Desperate Husbands (13 page)

I’m sick of these aspirational TV shows in which good-looking hosts in a fever of activity fix up backyards and renovate houses, covering every surface with a rag-rolled finish and every fenceline with a box hedge. Meanwhile, sitting on the couch, you watch as your own house collapses around you. Who needs TV that makes you feel inferior? What about a new show called
Pigsty
? ‘We take a beautiful new home—and in twenty-four hours make it look like your place.’

I have tried renovation. I have even attempted ‘house-proud’. It doesn’t work. Frankly, you’re better off wallowing in your own filth. Here’s why:

1. The fancier the finish, the less well it lasts. Why do you think past generations of Australians painted everything in mission brown? Not the most attractive of colours but—cunningly—it
   starts out
   as the
   colour you get after thirty years of handling. Now, that’s foresight.
   
2. The more piss-elegant the kitchen benchtop, the more cleaning involved. The previous generation of Australians had a depression to get through, then a war to fight. That’s why, en masse, they installed Laminex’s ‘Baby Chuck’—a subtle combination of grey swirls and tan smudges designed to hide the most slapdash of wipe-downs.
   Pigsty
   ’s advice: hang onto it. (Visit our website: www.just-do-nothing.com)
   
3. Why the vicious attack on the Hills hoist, traditionally planted dead centre of the backyard? On these shows they are constantly ripping them out—a ritual cutting-down of a past army of Australian men and their contribution to the nation’s laundry. Thank God the old buggers have had their revenge: installing each hoist in such a huge ball of cement that generations of younger men have done in their backs shifting them.
   
4. On these shows they ring a tradesman and then, a few hours later, he shows up, clean, tidy, on time and ready to work. So how come they call it ‘reality TV’?
   
5. What’s the story with ‘opening up the house to the backyard’? That means you can
   see
   the backyard. That means you’ve got to
   fix up
   the backyard. That means you can’t leave it permanently littered with toys, bikes, engine blocks and part-built cubbies.
   
6. Why the obsession with ‘opening up the kitchen to the dining room’? That means you can
   see
   the dinner guests. It also means they can see you and what you are doing to their food. Overall point: what do these people have against walls?
   
7. On all these TV shows, renovations are achieved in twenty-four hours. In reality they take months. One friend of mine drew the line when, getting up at midnight to breastfeed her twins, she found two neighbourhood dogs fornicating in her lounge room. She blamed this on her husband who had removed the side wall of their home some months before and hadn’t
   quite
   got around to rebuilding it. I don’t believe he’s done any DIY since. Or had much opportunity to produce more twins.
   
8. Why does every door have to be a sliding one? On these shows they love them. Have they shares in the ball-bearing business? And do they realise all sliding doors fall to pieces after five years, usually taking the marriage with them?
   
9. Why, in shows like
   Backyard Blitz
   or
   Renovation Rescue
   , do they have to install at least three different materials underfoot—a little paving, an area of loose stones and some pressed elephant dung to ‘reflect the owner’s continuing fascination with Africa’? Whatever happened to the notion of concreting the bastard over then painting it green? As in the phrase ‘he came, he saw, he concreted’.
   
10. Fashion changes every decade. No sooner will you have levered out the aluminium windows and replaced them with timber than the host will be on screen: ‘Have you considered installing aluminium windows? They’re the latest “must-have”.’
    
11. The end is never in sight. You imagine in five years time you’ll be able to rest on your laurels. Or rather, rest on your delightfully modish wicker chairs atop
    your new tallow-wood deck. Wrong! A more accurate analogy is the painting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge—by the time you’ve painted your way to one end, the other end will already be peeling and rusting. Easier, really, to do nothing.
    
