Thursday 27 January 2011

Labia Majora

Somehow I keep catching that programme ‘The Joy of Teen Sex’ whereupon I have become fairly well acquainted with vaginas. I’ve seen close up shots of vaginas with STD’s and also vaginal ‘casts’ which look like this. The teenage boy featured in the programme was afraid of his girlfriend’s vagina and in their five year relationship had only gone down on her once. In a bid to make him more relaxed around her genitals he was taken to this Body Casting Parlour and made a cast of his girlfriend’s vagina.

I seem to remember my friend Cupcake phoning me up one day and asking me if I wanted to come to Brighton to look at a selection of vaginal sculptures on display. Sadly we never made it but I guess it was this guy all along.

The end result of all this vagina-gazing was that I was left thinking – hey, mine’s quite cute.

Its not without its problems though and today whilst on a visit to the doctors to get some contraception I decided to get it out to ask the doctor to look at something for me. And just in case you’re wondering, No, I didn’t just want to show him how cute it was, I had a genuine concern. He does the whole 'get undressed behind this screen’ thing and offers me any number of ways to cover my modesty. I tell him that after two children I’m certainly not prudish. He tells me that he has to have someone with him before he examines me. I’m a bit confused by this as its never happened to me before. Perhaps I look like one of those false accusers, perhaps he’s new, perhaps he’s out on bail….who knows. Anyway, he comes back in with the receptionist.

The RECEPTIONIST. I mean, that woman and I practically send birthday cards to each other I’m in there so much. Suddenly I don’t feel like getting out my cute vagina anymore but it's already too late. I make a lot of jokes while he examines me (none of them a play on the words ‘acute angina’) and I can see that even though she doesn’t really want to look, she can’t help herself. There she is peering over the paper towel with some kind of morbid fascination. Maybe my vagina is just too damn cute.

The doctor types 'Labia Majora' on my notes. It sounds floral to me somehow.......

When I get home Bushman informs me that there is dark brown wax coming from my son’s ear and that he needs to go to the doctor. Now I need to phone the doctor and I know exactly what’s going to happen. The receptionist is going to answer and I’m going to say “Hi, I’ d like to make an appointment for my son” and when she asks my name I’m going to say “Well a few moments ago you were looking at my vagina.......... now do you know who I am? ”

Who knows, maybe she'll say "Yeah, the one with cute vagina."







Friday 21 January 2011

Whoring and Housework


Mums need to connect. It’s a fact.

This is because being a mother can be one really fucking monotonous job at times. When I had my son in 2008 I went on to ‘Netmums’, posted a message on their ‘Meet a Mum’ board and after about a dozen dates made two friends. It’s a lot of hard work. So much hard work, in fact, that it became known amongst my friends as ‘whoring’.

Well, I’ve got the urge to go whoring again. I could do with meeting somebody who has a baby the same age as my daughter while I have a few months maternity leave left. I’ve contacted one lady who began her message by apologising for the lack of capital letters but she was doing one-handed typing with the baby occupying the other. Well I’m a sucker for anyone even remotely anal about punctuation. No doubt she’ll feature in a blog post in the near future, either as an anecdotal nutcase, or if she becomes a solid gold friend like Buttercup and Miss Stitchie, then she’ll get her own nickname.

Last night whilst doing some ironing (I know - I'm not sure how that happened either?) I found myself getting sucked in to 'Who Does What' on BBC2. Not that I needed a TV programme to tell me that, on the whole, women do a shit-heap more around the house than our dick-swinging mates (after all it wasn't Bushman doing the ironing!). But still, it was interesting.

Meet John and Lisa. They have a toddler and a six month old baby. He runs a building firm and lavishes his spare time at the weekend on his dogs who need to 'get a day out'. Lucky dogs.

Lisa is the Company Director of an antiques firm belonging to her family. She works full time and takes her six month old son to work with her three days a week. She can usually be found wearing loose fitting clothing comprising of a fleece and some pyjama bottoms (sound familiar?) and in reality there is little distinguishing her home attire from her work attire. There is a shot of her at work feeding her baby by balancing the bottle with her chin whilst clicking away on her mouse with her other hand (yep, I've done that before). She and her husband constantly bicker about the most pathetic housework related things. (yep, I've done that before too.)

Surveilance cameras found that she did 92% of the housework, not including washing up, of which she also does 91.4%.  Shall we go on?  Lisa does 84% of the food shopping and cooks 76% of the meals and when her husband did prepare food it was usually just for himself. Lisa also does 79.5% of the childcare.

