Dear Clueless...

Just recently this blog post below landed in my inbox.

Letter to myself as a new mom by The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking

Kelly lives in the United States, she has five children and she homeschools them all. Hats off to her.

She also posts a lot of housekeeping tips like,  how to clean your washing machine.  I didn't even realise you HAD to clean your washing machine. Which was why I initially subscribed to her blog. It is a FASCINATING insight into how tidy, organised people who homeschool their children live.

Kelly's letter is a heartfelt piece to herself. She is a completely devoted and lovely mother. It got me thinking about what I would say to myself as a new mum, if I had the chance.

I will be sending my letter back to the year 1999 as soon as time travel becomes available. Until then, you can read it here.

Dear Clueless,

That baby is not a toy.

I know he looks like a doll, but he is a brand new human being who just needs some serious shut-eye. He does not need to ‘play’ yet.  Just feed him, burp him and put him back to sleep. Seriously. That’s all you need to do.

While I’m at it, here are some other things I should give you a heads-up on.

When he’s asleep, he IS still breathing 

Don’t poke him to check. You will regret it for days. 
  

You don’t necessarily have to let other people hold your baby

People will ask all the time. Then they will pass him around and make goo-goo faces at him until his eyes are spinning like windmills at which point they will hand him back, bid you good day and leave you with the screaming over-stimulated baby. It’s okay to just say ‘no’ sometimes.

And I’m just going to knock this next one on the head... 

You are never going to be a serene earth-mother papoose mum

 So you might as well just put that Baby Bjorn pouch on e-bay. This baby is a vomiter, a puker, a chronic regurgitator. He is not 'papoose-friendly.'  He will coat you in vomit when he’s facing in, then when you turn him to face outward, he will give himself a big white chuck beard that will repel people in the supermarket. It’s just what he does. (No use saving the pouch for next time either, alls I’m saying is: two won’t fit in there.) 

Sleep when he sleeps 

I mean it. As soon as his eyes close, lie down and grab some shut-eye. Don’t dither around trying to find something useful to do. The most useful thing you can do is sleep. That way you won’t turn into a crazy hysterical lady who cries when she gets stuck inside her own t-shirt trying to put it on. 

The pram is not a mobile playpen

 By that I mean: get all that Lamaze developmental crap off it. All the multi-coloured bobbly things with springs and retractable legs and shaky shaker bits, that you have strung from the canopy to keep him ‘stimulated’. Get them off! He just needs to lie there watching shadows and colour smudges form. He can’t even see that multi-coloured, textured octopus thingy you have artfully suspended right in front of his nose. You are annoying him. 

Get yourself a blow-up donut

You don't know this yet, but you can get a blow up ring-shaped cushion from the chemist. Just get one.  That’s all I’m saying on the topic and I think by now you know what I’m getting at. (You’ll find them in the old people's ailments section with the denture creams, walking frames and orthotic inserts.) 

There is no ‘magic’ way to get him to sleep

I know you think you’ve finally cracked it with that crazy up and down rocking motion you’re doing every night for two hours; that bobbing up and down and then swinging side to side motion that you’ve got going on. In about a week, that’s going to stop working and you’ll have to start all over again trying to figure out what it is you’re doing wrong or right. You can’t control any of this and even when you think you can, nothing is ever a ‘solution’ for very long. He will keep changing it up on a weekly basis. 

Stop making such a meal of it

One is easy. Trust me. In about three years, you will wish you’d relaxed and enjoyed the relative cake-walk of it more. 

All those women who tell you their newborn sleeps through the night…

…are annoying liars.  Even if it’s true, they should keep it to themselves. It’s just rude not to. Next time anyone says it to you, flick her sharply in the middle of the forehead. 

Give up on the novelty socks and cutesy baby shoes

Just let it go, this obsession with covering his feet at all times. He doesn’t need shoes.  He’s a baby! Nor does he need a hat, jacket, baby mittens AND pants over his Bonds Babygro. You are overdoing it. Tone it down on the ‘look how I dressed my baby today!’ thing. 

 I know you’re bored, but don’t be in such a hurry to start him on ‘solids’

What goes in at one end must come out at the other.  That’s all I’m saying. 

Breastfeeding is hard. You need to concentrate

It’s not an adjunct to whatever else you’re doing. (Remember what I told you about not being an earth mother?) Sit down somewhere quiet and make sure you’re doing it properly. Even then, it may not work out for you. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Some women are just not breastfeeders. 