12. Any attempt to copy the renovations achieved on the TV will fail anyway, since your tools are not up to the job. I know the modern man is mocked for always blaming his tools; he is compared unfavourably to old Uncle Frank who could achieve anything around the house minutes after the problem was identified. ‘All Auntie Vera had to do was point out the problem.’ Yes, I know. But consider the riches of Uncle Frank’s resources. The man had a shed. With power. The shed had a fridge. He had copies of
    Australasian Post
    in there. And his own body weight in high-class chisels. I—we—have the hall cupboard, down the back of which, once you’ve moved the vacuum cleaner to one side and displaced the baby bath, just in case we have another child, which by the way we’re not going to, you’ll find a sad and tangled pile of cheap tools, mostly purchased from the bargain bin outside Clint’s Crazy Bargains. There are chisels that, for want of anything better, you’ve attempted to use as screwdrivers. There are set squares that you’ve used as paint-tin openers. There’s a socket set that you once pressed into service as a hammer. Now, if we only had better tools…
    
13. And, finally, whatever they say in these shows, it is impossible to make a house look better through painting or renovating. The lovely job you’ve done on
    the bedroom walls only serves to draw attention to your battered old wardrobe and threadbare carpet. Last week, they looked fine; now they dominate the room—as visible as a pimple on a fashion model’s chin. You spend more money, purchase new carpet and wardrobes, and the bedrooms look perfect. Which only serves to draw attention to the hallway, which used to look fine, but now…
    

Well, that’s all from the team at
Pigsty
for another week. We’ll be back with more will-sapping and life-defeating advice next week.

Welcome to life. I note that you are a baby, recently born. While your auditory and intellectual processes may not be completely developed, it is nonetheless my duty to present to you certain disclaimers and warranty waivers. Please stop sucking that blanket and listen.

Life in Australia may contain traces of nuts. In fact, there are nuts everywhere. Especially in the legal system. That’s just my little joke. Are you sure you don’t want to take notes? I shall make an annotation that you waived that constitutional right. Your gurgle shall be taken as a note of assent.

Swim between the flags. Don’t get involved in schoolyard fights. Check the pavement ahead as you walk. Don’t smoke in bed. And don’t sit naked on a chair with moving parts. Actually, that one is mainly for the boy babies, but you never know. Also: all hot liquids in Australia may prove to be, well, hot. And before you dive into water, please check the depth.

There’s no need to look at me like that. These days, we have to place warnings on everything, so it’s easier to do them in one go. Straight after birth, which is what I’m doing right now. Dry-clean everything. Or at least hand-wash. Can I be very clear about that? And please stop sucking that blanket. It may have traces of nuts.

Never eat a meal bigger than your own head. Do not attempt to wash the bottom of your feet in the shower while drunk. And never go fly-fishing while wearing a nose ring. People do, you know. And then they sue State Recreation for providing the river in which they were fly-fishing. It’s been most lamentable. But you won’t be able to sue, Baby Number 4305789. You’ve heard the official warning.

What else? Always check for ceiling fans before jumping for joy. If working in the building trade, always get someone else to carry the bag of cement. And don’t try to queue jump in the delicatessen if there are elderly Italian women ahead of you in the queue. Oh, yes, the injuries can be horrific. But the warning has now been given. No suing the Department of Multicultural Affairs for you.

I really would like you to stop sucking that blanket. While the sucking is occurring in front of me—a government official—that fact should in no way be implied as an endorsement of your actions. That is a state hospital blanket. God knows where it has been. I wouldn’t suck it. I think you’re crazy. But it’s your choice. The risk has been disclosed and thus accepted.

What else? Never argue with bouncers. If you find yourself in a restaurant that is revolving, you’ve probably had too much to drink. And before commencing an uncharitable anecdote about a person, always check that the subject of the anecdote is not among those listening.

I could go on, and in fact I will: Don’t wear platform shoes when attempting the Macarena. Roof racks, men and octopus straps make a very unhappy combination. When fixing a gun, don’t stare down the barrel when trying to assess why nothing is coming out when you pull the trigger. And once you turn sixteen, you may wish to store certain unctions and potions in your bedside drawers so they can be readily located in the dark. But do find a different drawer for the Dencorub.

Will you stop fidgeting? We’re nearly there. Never place a rose between your teeth without first removing the thorns. Don’t wear hoop earrings while operating heavy machinery. And never put anything smaller than your elbow into your ear. I know that’s what your grandmother told you but when I say it, it has legal weight. I’m recording this you know. What else? Get an electrician. Get an electrician. Get an electrician.

You’ll find another 5300 warnings in this pamphlet, which I am conveying to you by the act of putting it inside your cot. Don’t suck it. It may contain nuts.

