Burning Questions | picklebums.com

July 14, 2010 | Filed in: Burning Questions,Pickle-me-kate

Brenda from Mummy Time asked me a question….

“What’s the most *ahem* badass thing you’ve ever done in your life?”

Well now lets see…

I once wagged double biology and nicked off home to watch Days of Our Lives.

Um… er…. I accidentally ‘shop lifted’ two tiny pink baby shirts because I’d hung them on the pram handle and forgotten about them when I left K-mart.

Um… you see I am not really the ‘bad ass’ type.

I was pretty square in high school, and I was lucky enough to have pretty cool parents so I never really had anything to rebel against either. In my wild and footloose twenties, I couldn’t quite detach the responsible bit of me all together. So while I had my fair share of ‘drinking till I vomit down the stairs in my best friend’s house’ moments and the occasional ‘try this slightly illegal substance’ I was always the one who managed to magically make sure we had $50 for the taxi ride home and be sober enough to direct the driver safely there.

All of which makes me sound oh so boring…. so I’ve been quietly trawling the dark recesses of my brain trying to remember something really bad ass that I’ve ever done. And here is the best I could come up with…

I broke into a house once.

I was pretty little when I did this… though I can’t remember exactly how old, but I can’t have been much more than 7 or 8.

I was with my brother and some kids who lived in our street and we were going through a phase of likening ourselves to spies or secret agents or something. We were all convinced that a vacant house in our street was occupied by robbers, or hid secret clues or treasures. The house has been empty for a long long time, it was old and run down. We’d scoped out the outside of the house on several occasions coming up with more and more wild stories about it. On this particular occasion we were determined to get a look inside… which was when we discovered a small window was unlocked. Me, being small and the only girl, I was immediately volunteered to go in through the window and open the front door for the others. So, you know, not wanting to be kicked out of the gang, I did.

In through the window, run like buggery to open the front door…. only to find everyone else had gotten scared and run off and left me!!!

And even more disappointing…. the house didn’t have any secrets or treasures… so I shut the front door after myself and went home.

And that is possibly the most bad ass thing I have ever done.
Oh man I am so lame!

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Due to pregnancy induced tiredness I am going to bed a lot earlier these days, going to bed and watching TV, that is. I never used to watch much TV, I’d spend most of my evenings here in front of the computer screen. That was probably a good thing. If nothing else it saved me from ridiculous TV advertising.

The number of ads these days for anti-bacterial this and keep-your-children-safe that is driving me insane!

When did we all become such germaphobes?

My eyes just about roll out of my head as I listen to some well dressed, never a hair out of place, TV mother telling me that if I don’t wash my children’s hands with this hand sanitiser after they touch absolutely everything then I will be sent straight to Bad Mother Prison. That’s if they let me into Bad Mother Prison – they’d probably quarantine me in a bubble when they discover that I actually touch door handles in public places.

I must be covered in germs.
Nasty, insidious, evil, killer bacteria and germs.

My house is surely full of the little buggers since I don’t use anti-bacterial disposable wipes or spray the air with something that ‘deodorises and disinfects’. Don’t come to my house because you will surely die of all the diseases that are festering here.

Sure… I get that using anti-bacterial hand wash is possibly a good thing if you, or your children happen to be immuno-suppressed. I happily squirted that chilly gel on my hands before I entered the NICU to see my baby girls and before I went to visit my father-in-law after his heart transplant.

I’m also all for keeping a certain level of cleanliness, even more so if there is a little nasty running rampant through our house. I don’t let my children suck on the door handle of the public toilet or eat food off the floor in the food court. But what happened to common sense and a good amount of hot water and soap?

I’m not frightened of coming into contact with a few germs. I have plenty of them living quite happily in and on my body right now, doing me no harm whatsoever. I’m also not paranoid about coming into contact with a few everyday diseases. I take the regular precautions to avoid this, but my immune system works fine, and the odd bug here or there isn’t going to kill me, in fact, call me crazy, but it might actually do me some good.

All these ridiculous ’99.8% bacteria free’ products and their associated advertising are just feeding on people’s paranoia and fear to make money. These crazily perfect-looking mothers with their hand wipes and their subconscious little messages that ‘bacteria free’ = clean = good mother….. it really makes my blood boil (hey maybe that will kill all the germs living on me?)!

I guess I just need to turn off the TV and read a book!

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