More sexisim

Gee - sexism is alive and well in the world of real estate (although in fairness, I know plenty who aren't).

Remember the woman at netball who asked if I was a nurse? This one tops even that.

But I'm clearly a woman of menopausal age, which, according to research, means the filter between my brain and mouth is disappearing fast (if it ever existed!) so for god's sake do NOT provoke me!! Or an unpleasant exchange like this one may ensue.

So, picture this; an apartment in the block that overlooks our backyard was open for inspection and Sass was dead keen to have a look on our way to the dry cleaners. Up we popped and discovered you can't really see into our yard at all.

Dad!! Sass yelled over the balcony, knowing Geoff was working on the shed.

What, Sass? he yelled back

You can't see into the backyard from up here.

The real estate agent joined us.

Tell dad to come up .... and bring his cheque book!

Oh hilarious - not. 

Not him, but in the ballpark.

Actually mate, I said (and I rarely use the term 'mate' but I was determined to drag him to my level - up or down, I wasn't sure) eyeballing him, I'm the one with the money*. 

I was so deadpan, I even surprised myself, but it took the stupid grin off his face as he tried desperately to dig himself out of that hole.

Well, he spluttered, they do say the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

Seriously. 

I'm not talking about raising kids, I quipped, cool as a cucumber. I even hated me by this point. I was being so breathtakingly rude I could have given myself a slap, but I was so riled by his casual, blatant sexism - it was inexcusable behaviour. By both of us.

And we left.

*  I just made up that comment about the money - it's not true - but I was provoked. 

Karma

Sass is an enterprising thing. She and her friends have run a series of stalls at the front of the house selling, well, junk -  DVDs, 1980s 'jewellery' (what the heck was I hanging onto that for?), stationery, toys. Without any input from me, she also implemented some classic marketing tactics; the BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) and GWP (Gift With Purchase). The latter was an outdated magazine.

They even worked out that if anyone asked what the movie on the DVD was like, if they said it was really good, they'd be more likely to get a sale - even if they'd not actually seen it. No wonder we people in advertising have such a bad rap!!

We live right near a cafe so they've actually managed to raise a reasonable amount of cash, not to mention getting rid of a heap of rubbish.

Ever the entrepreneur, she was trying to work out how the team could make money even when they were asleep. (Aren't we all??!) And here's what she came up with:

Wishing Well.

Where your 

dreams can 

come true!!

It has attracted quite a lot of attention. I've spotted people walking past and doing a double take - some even laughing out loud and then chucking in a coin.

I even had a very odd couple come and knock on the door to discuss it (and more so, them)  for a good 20 minutes before I could ease the door closed....

Anyway, someone's nicked it.

I think it must have been Saturday night. I don't recall seeing it when we got home but it was after 2am and I may have consumed at tad more of the bubbly stuff than's generally considered prudent... 

However, I did notice it was gone when I got back from my penance run late Sunday morning.

More annoying than the loss of what must have amounted to at least $4.35 was that they took my plastic container, god damn them, leaving me with yet another unmatched lid that's now just junk!!

We all know karma's a bitch so I'm guessing the small coffee that coin may have afforded them was crap!!

Marriage

My friend Dawn, who's a similar vintage to my mother, popped in briefly the other day to confirm details for the ballet. (we sawBallet Revolucion - and it did not disappoint! When you have modern ballet to everyone from Prince to Shakira, it's all good!)

While she was here and we were chatting about the big issues, we got onto the subject of gay marriage. I was surprised when Dawn, normally very liberally minded, said she couldn't understand why gays wanted the right to be married. As a campaigner for gay marriage, I was floored. Although Dawn is considerably older than me, I always thought it was our shared values and view of the world that was the basis of our friendship. (And ballet of course!)

I expressed my shock.

Dawn went on to clarify. Not only did she not think gays should marry, she didn't think anyone should be married. She wasn't discriminating, merely expressing her disquiet about the entire institution.

Have the party, she said, just skip the rest. It's all too hard to get out of and the only winners are the lawyers.

Like many families, Dawn's requires a white board, coloured pens and an afternoon of diagrams to even begin to fathom who is and was, related to who. It's very complicated.

And anyway, said Dawn, marriage was only invented to control women and money and gain power.

She has a point.

Geoff and I have been watching Borgia's - the TV series loosely based on the 15th century papal family. And even Game of Thrones has similar themes - marriage is a way of forming political alliances and gaining access to fortunes - romance has nothing to do with it.

De Beers marketed the idea of the diamond engagement ring and perpetuated the 'etiquette' of spending three month's salary on said ring. If there had been advertising effectiveness awards back then, they would have bagged a few!

I was reminded only this weekend, when a friend of Sass's, aged 8, said you couldn't have children unless you were married, of my own unmarried state. And yes, I was compelled to point out that her friend Sass was evidence to the contrary. (I posted about another lecture I had from one of the kid's friends on marriage.)

So gay marriage. I think while heterosexual couples have the choice, homosexual couples should as well, so I'm not standing down from that issue. But I do wonder if in decades to come, marriage will become a quaint and irrelevant status. What do you think?

Of course I usually like to illustrate a post with a relevant photo - but of course, I have none in my personal collection for this topic!