Archive for the ‘opinion’ Category

Sheeple

I went shopping today for some clothes for my kids. I often go clothes shopping and more often than not I come home without buying anything. I’ve been wanting to buy some clothes for my nine year old daughter but each time I’ve taken a look around the junior clothes section of various stores, I’ve left empty-handed and disgusted. The clothes these days which are meant  to be worn by little girls are tacky, slutty and designed to be out of fashion within three weeks. What happened to nice, classic, pretty clothes for young girls? Why is the fashion industry intent on providing street walker style outfits for youngsters? What is this world coming to? Why am I channeling my grandmother?! I must be getting old or something…

Anyway, as I was saying, I went clothes shopping. After a recent growth spurt, my fifteen year old son has very few clothes left that fit him. I took him shopping a few months ago and he screwed up his nose and shook his head at just about everything on the clothes racks. Eventually he left with just two t-shirts and a pair of shorts – hardly a full wardrobe (plus a portable speaker system which took up more than half the budget I’d allocated for his clothes – how’d he swing that?!). So I thought I’d buy him a couple more t-shirts at least today, but the memory of his specific standards meant that I was passing over decent t-shirts too.

Well, the whole point of this post is to talk about how gullible people can be. Today I saw numerous expensive t-shirts emblazened with advertising from various famous corporations. Now I know for a fact that advertising is expensive. If you want to advertise on television you’re talking thousands of dollars for a mere thirty second spot. Try advertising your yard sale in a local paper and even then you have to shell out quite a few dollars for a measly quarter inch space. Advertising costs A LOT, and yet here are these big companies designing t-shirts with their logos on the front, charging $49.95 for the privilege of wearing them, and people are actually buying the things!

Company executives must rub their hands in Scrooge-ish glee every time they see the screen print of the latest ad on a new t-shirt design.  Since when did we all become such dumb, unthinking trend-seekers that we actually pay money for the privilege of walking around advertising some big already-mega rich corporation’s product? Do we really want to fit in that much that we can be pushed into paying for Coca Cola, or Nintendo, or Twilight’s advertising by becoming walking billboards? Gawd people are stupid. If you have to follow trends and have such little confidence in your own unique worth that you have to be up with the latest fads, step back and think for a moment what the instigators of those fads are doing to you. They’re not making you trendy or fashionable – they’re making you a deluded sucker who is helping to pay their advertising bill.

In reality, your need to follow fashion with the rest of the sheeple is making rich companies even more money than they already know what to do with, while the simple truth is, you’re down $49.95 for a crappy t-shirt with an advertisement on it.  Would you pay fifty bucks to have your neighbour’s yard sale ad printed on the front of your shirt?  No?  I didn’t think so.

PS… If you’re still unconvinced and you REALLY want to wear what will be the epitome of fashion (I swear – one day), then I can sell you a really spiffy wafflelogue.com t-shirt for a bargain $49.99.  Let me go find my Hobbytex – I’ll be right back!

As parents, it’s our job to teach our children how to be good, moral, honest and caring people – a huge responsibility for which our longer life experience hopefully kits us out for the task, but occasionally the tables are turned and despite their tender years, kids end up teaching us something profound instead. That recently happened to me.

I used to be amazed at my friend Bella’s incredible selflessness when it came to dealing with her ex and what she told her children about him. Although she had plenty to gripe about her life with him to me, she never ever said a bad word to her children about him. He stopped seeing them when they were small, but she never told them about any of the bad times she’d endured with him. I asked her why she never told them the truth, and she said that they didn’t need to know any of that – that that bad period had been between her and her ex, and she didn’t want any of that vindictiveness in her children’s lives now. As I said, I was amazed, because I’d been doing exactly the opposite.

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Hell’s bells I’m tired this morning. I am so not a morning person. I have still yet to meet a person who springs out of bed in the morning with a grin on their face and the urge to ‘get on with it’, like they do in mattress commercials. Most people I know open one weary eye, notice it’s morning, groan and wish for another hour’s sleep.

I love to sleep. It’s my favourite past time. There’s something about being unconscious but not dead which appeals to me. When I’m asleep I can forget all my problems (apart from the bizarre ones which pop up in your dreams – such as having the car accelorator and clutch pedals position under the seat, which was what I dreamed last night…).

I’ve always loved sleeping. I’ve been a serial napper all my life. I had a favourite red blanket which I used to snuggle up under at all sorts of hours and drift off, much to my friend’s annoyance when she came over to play with me. When I went on a brownie camp, we were all told to get on our bunks and have a rest – I was the only one who went off to sleep.