Toilet training is hellish

It just is. But despite your fears, he is now 13 years old and is not attending high school in nappies. 

He’s in the golf cart

When he’s 18 months old, you will think you’ve lost him for good. It’s the longest, most terrifying 15 minutes of your life. But you will find him and he’s fine. Look over yonder. See that golf cart in the middle of the Fox Studios oval? See how the front wheels are shifting mysteriously this way and that? He’s in the driver’s seat working the steering wheel madly from side to side. He’s really pleased with himself and not at all ‘lost and pining for Mummy.’

Overall, he stays pretty safe well into his teens...

His health is always good, but watch for a very traumatic episode in kindergarten where he is sent home with blinding stomach pains and then writhes on the bed all night like Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist.'  Rest assured it is not demonic possession, merely a chronic case of constipation.  

Physically speaking he also remains intact. Just one small scar, behind his ear: the result of some very enthusiastic gymnastics performed unsupervised on the coffee table one Sunday morning.  (Don't worry, his ear, whilst hanging at an odd angle initially, does not come off.)

Oh and most importantly, you will sleep again. One day, you will put your head on the pillow at 10pm and not wake up until morning. It’s coming in the distant future and it’s heavenly.

Yours sincerely,

Me

When it's time to unravel and run off into the distance...

One day on tour, my sister began to unravel. She was in the front seat of the van, we were going the wrong way out of Melbourne and had been travelling in the wrong direction for approximately half an hour.  We were on a freeway and there was nowhere to turn around. We couldn't quite work out whether we would get to where we wanted to go if we just kept going on the road we were on, or whether we were seriously going in the wrong direction.

Like Apollo 13 emerging from the dark side of the moon, we had been shot off the ring road in the wrong direction and we were finding it hard to change trajectory.

We were due in Bendigo for a show (see my post, What do you do?  for clarification of what I do with my sister) and we were already running late. It wasn't life threatening, but at that moment, to my sister the whole world order of things seemed to depend on getting there on time. In fact, getting there at all, suddenly seemed seriously doubtful. The chance that we were possibly headed back to Sydney by mistake was even to me, in my more sedate catatonic form of panic, suddenly a likely and alarming outcome.

  "Stop the car!" She cried. "STOP THE CAR!"
We pulled over to the nearly non-existent shoulder. We were in the middle of nowhere.  A vast flat field to the left. A vast flat field to the right. A highway in between, pointed.. where? East, west, north, south? We just did not know.

We sat in silence, three of us.  Glenn (the tour manager) and I  awaited her next instructions. She seemed to have something specific in mind. She opened the car door and stepped outside onto the shoulder. She wasn't looking at the road, she was gazing out into the open field.

What was she about to do?

"I think I was about to just run off into the field peeling off all my clothes."  She said later.

Oh the feeling. I know it well.  The moment when it all gets too much and you want to put your hand up and say:

"You know what? I'm out."

Make a day of it, I say. Run into the field and peel off all your clothes. Run until you can run no more. Run like the wind.

This is also known as, "unravelling," due to the scene in The Hours where Meryl says, "I think I am unravelling," and stumbles back into the kitchen bench with just the right nuance of drama.

(For this reason, my sister also refers to this as "Merylling.")

She didn't run into the field peeling off her clothes that day. We managed to talk her, still weeping and still fully clothed, back into the passenger seat.  We kept driving and mercifully the next intersection presented the magical sign to Bendigo.

(I say, "mercifully" because we're not the type of family who will run after each other dramatically shouting out names in a crisis.  We're more the "stand and see" types. If we'd had to pull over again she may have just run off into the field and I may have just stood at the fence watching as she disappeared, nude over the horizon, never to be seen again.) 

This afternoon at approximately 5.15, I "Merylled". 

It was a combination of things: the black mould stain on the ceiling that grows bigger with every fall of rain. The dodgy builder who will not come back to fix it, no matter what tactics I apply (shrill and persistent, friendly and dopey, stern and business-like, none of my personas seem to dent his lack of contrition at having built a leaky, dodgy, roof over my study four years ago.) The stupid fringe I had cut at the hairdressers that makes me look a right tit and will not grow out now for months.

But the thing that finally did it was the dishwasher.  That 'check water' light that haunts my after-dinner hours, lit up again.  Dishwasher, down and out for the count. Oh even as I write it, it sounds so lame. But at the time, with the sink still full of the morning's dishes and dinner still to come, it seemed so dire.

