Thursday, April 17, 2008

Franzy's Continuing Advice for The Ill-Advised

In my previous attempts at advice for dudes about women I've covered sucking up and buttering up. Now we're going for the kill; via an old, tedious joke that tends to appear on quaint fridge magnets given to women by other, more jaded women as a hopefully-ironic gag. But we're going to twist it and turn it to your advantage.

It starts when you sink into his arms and ends with your arms in his sink.

Ho ho. I know. I know. I know. Huh! Honestly! Men. Can't live with them, can't shoot 'em! Ho ho ho! Oh, I know.

So - had enough matronising yet? Well let me demonstrate what you're going to do. Forget the phrase's Sybilic overtones and instead make this your lady-wooing maxim:

It starts with your arms in her sink and ends ... ahem, well, you get the picture. Seriously though - this is Franzy's Piece of Wisdom About Women #3: Do the washing up. Do it quickly and don't smash anything. Brush aside all offers of help. Just stack up the plates, chuck them in the sink with hot water and soap, swoosh swoosh with the water, stack them on the rack and you will be Captain Dynamite.

Reason? Chicks always do all the cleaning. We're talking averages here, mind you. By and large, it's always the girls doing the wiping, spraying, scrubbing and sucking (of dust) while the dudes get all the fun jobs like Chopping Up The Firewood, Replacing The Light Globes and Moving The Furniture. If you suddenly jump up start being all manly and efficient with the dishes, trust me, your lady-friend's estimations of you will rise like the hundreds of thank-you cakes she will bake you* in the future.

And if you're living with a girl, or at least letting one use your dunny, then clean it. Every day. Even if you can't actually see the shitstains, she can. And if you clean it, she shall whisper to her girlfriends: 'And he even cleans the toilet! Every day!'
'Gasp!' they will all gasp. 'He noticed your hair, cooked you that gourmet pasta, did the dishes and cleaned the toilet?!?'
'Yes!'
'Then we shall pillow fight for this Man of Men! Game on, Moll!'

And there, the fantasy ends.

* Metaphor.

***

Oh, here's something fun you can all try at home:

1. Go for a jog (about half an hour should do it).
2. Drink a glass of water afterwards. Just one though, or it'll spoil the fun!
3. Drink a beer.
4. Order a large pizza.
5. Eat lots and lots of it while lounging on the couch.
6. Drink two glasses of red wine with your pizza.
7. Don't get up!
8. Watch a show about a bunch of army dudes doing a survival course in the Northern Territory in which they spend the whole time talking and thinking about water and how the fuck they're going to get a hold of it using only a fire (which they have to make themselves), a jerry can, a tube, a plastic bag and a river full of salt-water crocodiles.
9. Go to bed in a cool room with a runny nose so that you have to mouth-breathe in your sleep.

Dehydration? You bet! Even though I got up and drank the water jug dry at about 3 a.m. You know how you get up in the morning and have a piss? And if you're dehydrated it's kind of ... pungent? Well I was pretty much pushing out pencil leads on the lemon tree this morning. I had so little moisture to give I was actually extruding graphite. Ouch.

***
GTH - I'm awarding the point to myninjacockle for the Tommy Buttfucker story. The header was a photo I took in Derry in 1999 during the Orange Marches where the teeny tiny little Protestant population march up and down the wall of the largely-Catholic fortified old town in celebration of how wonderful their religion is. The cops have to turn up and basically barricade the whole show to stop the two religions meeting up and smashing the shit out of each other. Thus does the connection with my dad's t-shirt occur.

9 comments:

  1. "It starts with your arms in her sink and ends ..."

    That's why I always wear rubber gloves when doing the dishes.

    PS I spy a your/you're typo in para 4.

    ReplyDelete
  2. EEEEEEEK!
    Duly changed.

    ps. I definitely think you're on the right track with the rubber gloves...

    ReplyDelete
  3. The most important three words:- don't smash anything. At the very least make sure not to smash something you know she loves eg. the favoured coffee mug which has so far withstood 10,000 dishwashing episodes.........


    Extruding graphite?? ouch ouch ouch

    ReplyDelete
  4. Learn to love the washing up...

    I get 90% of my best ideas elbow-deep in hot water. Slap some music on and it's even better.

    Oh, and as for the stains, I'd hear a rumour that women have UV sight..

    ReplyDelete
  5. GTH: It looks like the arm of a newly engaged man holding his lovely lady at their party. Said arm also appears to have a glint of dish washing liquid on it. The arm has seen many a stainless steel sink, more so now living with a female than with previous male housemates. FACT: Living with a Lady is good for you health and hygiene.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice work Murphy!

    BIG Congrats to you and Em!!
    Sorry I couldn't be there to celebrate with you guys!

    PS: I have a maid now who cleans my dishes (and irons my shirts). Strangely enough that keeps me more clean than normal as I am terrified that she will think I am a messy hobo - resulting in me madly tidying my house the night (ok, lets be honest) the morning before she comes to clean...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your wisdom is great, oh Franzois. So is your rising cake analogy!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I am directing my brother over here poste haste. Nice chap but deeply unevolved. Still he's tall and manly and thus always has a lady around to complain about his shitstains.I'm back BTW.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 'even if you can't actually see the shit stains'. This point is crucial to my (usually losing) argument over the cleaning.
    Asking me to be aware of dirt generally is similar to asking a deaf person to listen out for the postman. While Knickers, to continue the simile/metaphor/example, has the ears of a bat. Given that scenario I feel I should be given credit for being even vaguely aware of what a postman actually is.

    Alas this is not the case.

    Following your earlier advice I have been pissing on my lemon tree regularly. Still no lemons.

    ReplyDelete

An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test

Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.

Have you heard of the band Joy Division?

Chinese food, not Chinese Internet!

Champions of Guess The Header

  • What is Guess The Header about? Let’s ask regular “Writing” reader, Shippy: "Anyway, after Franzy's stunning September, and having a crack at 'Guess The Header' for the first time - without truly knowing what I was doing mind you - I think I finally understand what 'GTH' is all about. At first I thought you needed to actually know what it was. Don't get me wrong — if you know what it is, it may help you. I now realise that it's more Franzy's way of invoking thought around an image or, more often than not, part of an image. If you dissect slightly the GTH explanatory sentence at the bottom of his blog you come up with this: “The photo is always taken by me and always connects in some way to the topic of the blog entry it heads up.” When the header is put up, the blog below it will in some obscure way have something to do with it. “Interesting comments are judged and scored arbitrarily and the process is open to corruption and bribery with all correspondence being entered into after the fact and on into eternity, ad infinitum amen.” Franzy judges it, but it's not always the GTH that describes the place perfectly that gets it. “The frequent commenters, the wits, the wags and the outright smartarses who, each entry, engage to both guess the origin and relevance of the strip of photo at the top (or “head”) of each new blog and also who leave what I deem the most interesting comment.” It generally helps if you're a complete smartarse and can twist things to mean whatever you feel they should mean - exactly the way Franzy would like things to be twisted." - Shippy Blogger and GTH point scorer.
  • Nai - 1
  • Lion Kinsman - 2
  • Will - 2
  • Brocky - 2
  • Andy Pants - 2
  • The 327th Male - 3
  • Mad Cat Lady - 3
  • Miles McClagen - 4
  • Myninjacockle - 4
  • Asheligh - 5
  • Neil - 5
  • Third Cat - 5
  • Adam Y - 6
  • Squib - 6
  • Mele - 6
  • Moifey - 7
  • Jono - 8
  • The Other, other Sam - 14
  • Kath Lockett - 15
  • Shippy - 19
  • River - 32