Lately I’ve had insomnia though. Life is stressful and worriesome right now, and my mind won’t switch off despite being totally tired. I end up getting up in the mornings feeling zombiefied and yearning for more sleep. I tend to sleep better during the day in a nap, why, I don’t know…maybe I’m descended from Transylvanian ancestors hanging out in crypts fast asleep in noddyland during the day.

I’m teaching a grade 5/6 class this morning. I like these half days – fairly easy money and the rest of the day to myself. I’m knackered already though and the kids are going to have their merry way with me. Ah well, come 12 o’clock I can come home and take a nap to recover.

I’m in a bad mood this morning. The dog escaped twice, Centacare employment stuffed up and I’ve been ‘deactivated’ (“Danger Will Robinson! Danger dang…”), the kids were bickering and complaining about helping out, I’m feeling nauseas and am having trouble spelling nauseaous. Naseos? Norse -ee-uss?

So in line with my grumpiness I am going to dedicate this blog to stuff which I think should never have been invented.

Bureacracy

Did I spell that right? My spelling is crap today. I hate red tape, but then, who doesn’t. It’s wrapped itself around in a strangulating grip on my life for a few years now. My hubby is awaiting immigration status, and has been for a couple of years. He now has a lovely immigration officer who is moving things along, thank gawd, but it’s been a nightmare up until now. Government agencies have made life very complicated.

Green ants

If you don’t know what these are, you’re invited to come walk across our front lawn bare footed and introduce yourself to these critters. They are as nasty and viscious as fire ants. I’ve never been bitten by a fire ant but I imagine green ant bites hurt just as much as their infamous relative. I think the hill that our house is built on is one gigantic green ant nest. They are not the type to look the other way and mind their own business – if you’re near them, they run after you and tear your throat out (or give you a very nasty nip).

Chocolate

My name is Lucy and I’m a chocoholic. I love the stuff – it is my comfort food. The trouble is that it has made my arse large enough to host a state banquet and still have room left over on which to play a polo match. If that cursed stuff hadn’t been invented I’d be so svelte (but even more neurotic and stressed). Chocolate should be outlawed, just like heroin. Or is that heroine? Ugh! I need chocolate.

Shitty parents

If you’re in a crowd, maybe at the local shopping mall, look around you, and be wary. Some of those people are the dreaded ’shitty parents’ and you wouldn’t even realise it. Shitty parents aren’t always identifiable but they must be out there because I teach their offspring. Not all kids are shitty parent offspring, but there’s a fair few who should have been taught a lesson or two about respect, work ethics, being grateful for their opportunities. There are some kids at school I’d like to plonk down in a bare hut school in Africa and make them carry water 5kms before their lessons, then help out with the crops afterwards to teach them exactly the value of what they really have at home in Australia. /end of shitty parents rant.

Tooth decay

If I were a god back in Genesis times, artfully molding a human out of clay, I’d be sure to experiment and test out a prototype to make sure I worked out the tooth decay issue. I have a weird phobia about seeing people frothing at the mouth when they’re brushing their teeth. It makes me gag. I think it goes back to the day when my mum washed my mouth out with soap for swearing. I can’t look at myself in the mirror when I’m brushing my teeth – I have to look at the sink and get it done as quickly as possible. So tooth decay should never have been invented. Obvious design flaw there.

Menstruation

Talking about design flaws…If anyone ever pondered whether God really should be considered a ‘He’ rather than a ‘She’, or an ‘It’, then look no further than the matter of menstruation. God has to be a man, or he’d never have thought to include in the female design something as inconvenient and stupid as a women’s period. What was He thinking? I have wondered how the human species survived the cave man days. Surely sabre tooth tigers had a heightened sense of smell, and cave women smelling of blood for at least a few days must have lured quite a few predators around the camp fire.

While I’m ranting about menstruation I should include a whinge about the cost of tampons etc. Australia has a goods and services tax on items which are considered ‘luxuries’. Anything which is considered ‘neccessary’ is exempt. Food is exempt, condoms are exempt, women’s sanitary products are not exempt. Do you think a man or a woman decided on what were and were not luxuries?

Ex husbands who make life hellish

‘Nuff said, although I am grateful to him for giving me my four lovely children.

I shall continue this list later if I’m still in a bad mood as there are tons more things which should never have been invented. But my hubby wants us to take the kids to McDonalds for lunch, and I need more chocolate, so I need to go out for a bit.