However; of the 33 hours of childcare they recorded, 26 hours were quantifiable as 'passive', i.e where she was sitting down watching TV or doing some other non-interactive activity. (that's probably close to the mark with most of us.....). Confronted with his laziness, husband John smiles nervously and looks cheeky. When confronted with her laziness Lisa breaks down crying and says that she is a bad mother.

Dear Lisa, if by any chance you are reading this I would like you to know the following:

You are not a bad mother. 26 hours of 'passive' childcare amounts to 3.7 hours a day. The reason that you are sitting around in your pyjamas watching TV with your mouth open is because you are FUCKING KNACKERED. Perhaps if your husband devoted more time to you and your household and less time to making snacks for himself and giving those mutts a 'day out', you would have more energy to spend on yourself and your children. Rid yourself of the mother-guilt. You do however need to chill out a bit more and let your husband make shitty attempts at housework. In truth, he most probably makes deliberately shitty attempts so that you will deem it 'not good enough' and not bother asking him next time. And remember that the best mothers are slobs (or so I read here...)

I should point out that although John is a bit of a cockney-twat he does have his good points and sweetly reassured her that she was not a bad mother and that she needed more time to herself. Whether or not he makes the huge mental leap from saying that to actually making it happen is another thing.

Now talking of housekeeping, lots of you know how I hate those blogging award things. I am a bad blogger. But for all my bitchin' and moanin' I am soft-centred and when people are nice to me I find it hard to resist them.

So here is Michelloui who has left me some lovely comments and been very nice about me on her blog. I think in essence she has sort of passed on an award to me. Well for seven things you don't know about me you can find them in this post. I should of course follow this up with links to seven blogs but the day is slipping from my grasp and I have to pack a weekend bag because I'm off to spend the weekend with my cousin in a small village.

Will try harder next time. Promise.







Friday 14 January 2011

Gangster Banker


A while back I wrote a post called 'String Vests' which was about my partner 'Bushman' and his appointment with the bank manager. Today, Bushman and I had another appointment at the bank. Nothing worrying, I just wanted to make sure were taking advantage of all the extras on our account.

Bushman had made the appointment and I asked if we were seeing the plump Asian guy in his 30's (who I know by face but not by name). Bushman says yes. The Asian guy from the bank is very sweet and doesn't make me feel bad about being overdrawn. I take a notebook and my best pen. Yes, a financial overhaul was one of my resolutions for 2011.

As we walk in, a young bank clerk calls Bushman by his first name and they exchange greetings which show that they are quite familiar with one another. Bushman follows this up by making a highly inappropriate joke about coming to collect a bag of money from round the back. Now, I don't know about you but I am not on first name terms with anyone in the bank and I certainly wouldn't greet them as if we were both members of Ndubz. It turns out that this is the person we are meeting with to discuss our account (although this appointment seems to have slipped his mind).

The bank clerk looks at me and I almost expect him to ask who I am until Bushman explains that we are together. Mr Banker looks stunned for a moment (probably because I am white, smartly dressed and well spoken whilst Bushman is black, speaks his own kind of incomprehensible English and is wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt) and then explains that his room isn't free but that we can chat here. 'Here' is in full view of everyone and considering that he doesn't know why we have come to the bank I feel this is a touch unprofessional. Then I reason with myself that his room is probably otherwise engaged because his mates are cutting up coke and fucking hookers on his desk.

The meeting goes from bad to worse. He talks a lot of shit, treats me like an idiot who doesn't understand how basic banking works and thinks that his 'lyrics' and gangster posturing will somehow impress me. He is approximately twelve. Then he slopes off to do some paperwork for us. As Gangster Banker disappears Bushman smiles at me.

"This guy, he' s like....... a bit of a gangster" says Bushman, beaming as if he has been very clever.

"I'm fully aware of that. I don't even like the fact that he has access to our account details. He's a prick." I say.

This does not register with Bushman who keeps beaming.

I look around the bank, which has had a facelift since I was last there; plush new carpets, new wall paper, big fancy signs.

"This is what the bastards have spent our money on." I say to Bushman.

Last time I was in the bank I noticed that somebody had tested out the 'pen on a chain' by writing in big letters "Can Jesus get on a donkey at Blackpool?"

I think I preferred the bank when it was shabby but employed fewer idiots.

