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Back in the early 1980’s I shared a house with a bloke in Darwin for 12 months who was the most domestically challenged person I have ever met. Bernard, not his real name, or was it? I can’t remember; my years in the Top End are a bit of a blur now. Anyway this guy, we’ll call him Bernard, had been disgorged from a very sheltered existence in Adelaide where Mum had obviously done everything for him, and had lobbed in Darwin with little more than the clothes on his back to pursue the challenges of the teaching profession.
Having already worked in Darwin for a year, I was somewhat prepared to assume a paternal role with Bernard, show him the ropes, introduce him to people around the traps and help him settle into a life of formal responsibility during the week and the joys of hedonistic pleasures on the weekends, as you do when you are young, single, silly and living 3,000 kilometres away from home. Bernard’s only means of transport was a push bike and he would ride each morning to Nightcliff High school, about 7 km’s, rain or scorching sun, work 6 hours and then ride home again, and would repeat this 5 days a week. Nothing wrong with that, except when he got home he’d strip off his work clothes and dump them in his bedroom, where they’d lay, stewing until the following morning when he’d put them on again, ride off to work, work all day, ride home, strip’ em off and stack’ em high in the corner of his bedroom again. Bernard repeated this ritual every day of the week, so by Friday the notion of the clothes pile getting “high” took on a whole new meaning - I never got used to him sniffing his clothes every morning before putting them on, he appeared somewhat euphoric when doing this and it made me feel uncomfortable.
Now I’m a person who likes to work to schedules and so Wednesday’s and Friday’s after work I’d attend to my laundry. Being the opportunist he was it didn’t take long for Bernard to capitalise on my behaviours, riding home extra fast on Friday’s just so he could throw his weekly soiled work clothes into the washing machine on top of mine. It didn’t matter what part of the cycle the washing machine was on, in they’d go - socks, jocks, whites and colours, nylon’s, cotton’s, permanent press – it just didn’t matter, as long as they got wet, they were considered pristine and ready to be worn again. The first couple of times I didn’t mind so much and even hung some of his clothes out for him but later it became annoying especially when you knew his clothes had come in contact with tropical infections, unavoidable in the Top End. I started leaving his clothes in the washing machine in the vain hope that he would hang them out himself but this backfired because they’d still be there on Wednesday evening’s and I’d have to remove his mouldy load before mine would agree to go in.
Bernard was also amazingly ill equipped to prepare a simple meal and on one of the very few occasions he “agreed” to cook for a group of us, we were astonished to discover him attempting to roast frozen peas in the plastic bag on a baking tray in the oven. Needless to say the domestic duties were always compromised, only once did we shop together, and as such, hair shampoo was deemed a miracle product used for mopping floors, washing dishes and cleaning the toilet, which reminds me, try Bernard’s secret for a real clean toilet – it’s easy too!
- Lift both lids on your toilet bowl and add a couple of capfuls of shampoo to the water.
- Go to the other room where the cat is sleeping, pick it up and soothe it while you carry it towards the bathroom.
- In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids. Note: You may need to stand on the lid, afterwards. The cat will self agitate and make ample suds. Note: Never mind the noises that come from the toilet, the cat is actually enjoying this.
- Flush the toilet three or four times. Note: This provides a "power-wash" and "rinse".
- Have someone open the closest door to the outside. Note: Be sure that no one is between the toilet and the outside door.
- Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
- The cat will rocket out of the toilet and run outside where it will dry itself. After this procedure, both the toilet and the cat will be sparkling clean!
I ran into Bernard a few years ago and was not surprised to learn that he was still single.
We have some housekeeping of our own to attend to this week. Today we announce our footy tipping winners for the year but despite last week’s advice we will be delaying the release of the results of our business economic survey and the announcement of our wine winner. The surveys are being finalised this week and we hope to bring you the results in our next edition of Status e News. The winners of our free book giveaway “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, announced last week should all receive their book by tomorrow.
Finally, the end of the footy season also provides us with a natural break to scale back and review the production of Status e News. For the remainder of this year, we will be producing Status e News on a fortnightly basis, with the exception of reporting urgent and important industrial relations, economic and business matters as they arise. In the meantime, we will be launching our new Employee Hot Prospects website shortly, which will greatly enhance your experience in working with us to meet your staffing needs.
In our featured article this week we advise of the South Australian State Wage Increase 2008. We also introduce two new “Employee Hot Prospects”, which can be accessed from the “hot chilli” link at right and, announce the winner of our Round 22 Footy Tipping Competition along with our end of year prize winners.
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