"That's it." I thought to myself. "I'm out."

The thought of stumbling out into the street and dramatically peeling off my clothes to signal my complete surrender was very appealing.

Instead, I surrendered the pretence of  dinner.  The kids kindly opted for toasted sandwiches. Then I began to weep majestically into the sandwich maker.

When my children asked me what was wrong, I could only sob, "The dishwasher... the dishwasher..."

I was now unravelling and there was no going back.

My children were surprisingly empathetic.  My eldest suggested wisely that it could be worse, it could be the fridge that was broken. This struck me as a surprisingly astute observation from a 13 year old boy.  A fridge on the blink is truly a slipperly slope into urban domestic decay.  (As is a failure to put out the garbage on garbage night but don't get me started on that.)

We got through dinner (me still clothed and still inside the house) and then we watched, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  About 45 minutes in, I found myself wanting to take that stupid tambourine and shove it up that little boy's arse.

That's when I knew I was back.

Show us yer spreadsheet!

Are you financially intimate with your friends?  I would say I am financially intimate with two of my friends. In fact, I am so financially intimate with one of them,  that our favourite activity is a game called, "Show me your spreadsheet."

During this game, we each detail to the other how much we earn per week and where it all goes. We are completely honest about this.  She is often horrified by how much I spend. I am often disgusted by how little she spends.

Sometimes we do the game with a yearly per annum salary. Sometimes we do it weekly.  Seldom monthly. I'm not sure why.

It all started because years back, she actually had a spreadsheet of all her incomings and outgoings and she willingly showed it to me.  Quite without shame.  It wasn't showing off, she's on an average professional sort of wage, has an average sized mortgage and she owns her own average sort of car. Her husband  earned less than she did and they were about to have their first child.  She was trying to figure out how they would manage on just his wage, hence the spreadsheet.

At the time, I was subsisting on an indecently low weekly wage and renting. I was newly married and my then-husband was working his way up.  We weren't high flyers, in fact I'd say we felt as though we were constantly struggling.  My friend was trying to show me that they weren't high flyers either.

I have to say, it's one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me. It really put a lot of things into perspective. It made me feel better about the choices we made and the way we lived.

I found out amongst other things that they only allowed themselves to buy a family-size block of chocolate in the weekly grocery shop if their favourite brand was on special, her husband bought large bottles of Coke and decanted them into smaller portions for each day (instead of expensive can multipacks) and when they had takeaway (once a week) they ordered one entree and a main between them.

Talk about austerity measures.

When I compared this to the way we were living: extravagant dinners out whenever we felt flush with cash, ordering takeaway at least twice a week without caveats and renting in one of the most expensive suburbs of Sydney, I didn't feel so bad about our 'struggles'.

But the detail that caused my friend to gasp in horror at the sheer frivolity, was my husband's three multi-packs-of-mini-KitKats-a-week habit in the weekly shop.

"Those are $5 each!" She gasped. 

Oh extravagance thy name is mini-KitKats.

My other friend has a more lassez faire approach. She often blithely tells me how much her last grocery bill was. The other day it was upwards of $350.
"I nearly fell off me perch!" She said.
Again, it's not showing off, she's not comfortable with that giant bill, au contraire.  They are pretty standard Aussie battlers with two kids, an indecent-sized mortgage and two cars still to pay off.   Sometimes her grocery bill is just indecently huge and it helps to talk about it.

Another friend of mine has in the past not been as forthcoming about her spreadsheet. I've never asked to see it, but I sensed it was not a question that would be received comfortably.  She IS a high flyer and I think she doesn't want me to be embarrassed by the sheer indecency of her salary.

Recently though, she did offer, very discretely to show me her spreadsheet.  I declined her generous offer.  But I have to say, her willingness to lay bare somehow brought us closer.

Financial growth? In a manner of speaking.

The owl and the pussycat went to sea...

I have had a lot of jobs in my time.  None of them proper.

In the early '90s I was cast as Yogo the gorilla in Monica Trapaga's kids show.  When I say, 'cast,' what I mean is: her manager was my manager, I was in between gigs and they needed someone to put on a gorilla suit and dance the "Yogo au gogo" with Monica.  We also did some sort of hula number, but my memory is vague on that.

What is clearer in my memory is that it was hard to see where I was going in that suit.   I definitely recall knocking over a plywood palm tree or two en route to centre stage.