The meeting is wrapped up by Gangster Banker talking to us suspiciously, in hushed tones, in full view of the public, telling us that if we boil our mobile phones in kettles we can claim on our insurance.

As the meeting ends Bushman looks supremely pleased with himself, as if he has surpassed all expectation. I underline the mental note which I made after the 'String Vests' incident and remind myself that Bushman and banks don't mix.



Saturday 8 January 2011

Thank God Crispmas is over


My son stares open mouthed at the work surface where a dozen different types of crisps wait to be eaten.

"Happy Crispmas Mummy!" he says with delight.

That's right, its a festival about crisps. It's not about the joys of giving and receiving - or the birth of christ. It's about flavoured starch products.

To put it bluntly, this year, Christmas was shit. It's taken me until a week into January to have the energy to even consider putting it into words. Usually my Christmases have minimal family strife. It's a little stressful preparing for it, but we aren't the kind of family who like to have a row after the presents are opened and too much schnapps has been consumed. This year I just spent too many hours in the company of sickly relatives. It was a wash out and one which I don't wish to repeat.

My best gift (one which I kind of bought myself) is my beautiful new laptop. Shiny and wireless and sans sticky fingers (pause to kiss exquisite new keyboard). 

New Year was kind of cute - which surprised me, as I stayed at home with Bushman and the pickneys. He brought me a cocktail in the bath and we ate Duck pancakes. The TV died at around 10.30 when our electric seemed to dip. We had no TV for a further 4 days and it was kind of nice. We had conversations instead - well what constitutes conversations in our house. Ok, so perhaps I mean sex. 

I have been making up for a shit Christmas by having as much sex as one can possibly have with two kids in the house. Still not pregnant though - now whose a clever girl then?

Of course now the remnants of the Christmas food have almost disappeared its time to get back to the diet. A nasty bout of flu shortly before Christmas saw me lose a few pounds only to put them back on again over the season. Today I bought the Daily Mail and handed the dirty rag straight over to Bushman after removing the Weightwatchers supplement. I also purchased a Guardian for its 'Fit for Free' supplement. I have got to shift these pounds and as cheaply as possible. Cue for more sex maybe?

A few days ago Cupcake phoned me to tell me that she had almost been reduced to tears by a picture of her looking incredibly hot some years ago. A few hours later, whilst transferring files to my new computer I was reduced to tears as I came across pictures of me also looking unbelievably hot. So hot, that I wanted to have sex with myself. That picture was only taken five years ago. Bushman looked confused as I fell into his crotch and wept. I think this may have resulted in yet more sex......

Today, by chance I found myself on the Netmums website where this article naturally caught my eye 'What happens to women when they become Mums?' Sadly I wasn't able to read the full article because The Times wanted me to subscribe, although what I read on Netmums was enough to make me mad.

In short the article is about how as mums we often 'let ourselves go'. Of course, this never happens to Dads. To be frank I don't give a fuck whether you want to do the school run in tracksuit bottoms with egg stains and slipper socks or in a Versace gown. It's called choice. And perhaps if women weren't trying to keep the world turning all the time we might have time for preening. No, this is what really fucked me off. After a makeover, it seems, Louise Carpenter writes the following.

"What do you see when you look at the makeover results? I tell you what I see. A woman whose arms are too podgy for that beautiful £1,630 dress. I look at the picture and wish I were a dress size smaller (it’s a 12). The shoes are so glorious, but I couldn’t walk in them. I look OK, but by my calculation, I think that look must have cost close to £2,500. How many ballet/violin/swimming/riding lessons is that? How many shopping trips to Sainsbury’s? It’s a lot of money and a lot of time. It pains me to say it, but it was a relief to take off that wonderful Lanvin dress. I have to admit, too, that spoiling as it was, I wanted to go home. You see, everything comes at a price. That night, my little girls did not get a story in bed with me wearing my pyjamas."

Oh just fuck off.......fuck off. Why do we think that sacrificing ourselves entirely for our children is something to aspire too? "Ballet/Violin/Swimming lessons". Oh just fuck off!!!!I don't care about the Lanvin dress or the shoes and if she wants to wear her pyjamas then that's just fine but don't give me that sentimental bullshit about your girls not getting their story. Where the fuck is Daddy? And do you have to read your children a story every goddamn night? Get over yourself.

Long deep breath.........Apologies to Louise Carpenter who I do not know personally and who is probably a very nice person. But Louise, you really got on my tits today. I obviously still have not recovered from Christmas. I knew there was a reason I was staying away from this blog!