopted her from the RSPCA when she was six months and I often find myself wishing we adopted her when she was as little as the guy in the picture as she would have been the cutest, most adorable little puppy. With big ears and long white socks. Ahhhh, too cute. But, in so many ways we were lucky to get her at six months old, when we brought her home.

Of course, as is usual finding a dog wasn’t without drama. LSH didn't want a dog just yet. He thought we should wait a while, since he’s really very sensible. He said, “We’ve only just bought the house, we really should spend our efforts sorting this place out, decorating, buying furniture and then we can get a dog, when we have more time to dedicate to its wellbeing.” A good, solid, valid rationale. Only, I didn’t want to wait. I wanted a dog. A dog was the only reason we had bought the house. Or else we’d have bought some cool, inner urban unit, close to the water, not a sensible house in the suburbs.

So one fine Saturday, at a loss for something to do, I suggested we go to the RSPCA. LSH agreed. I’m still not entirely sure why. Perhaps he didn’t know me well enough back then and somewhat foolishly thought I was into window shopping. Anyway, we walked through the RSPCA, me looking desperately at all the dogs, hoping they would make eye contact with me and we’d share a moment. LSH was trying not to make eye contact with any of them, or me, for that matter. I gushed at every puppy, hoping that it would soften the corners of LSH mouth and he’d agree to taking a little puppy home. But alas, LSH or Captain Eyes Straight Ahead, was buying into my plan. 

We very nearly left that day without a dog. Until, on the last stretch, I saw her. A little Ginger and white pup, with her back to me. As we approached she turned her head over her shoulder, whites of her eyes showing to look at me for only a second then turned her head away. That was it. I was smitten. We’d had a connection and she was going to be our dog. A sign was attached to the chicken wire gate that kept her in her cage and it said her name was Ginger and that she behavioural issues. I look at LSH and said, “well so do I”. The RSPCA volunteer laughed. Clearly she had not spent nearly enough time with me to know that I wasn’t really joking.

Ginger was brought out to meet us and I patted her and knew that she was the little girl I had to have in my life. LSH was stand-offish and didn’t dare come close, but after some cajoling, he managed to pat her and begrudgingly said she was a nice dog.

“A nice dog?” I asked mockingly, “she’s the perfect dog.”

LSH said we had to think about it. I burst into tears. I stamped my feet. I refused to leave. And then the behavioural issues start to show.  LSH had to placate me somehow and managed, “if you still want her tomorrow, we’ll come back and get her.”

Sniffling and spluttering. I agreed, gave Ginger a kiss and said, “I’ll be back for you.”

LSH and I returned home. I could barely speak. I was so besotted with my little girl the thought of not having her made me feel very ill.

I do this thing when I’m thinking about something emotionally charged. I am silent for quite some time and then blurt out nonsensical half sentences in a bid to win an argument/case with LSH. Most often we will be talking about something completely ordinary like what we might have for dinner then I will blurt out some rationale about moving to Sydney or something peculiar. We’ve been together for so long now he can now, he can feel me thinking and patiently waits for my random Tourette like comment. 

Needless to say, I Touretted all evening over the benefits and negatives of having a dog right up until 3am, when I woke LSH up and said I want the dog. Too tired to care, he said, “Okay”.

By 7 am I was up and dressed ready to pick up Ginger. We were at the gates just as they were opening. The same RSPCA volunteer was there as the day before and she asked, “Are you here for Ginger?” My heart thudded against my chest, she hadn’t been adopted by someone else. Hooray. I ran down to her wire and concrete cell and swept her up in my arms. She was completely taken aback, but quickly settled into the whole concept of being cuddled and kissed by a crazy woman.

I smile as I type this. That was one of the best days ever. I still love coming home to Ginger. I still love cuddling her and kissing her between the ears. I love watching the way she does things and solves small problems – like how to get a piece of food from my plate to hers. She is my fur child as well as being the leader of our pack. I keep trying to be a good dog parent and hope that she’s completely happy and realises that she’s completely and utterly adored.

The theory of twelve lives

A colleague told me that each of us has 12 lives. She said that we each live a life under each sign in the zodiac. Where we are in the zodiac cycle only indicates how many lives we have had before and how many more we have to go, before we live our 12th and final life. Aries are at the start of the life cycle. Pisces are at the end.

I am a Pisces and at the end of my 12 lives. My LSH (long suffering husband), on the other hand, is an Aries so if just at the start of his 12 life life-cycle. In essence he is much much younger than I am.

It dawned on me that this is perhaps  why LSH is so much more easy-going than I am. In my defence, he is not carrying around 11 previous lives worth of baggage. It also made me think that what I am doing now is the best this soul is ever going to be. Which only made me question how can my middle-management job, house in the suburbs and my general life dripping in average-ness be the best this soul is ever going to be? URK. Only mildly depressing.

Admittedly life is, in reality, quite beautiful. I do tend to over dramatise for effect. I certainly don’t mean it take it for granted. I have a wonderful LSH, a house I love being in and a dog that makes my heart burst with love. Still…Surely I should be sitting by my pool, sipping sangria under the shade caste by my enormous and completely ostentatious castle. You know, what with this being my last attempt at life and all.