To say it was the best job ever, is an understatement. It was a bit like joining the circus.  Monica was a flexible employer and the requirements of the job were "fluid" and ever-changing.  Sometimes I was required to work the bird puppet, "Macaw" (which I did very badly) and other times I was required to be "Mrs George Devino the corner shop owner."

Mrs George Devino was a construct entirely of Monica's imagination.  And despite Monica explaning her to me at great length and giving me two pages of meticulously typed character description, I still don't really understand who or what she was and why her name was "George."  Luckily I was given a lot of license to make the character my own.

So after being given the "you're on with Mrs G de V" signal by Monica (about half an hour before a show one day)  I awaited my cue and proceeded to stride on stage executing a very poor Dame Edna impression.  It just happened.  It was all very random, which was just the way Monica liked it. 

Now I have found another favourite job that perfectly suits my temperament.  I am officially called the 'Freelance Activities Editor' at Kidspot.  Wow, sounds fancy! But what does it mean?

It means I create content. I fill the site with stuff.  I make videos and write things and just recently the executive editor, Alex Brooks (who is on par with Monica in terms of her 'anything goes' approach to creatives) asked if I would do some nursery rhymes.

I'm not fond of nursery rhymes, nor am I fond of mawkish to-camera video work especially featuring my own rough old head. But I do like the Edward Lear poem,  The Owl and the Pussycat. So I pushed the envelope a bit: I recorded my own version and then asked one of my nine year old twins to do a drawing of the poem.  And while I don't want to toot my own trumpet too loudly, it's a pretty awesome drawing.

You can see Henry's drawing and hear my version of The owl and the pussycat, below.

Supermarket etiquette

I have spent a lot of time in the supermarket.  I am like Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson; I love the choice that capitalism affords me (but sometimes I find it overwhelming.)  In particular I love the fact that, until you get to the checkout, it feels like everything is free. Just take stuff off the shelf and put it in your trolley.  You can. You're allowed to help yourself.

However, some people have very bad supermarket etiquette and are spoiling it for everyone. Here are my top 10 rules for supermarket shopping.

1. The supermarket is one way.  You start at the fresh produce and finish at the toilet paper.   PLUS if we all follow the same path, each aisle should also only be one way.  That way, you will only have to say 'hi' to your neighbour/ the lady you knew from your son's first kindergarten/ that woman who looks familiar but you can't figure out where you know her from, once. (Not every time you cross paths going in different directions in each aisle. AWKS)

2. Conscientious, right-on Mummies and Daddies: no Playschool-style commentary in the fresh produce area please.   This is not the time to teach your kids about every single vegetable known to mankind and loudly proclaim to everyone around you what you are cooking for din-dins that evening. We are all giving our children chicken nuggets for dinner and we don't give a shit if your kid 'looooves' wok-flashed baby bok choy.

3. Old people: single file only. Do not waddle around side by side blocking the aisle, making loud 'oh-me-lumbar' groaning noises as you bend down to get to the lower shelves. On that, bend from your knees people, don't bend with your arse halfway out into the aisle and block the way.

4. Minimum speed of 5km per hour. Anyone going slower should get their groceries home delivered.

5. Self-scanning checkouts are for BASKETS only. Do not load up your trolley with your two week bulk shop and the scan it yourself, you knob. Also if you don't know how to use the self-scanner, get in the 10 items or less line where a kind checkout lady will scan them for you.

6.  Check-out ladies: no inane small talk at the checkout. In particular do not ask me what I'm up to today. Sometimes the answer is, 'not much,' and I feel guilty/embarrassed about that. Also, once you open up that dialogue I will worry that you are going to 'comment' on my groceries (the five packets of mini KitKats or some embarrassing lady item).

7. As a follow on from that...
Check out ladies:  scan embarrassing items as quickly as possible, if they don't have a barcode/ are not scanning, just toss them quickly behind you, pretend it never happened and move on.  If you have to get Jan from toiletries to run up the aisles looking for the price on a 24-pack of Tenas, I NO LONGER WANT THEM.  (Seriously, I'd sooner just wet my pants next time I go for a run.)

8. To the store manager: The checkout is a free library of magazines. That is: magazines at the checkout are provided for my enteratainment whilst I am waiting in the queue. I do not have to buy one but I can read it while I am waiting. If your queues are so long that I can read the entire thing while I'm waiting my turn, then maybe it's time to fire up the light on checkout 10.

