Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

It’s just past midnight. I have turned into a pumpkin.

Round, solid cushion-shaped bottom? Check.

Yellowish flesh, veering to orange? Check (must improve my brand of fake tan).

And flesh that no one seems to find tasty tonight, preferring the delights of lighter, more svelte and exotic varieties? Hmm check.

Friday night and the Bondi blonde is tipping typing away, the brats squall against her eardrums finally relenting at 9:00 p.m. I had had a date arranged, a third with Ricky, a decent enough guy with a job, a car and everything.

I had been playing it cool. I hadn’t called him, I hadn’t been available for the first date he suggested and I hadn’t invited him to become a Facebook friend. I was playing hard to get, following The Rules of Dating assiduously. I was dressed to the nines at 6:45 p.m. for a 7:00 p.m. date when I received a text from Ricky detailing in gory detail the effects he was suffering from a dodgy prawn he’d eaten the previous night. His close encounters with the crustacean had meant that he’d not gotten far from away from the toilet for the whole day. A trip with me to see “He’s just not that into you” was not on Ricky’s agenda.

So quietly alone on this night which was being painted all manners of scarlet, maroon and rich ruby red by others, I confronted an itch I just need to scratch. Well three itches:

1. Nits. Again. My head is currently covered in the latest whizz bang guaranteed to work nit killer. I smell like something a koala would find luscious (native tree oil being the latest, greatest killer of bitey varmints). I am in danger of exploding if I get too close to an open flame. I scratch like merry hell and am reminded of my childhood blonde Labrador that used to scratch like merry hell when she was infested with fleas. She was sloppily adorable, neutered and had an incontinence problem when she barked. On relentlessly hot and boring Gympie afternoons we got our kicks dressing the bitch in mum’s clothes, adding a bit of lipstick now and then.
2. A desire to be desired and to become horizontal with another. Preferably with Brad Pitt – or anyone really with an arm pit hairier than mine (most straight men). I’ve been ignoring these lustful thoughts for a while. I keep on telling myself: love not lust, meet his friends before the thrust. But this moral high ground, while having wonderfully haughty views, is truth be told, damn boring. And cold. And lonely. Since I’ve cried off internet dating after too much crying after internet dating, my chances of being naughty have been nought. I had been playing it cool with Ricky and seedy bars still abound but I don’t like the seeds that scatter there; you till and water and coax and you still end up with damn weeds. My explorations in all the right, left and centre places have earned me a wonderful selection of new girlfriends to have coffee, a drink or a wonderful chat with. Fan-fuckingless-tastic. At this rate I’ll consider lesbianism as an option as I attract women like the aforementioned Brad Pitt. But till now I’ve sublimated this second, persistent itch into itch number 3:
3. A ravenous appetite for crappy food when I should be: a. Meditating b. Organising my life into a semblance of rigour by doing a budget and a life plan or something equally destined to remain un-done or c. Sleeping.No, I have an evening job. Eating all matters of thing chocolate! I made a pact soon after losing a handy five kilograms after my divorce and a bad case of food poisoning to decry all manner of tasty treats tempting me away from sexy sized 10 to comfortable size 12. I was Sampson fighting the many headed monster of Lindt chocolate varieties, usually winning. Any new Tim Tam launched in a flurry of crunchy choc pieces or exotic variety of Kit Kat (cookies and cream anyone?) never, ever passed my lips. Until that fateful night of sole on the sofa TV viewing when a skinny bint introduced the Trojan Horse of Special K with chocolate flakes – “only 150 calories a serve; a late night treat that won’t make you feel guilty.” Lying Delilah. There’s 10 serves in a box and a box lasted me two nights. 750 fucking calories. Or really, no fucking so 750 calories of substitute binge eating. After days of rigorous dieting my nighttimes consisted of choking on chocolate coated cardboard flakes.

Just between you and me and please don’t tell, but tonight I was a bad parent. At 10:20 p.m. I checked on the chilluns, regrouping their fearsome energy for tomorrow’s destruction. Their innocent faces were blank and gentle with no memory imprint of their earlier mischief, only a teddy hanging from my best belt and tied to the gently rotating ceiling fan was evidence of the earlier bedtime tribulations. Downstairs their Keith Haring inspired art work on my living room walls lay in shadows and I had rinsed and cleaned my Tupperware Hostess gift cake tin which had housed the world’s biggest collection of stink bugs in captivity (well they were all dead) for two weeks. I had found the bugs in my relentless search for chocolate after finishing the last crumbs of flakes of Special K.