My next thought was predictably, but I only know of one life so I really should get out there and get amongst it (like I did before I became this age and boring) and live like it was my last day on Earth.

Of course, if today was my last day on Earth, I wouldn’t be spending it walking up and down aisles of the supermarket filling my trolley with groceries.

To say “live each day like it’s your last” is so flawed it’s impossible to do. If we lived each day like it was our last we’d never go to work. Let’s say, for instance, that tomorrow, I turn over a new leaf and start behaving as though it’s my last day on Earth. First thing I’d do is ring my boss and say, “oh by the way, I am living each day like it’s my last and therefore will be partying it up with friends and family, getting boozed on $1000 bottles of champagne, eating beluga caviar and lobster on the coast rather than come in today. Hope you don’t mind. If it turns out I’m not dead the day after tomorrow, I will live that day like it’s my last as well, and won’t be coming in to the office then either.” See, like I said, impossible.

I do like the idea of making the most of it all. I have a quote pinned to the board in my office at home. It reads:

“If I had my life to live over, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax, I’d limber up. I would be sillier than I have this time. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice-cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but fewer imaginary ones.

“You see, I am one of those people who live sensible and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

“I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had my life over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and I would stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.”

Nadine Stair, 85 Years old, Louisville Kentucky.

The irony isn’t lost on me that I have this pinned to a board in my home office.

Dodging the Dogstar

I’m convinced that I  suffer from multiple personality disorder based on the fact that one part of me worries about how old I am and the other half of me seems to flout convention, and do things that teenagers do.

To substantiate my claim I cite the example of my undying infatuation with Glee, Gossip Girl and Chuck from Gossip Girl.

Oh how I love these frivolous shows (and Chuck).

I read somewhere that the re-launch of 90210 was a flop because of Gossip Girl. Audiences in droves wondered why they would watch chaste, sexually repressed teenagers when they could be watching highly sexualized (and over sexed) teenagers living the high life in Manhattan.

So I’ve been casually and unashamedly enjoying these shows, until one TV promo last week stated that Gossip Girl is a teen sensation…A teen what? I looked at LSH, who looked wide eyed and smirking, back at me. Embarrassed, I mumbled sulkily, “Not teenage show, perfectly reasonable show for someone of my age…be in love with,” while pursed lipped and stamping my feet indignantly.

The irony is not altogether lost since high school was such a total nightmare for me.

Let it not be said, however, that I have not moved on in other areas of my life. For instance, I now cook and clean (something I never did as a teenager).  I also have better, and vastly different, taste in clothes. The fact that grunge/heroin chic was considered a style when I was a teenager is not the point.

I am, still, a fan of black, but not heroin chic, sad, might slash my wrists if I don’t get a hit – black, but rather, what I would consider creative industries black. I do like to mix up my black with white, red and grey. Not at the same time of course - that would just be crazy! I have also been a long fond fan of folds, angles, zips, buckles and anything remotely architectural. Not in an S&M kind of way either, inbut  a subtle, hint of punk kind of way.  Dogstar is my fashion solution, encompassing all these elements.  I also know many others who are deeply in love with Dogstar, so we gush over each other’s clothes, which is great as most of the time, we wear the pieces so differently.

So, in need of a quick wardrobe pick me up, LSH and I popped to Dogstar on the weekend. Expecting a nice relaxing experience I was confronted by women suffering from the fashion equivalent of my love for teenage TV shows. These women were likely 30 years older than me shopping for shirts and pants that had buckles, folds, layers and other creative elements. I was perplexed. Had some fashion eclipse happened over night? I couldn’t help but wonder, quite ungenerously, why are you in this store?

Not only did they look out of place in store, but they hogged the attention of the sales woman, rudely asking her to fetch the larger size of the clothes they had in their fitting room. I could probably let that pass, but one woman hogged the mirror as well. Boobs and buttocks filled the shared slimline mirror outside of the individual cubicles. Usually I can rearrange the folds in my shirts, pants and dresses in peace, but no, not this time, no I had to guess whether the fold were in flattering spots, or not.  No amount of popping my head over a shoulder or ducking and weaving left or right was enough of a hint to make this woman move out of my line of sight so that I could see if, in fact, my bum did look big in this.

At one point her mother (oh yes the woman who was the same age as my mother, brought her own mother) leant against the mirror as she waited for her daughter to reappear from behind the curtain of her cubicle. Only after I returned her stare, while swaying from side to side like a tennis player looking to return a serve, did she move. Goodness knows what she was thinking. Perhaps she thought I was doing some sort of post-modern interpretive dance.

I escaped unscathed, if not a little more limber, with two wonderful new pieces to add to my collection of my favourite clothes. But honestly, it was one of the most ridiculous shopping experiences of my life, one that wouldn't have been so painful had the store been filled with the usual like-minded individuals I regularly encounter while there.

Meh. Just pass the brown paper bag – the shopping one that is.