One of the mysteries of holidays is the way we drive hundreds of kilometres in order to stay somewhere less comfortable than home. Maybe it’s our way of consoling ourselves about the year ahead: sure, we’ll have to go back to work, but at least we’ll get to move back into our normal home.

Until then, it’s a week up the coast with the scratched plastic wine tumblers, the broken banana lounge for which we’ll probably get the blame, the windows with the ripped flywire, and a hot water supply that’s defeated by one shower and a bit of washing up.

Why is it so? Why are all rental houses up the coast the same?

How come they never supply a big pot in which you can boil pasta? Is it a state government rule? ‘There can only be three saucepans—each one smaller than the last.’ Is there a
decree that, during all official holidays, the whole population must boil pasta in batches, in tiny saucepans, on whatever hotplates they can goad into life?

Which brings us to the hotplates. Why is it that the back left one never works? It’s like a rule of nature. By what strange practice do they become damaged? Do people leap up and down on them? Or is it some sort of agreement among the estate agents? (‘Oh no, son, you can’t offer a fully working stove. Next thing you know, they’ll all be wanting one.’) And where do they purchase these special electric frypans—the ones that burn a crop-circle into the food by means of a red-hot element which leaves the rest of the pan dead cold?

The TV set, I must admit, generally works, although the remote control is long lost, requiring you to prod at various tiny buttons in the machine’s tummy. I say it’s lost, but more likely it’s in The Cupboard—the locked shrine at the heart of any beach rental property.

This is the place in which The Owners put all The Good Stuff, so The Renters can’t wreck it. God knows what is in there, but as a renter it’s always the first thing you spot: the locked cupboard, or occasionally the locked garage. You stare at it, your imagination running wild.

Presumably it’s like Ali Baba’s cave in there—crowded with all the things that would make the house
perfect.
Ah, yes, there’d be pasta pots aplenty, piled high, jostling for position with a DVD player, a real teapot, an egg slide without a burnt and melted handle, and some curtains that would actually keep out the sun in the morning.

In various houses, I have sat in the baking heat of the late afternoon—a sheen of sweat on my forehead, panting
lightly from heat sickness—wondering why, in a house this hot, there are no fans. But, of course, there are plenty of fans: it’s just that they are all locked up in Ali Baba’s Cupboard.

I imagine the owner collecting them, just before he leaves, cackling as he stacks them in The Cupboard: ‘This will stop them using up my electricity; let them sweat it out.’ I imagine him rather like Gollum in
The Lord of the Rings
—his eyes ablaze as he lifts the Electrolux 240-volt RC-17 Turbo Fan into The Cupboard. ‘Ah, my precious,’ he says, stroking it lasciviously, ‘you rest until my return.’

Last year things got so hot in our fanless rental, we spent a couple of afternoons at the local Bi-Lo supermarket—playing cards on the benches near the checkout. The airconditioning was wonderful, although there’s nothing like another price check in aisle three to make you forget you’re in possession of the joker.

While at Bi-Lo, of course, we could stock up on the chemicals required to keep at bay Australia’s wonderful and diverse wildlife. The real estate agent may have advertised the house as ‘sleeps eight’, but that’s not including the permanent occupants: about 5000 sandflies; a dozen battalions of mosquitos; a heaving mass of cockroaches; and some insane kookaburras with psycho-killer eyes.

With our chemical ammunition from Bi-Lo, each evening is like a scene from
Survivor
—the tribal council scene—as we try to eat our meal outside, surrounded by burning plumes of citronella, our legs wet and stinging with Aerogard, a stick at the ready to hold at bay the meat-hungry kookaburras.

How does the owner cope? How does he stand it? My eyes again flick to The Cupboard. What’s he got in there? He
must have something
really
good: a secret stash of the hard stuff—smoke bombs and mozzie zappers; litres of banned DDT; spray packs full of agent orange, sitting in rusted tins, saved up from the Vietnam War.

I imagine him up here—luxuriating on his mozzie-free balcony, pasta bubbling away in its large pot, an episode of
Seinfeld
twinkling away on the DVD, as the door to The Cupboard swings idly open in the breeze created by the massed banks of fans.

Anyone know how to pick a lock?