There was at least two hours till bed time and my itches needed attention, particularly numbers two and three. Number two had to be ignored, so my need to feed was even more acute.

A short trip to the local 7/11 store wouldn’t be too bad now, would it? I could be there and back in 10 minutes, mission accomplished and back on the sofa pigging out on a newly unwrapped Cherry Ripe, while watching another horrendous UK TV murder most horrid T.V. show.

I examined what might happen in my absence.

House burn down? Not likely and I had changed the smoke alarms batteries sometime recently.

Kids wake up and find me gone? Not with the amount of “cough medicine” I had poured down their throat to stop their wheezing and lead them quite firmly into the land of slumber.

Miss finding out who killed the old codger in Midsomer Murders? Another old codger, I’d hazard a guess.

So on with my old grey hooded jumper hiding my nit shampooed head and partly concealing my bunny print pyjamas; I was transformed into a kind of Wonder Woman wanting Willy Wonkas. I burned rubber exiting the garage and made it to the grocery store in less than three minutes, my Volvo filling the empty local street with a fug of oil fumes.

I stood and surveyed the cornucopia of calories. So many choices…. I slipped a Twix, nabbed a nut bar, violently veered towards the Violet Crumbles. Venturing towards the chilled food section I magnanimously left the last Magnum for the drunk guy who was making his third attempt at opening the cabinet of ice creamery delights. One last grab of two litres of Diet Coke and a copy of Hello magazine completed my late night sugary rush. I made my way to the till as I heard the electronic entrance door slide open behind me and heard a giggle and a deeper laugh in response. I ignored the noise of the Friday night lovers and dumped my guilty pile on the counter, under the accusing glare of the low voltage fluorescents which bathed the store in a sickly yellow light.

The shop assistant wore a chirpy badge with the name “Madge”, pinned on an angle above her right breast. Madge proceeded to ignore me for the next 154 seconds, giving all her attention to the person at the other end of her mobile phone conversation while distractedly picking a pimple conveniently located at the end of her nose. I cleared my throat, thinking of my kids either burning in bed or drowning in vomit from perhaps a few too many millilitres of enthusiastically administered Dimetapp. I cleared again as the lovers quickly completed their selection and stood quietly together behind me. Madge still ignored me, but moved closer to my pile of saturated fat, cocoa solids, aspartame and saccharine stories and proceeded to scan each piece, dropping it into a non-recyclable plastic bag printed with “we never close”.

I handed over a sticky twenty dollar bill, grabbed my luscious loot and change and turned fast, slap bang into the couple waiting patiently behind me.

I knocked the pretty, skinny and big breasted strawberry blonde straight into the display of Nutrigrain breakfast cereal, sending pictures of Tony Grieg, Matthew Hayden and other “cereal sporting ambassadors” for a six across the black and white chequer board linoleum. Only the quick reflexes of her dedicated beau saved the maiden from a distressing arse-over onto the floor.

Her Prince Charming and I did a double take of sickly recognition.

Great.

Ricky had miraculously recovered from the attack of the killer prawn and here he was, risen from the almost dead, clutching a pack of “for her enjoyment” condoms and two litres of low fat milk.

There wasn’t anything to say. I held my eucalyptus scented head high under my hoodie, hitched up my bunny print pyjamas pants, and walked out of the shop and into the chill of the night. Stuff Cinderella, I thought, I need a new role model.

Inspiration. I thought of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.

Flouncing, I made my way to the bin, chucking the chocolate hoard away, though salvaging the Hello magazine at the last minute. Scarlett was never defeated by what life threw at her. When she got lemons, she made lemonade; when she needed a dress, she pulled down the curtains and snipped away; when life or a relationship fractured, she fixed it as best she could and moved on.

I felt my resilience kick in and I jumped into my Volvo and sped back to Casa Crappy, racing upstairs to kiss my children, safe and thankfully still breathing unassisted; they are my harbours of joy and calm in my sometimes stormy life.

But now I have to go to bed. I have to get up early. For tomorrow is another day. And it’s going to be a cracker.