9. Grocery shopping is not a romantic couples activity.  It is a dull necessity of life and only requires one person at the picking end. (You may involve your husband/boyfriend at the 'unloading and unpacking end' in the privacy of your own home.) Young pert ladies, leave your boyfriends at home! Do not drag him through the aisles in an attempt at cutesy, ironic, faux-domesticity before your time. Your time will come and it will not be cutesy. Don't peak too early.

10. People with fresh produce OCD: if you are fussy about hand-picking your beans/apples/oranges etc. be aware that some people are happy to just toss a few in a bag and keep going. That is: stand aside and don't block the access while you are searching for the holy grail of string beans one by one.

Happy shopping. And remember, if you see me coming at you down Aisle 7, you are going the wrong way.

Loyalty? For what?

 "Do you have one of our loyalty cards?"
 "No."
 "Would you like one?"

Usually I say, "no" in a way that conveys how I feel about loyalty cards. I sort of shut my eyes and curl my upper lip as though there is a bad smell somewhere and the whole concept of a loyalty card may just be the source of it.

But I was out of my comfort zone. I was in a remnant shop, surrounded by big bolts of lycra and silk and satiny stuff.  I was a bit overwhelmed. I didn't really understand the prices.  Apparently I had to buy that whole roll of black lycra, I couldn't just have a bit. What would I do with a whole roll of black lycra? What would anyone do - unless they planned to start their own swimsuit label?

 "Oh okay." I said, caught off guard.
She was beside herself. She reached into the drawer and pulled out a small piece of cardboard, she folded it in half and explained the deal. She was so breathless with it that I thought it must actually BE a good deal.

 "Keep track of your purchases here..." She indicated the lined side of the card.  "And for every $200 you spend you get $20 worth for free."

You. Are. Joking. Aren't you?

I had struggled to spend $19.95. I'd bought four giant rolls of stuff I would never even use and  it had only cost me $19.95. What did this woman think I was doing at home? Running a sweat shop? $200 worth? This place is on Botany Road with no parking outside. The only reason I stopped was because as I happened to be passing, someone else happened to be pulling out.

Oh I won't be back.

Mostly because I have all the black lycra I'll ever need for a lifetime now.  I was disappointed that I couldn't take it home on the roll.
  "We like to recycle those." She said discretely, as I had tried to joust my way out the door with the lycra still on its giant roll.

(My nine year old was also disappointed. It was the only reason he'd agreed to come in with me. He'd seen all those giant cardboard tubes covered in fabric sticking up out of their bins and immediately started calculating what he could do with one of those: weaponry, homemade didge, periscope... the possibilities were endless.  He had feigned interest in my deliberating and only given himself away when he'd blurted out, "Do we get to take the big cardboard tube home?" ) 

But loyalty cards. Don't get me started.

The other loyalty card I got talked into was a Witchery card. The girl behind the counter told me that I would get invited to special VIP nights. It sounded really glamorous. She also said I'd get "special updates and notices of secret sales."  It felt so clandestine and dangerous.  Secret sales.  Oh happy day!

What I got was this: junk emails in my inbox about various discounts and a 5% discount on anything I bought at full price.  Here's the rub... I don't buy anything at full price. Not in Witchery.  Oh it's way too overpriced! And 5%?  Don't talk to me about 5% as if it's something.

And there were no VIP nights that I got invited to.  That was disappointing. I imagined they'd be giving out free chilled flutes of champagne as you walked in the door to peruse the specially discounted racks of everything you've ever wanted but it was just out of your price range.

I stopped accepting loyalty cards years ago, when my wallet got so chocked full of them that I could no longer find my credit card when I was at the supermarket checkout. (You know, when it has to be found quickly because there's a huge line up behind you and you've just scanned through about $300 worth of groceries and you can't exactly put it all back because you can't find your stupid credit card because of all the STUPID FRIGGIN'  LOYALTY CARDS YOU'VE GOT!!!?)

But every time I buy something:

"Do you have one of our loyalty cards?"
"No."
"Would you like one?"

For a 5% discount and a load of junk emails? For $20 for every $200 spent?

No thank you.

Now, if the loyalty card meant that you got to keep the big long cardboard tube every time... then I think you'd have yourself a very good deal.

Ladies leave your husbands at home

While I am all for gender equality I think it's time we all took a step back from the
"we are all equal and women can play cricket too" bandwagon and admitted that some things are for men, some things are for women and ne'er the twain shall meet.

Kids know this.  Kids are the masters of knowing what is sensible with regard to mixing the sexes.

I recall a particular method in primary school whereby if you were planning a game that required large numbers of girls and you wanted to round up participants you simply linked arms and marched around the playground chanting this:

"Who wants to play
elaaas-tics?
No boys!"

Simple but effective: straight to the point. It alleviates any potential awkwardness when some enthusiastic Bernard tries to to join.  The same method worked for boys wanting to organise a game of touch footy.

"Who wants to play
Touch foo-tee
No girls!"

It's not sexist or exclusionary, it's just practical.

(It should be pointed out however, that the round up method sometimes became the activity itself. By the end of lunchtime the elastics mob had swollen to some 20 girls marching around with arms linked. We had not gotten around to playing our game of elastics yet.  I think we were really enjoying the the safety-in-numbers mob mentality of chanting, 'No boys!' all lunchtime.)

The same rules should apply to clothes shopping.

Ladies, leave your husbands/ boyfriends/ significant others at home. Please, I'm begging you.

There are certain places where a man is just not welcome. The women's wear section of David Jones or Myers is one such place. And don't even get me started on men who loiter in the change rooms with their ladies. Perverts OUT!

Shopping is a slightly furtive and clandestine activity for women.  We don't really need any more clothes. We are all aware of that.  But we just like to waft sometimes to see if we can find anything we need that we didn't actually know that we needed yet.

Ladies, if you bring your boyfriend into our sacred space, all of a sudden the rest of us feel judged. It really interrupts our heavenly department store flow. It bursts our bubble: that meaningless and compulsive consumerism that is the secret women's business of clothes shopping.

When a pair of male eyes sets upon us during our secret business our inner monologue switches from a dreamy:

Hmm... I don't think one can ever have enough white shirts.

to

What void am I trying to fill with all these clothes I buy? Do I really need another wrap dress when I never wear the ones I have? Is it necessary to try five  pairs of jeans on, when I am already wearing a perfectly good pair?  Is there something more practical I should be doing at home? Mutton dressed as lamb, mutton dressed as lamb, mutton dressed as lamb you are too old for that dress!

The other thing is, men just don't know how to stay out of the way when women are shopping. Women have a sixth sense. We can be perusing the same rack as another woman, our paths converging when suddenly, in an imperceptible movement, one makes way for the other.

This deft manouvre is known as  "the sales rack switcheroo." We don't need eye contact, we don't need to confer, we just know when to duck and weave to stay out of another shopper's way.

Just recently I took myself off to Myers for a perfectly pointless waft through the sales racks. I was aghast to find a significant number of women had brought their men with them and were moving through the racks in mixed pairs: as though shopping is an approved mixed doubles sport.

I was even more aghast to find one such woman rifling through the 90% off sales rack (that's right, I said, 90% off!) while her 'man' stood glued to her back like a buzzard. When I say "stood glued to her back" what I really mean is: "stood between me and the 90% off sales rack."

Men, if you do find yourselves in the women's wear section of David Jones, please be mindful of where you are standing.  Never EVER EVER stand between a woman and a sales rack. You will be shoved and you will deserve it.

This particular young man had eyes only for his shopaholic girlfriend. Sweet? Yeah, yeah, whatever. We've all been there. Just get out of my way, lover boy before I shove you.  I can see something black and jersey on that rack and the red markdown ticket is calling me. I'll do what I have to to get to it before she does.

I hovered meaningfully and made a sort of 'reaching out' motion towards an item just to his left.  This is the universal shopper's sign language of, "move to the right please and make way for me."

He stayed put. Just glued to her side, watching her with his droopy, shag-on-a-rock "I just want to be near her" demeanour.  Sweet? Yeah, whatever. Mate, find a chair. Sit in it and stay out of the way.  You are in serious danger whilst you are hovering so gormlessly around a 90% off sales rack. Seriously, I will shove you.

As I said, there were at least four other women shopping with men in tow, in the women's wear section: the men just drooging around behind them aimlessly, standing in the way, not being mindful of other shopper's needs (i.e. my need to get to the rack of fitted sparkly party dresses that I would never ever wear in a pink fit but just want to touch lovingly with my fingertips to glean some of their sparkly magic happiness for myself.)

The whole male presence really interrupted my valium-like shopping waft. It really ruined it for me.

I think next time I will bring my sister and my mother. We will link arms and march into that women's wear department chanting this:

"Who wants to go
clothes shop-ping?
no boys!"