The Sideways Grocery Cart

Someday, when you come to Australia (and I really hope you do...) I'm sure there will be a time when you need to pop into a local grocery store for water, sunscreen, a small jar of Vegemite. (I am getting goosebumps just thinking of the vile stuff, but you must try it.) When you are in there, try to blast through the jet-lag haze and notice all the sideways walking people going up and down each aisle. Surely, you think, I must be kidding...we know that the seasons are reversed and that the water goes down the loo counter-clockwise, but why would everyone in a grocery store be walking sideways??? Well, I will tell you.

All the grocery stores in Sydney and Melbourne are located in malls or shopping centers. You cannot drive up and park, exit your car, purchase your items and walk back to your car...going to the grocery store involves parking in a carpark or parallelling your car on the street. Then, you go through a series of conveyor belt-type escalators or you take the "lift" or you walk up (or down) ramps to enter the shopping center. You then walk from where you enter the mall to the grocery store, usually, the lower ground level (another series of escalators) where you are finally within sight of the elusive supermarket...yeah...the hard part is over....

NOT SO FAST!!! As you approach the big shiny entrance, you gently pull, then tug, then (using all your strength and a strong left foot) you extricate the somewhat dented grocery cart from all the other slightly dented to seriously mangled editions. All the grocery carts have these handy little rubber stoppers on the frame of the wheel to provide brake action on all the conveyor belts and ramps you will have to cross in order to return to your car. Herein lies the conundrum...Tons of pushing across bumpy sidewalks, conveyor belts, concrete ramps, etc. knock these adorable little brakes out of position. The result, my friends, is that the grocery cart no longer rolls straight, but rolls sideways. Next time you are in the store, stand holding the far end of the cart handle and try to turn the corner from one aisle into the neighboring one....now you are living in my reality. My cart was so bad yesterday, that I turned the cart sideways and pushed it perpendicularly to my body. Of course, the aisles were too narrow to fit myself and anyone else if I pushed it this way....

This is a funny little anecdote about may life in Oz. (The funniest bit is when I push my milk-laden cart through the mall...past Gucci and Ferragamo...to reach the lift to the carpark...) But really, it is a great allegory for the bigger picture of life in Oz. This country is so blessed. It's amazing animals, plants, mountains, coastlines....all are stunning and unique. Australia's natural beauty is like nowhere else on earth. However, so much of Sydney and Melbourne are like the sideways grocery cart. When I asked at the supermarket customer service counter what they wanted me to do with this completely useless cart, once it was empty, the tan-faced girl smiled and said, "Just return it to the trolley return." When I said, "But it is broken...it's completely useless. Shouldn't I leave a note or mark it some way so you can get it fixed?" "Nah, it's okay. We'll just shove it to the back of the trolleys...it'll be days afore someone uses it again."

This is Australia, folks. Beautiful federation-style homes are plagued with dry-rot. Sydney's roads are pocked with pot-holes and fading lane lines. So many of the shops and businesses are in decaying buildings with broken awnings, cracked windows, and chipping paint. My upscale Mosman doctor's office has thin, worn carpeting with plastic seats and stained ceiling tiles. Every handyman I have used tells me how, in Australia, they are expected to perform the minimum amount of repair. Landlords don't mind having these guys out 3-4 times a year to fix the same problem...as long as it's cheap. Of course, the tenant must work out times to be there so the repair can be done....and so it goes. My heart aches for my friends who scrimp and worry all the time about making the rent/payment on their small houses/apartments with no air-conditioning or central heat, tiny gardens, dry-rotted fences and not a driveway or carport to protect their cars from the humid sea air. Rents of up $1,500 a week are paid for such domiciles. How did this happen to such an amazing country? When did it become a society of "Shove it (repairs, upkeep, repainting, renovating) to the back of the pile" type of place? Don't get me wrong. There are beautiful buildings and homes in Sydney, but none of them are maintained to the same level as homes in the US. The "no worries" attitude is really a coping mechanism. If you did worry about all you saw around you, it would drive you crazy. You tolerate rippling, dry-rotted fences. You tolerate traffic jams that last an hour. You tolerate wall-paper peeling away from the wall. And, you tolerate walking sideways through the grocery store.

Margaret Thatcher is quoted as saying..."The only problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Well there isn't enough of other people's money here. Many of the small stores and cafe's are so strapped because of the high taxes and high ($17.50/hr.) minimum wages that they can't make the major repairs to their buildings. Strict environmental impact laws make improving your property extremely expensive and takes forever. (One poor farmer in rural NSW just got fined $1 million dollars for clearing shrub brush and dead trees from his land. The ministry of environment fined him $100,000 per hectare... on this man's own land.).

I know this post will anger some. And, if you are happy with things the way they are, then "good on ya"! If I don't like it, you say, I should leave...well, I am...soon. You can stop reading this nosy Nelly American's blog right now. Please do, because I do not wish to be offensive. But, as an outsider looking in and as a woman who really loves her friends here, I am stating what I see. When the frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville came, as an outsider, to study American prisons/society, he was able to objectively look at what America was doing wrong (slavery) and what it was doing right (our system of government and commerce). I am no de Tocqueville, but I do know that waiting around for "someone else" to pay for all that needs fixin' ain't gonna happen. I know that a society that doesn't even demand that its grocery trolleys work properly won't be equipped when there is truly truly something worth standing up for.

When landlords and govt. bureaucrats won't fix something correctly and completely the first-time...it is time to get out the proverbial pitchforks and protest. When the government tells you how much to pay yourself and your employees and how to develop or improve your own land...revolt. It will mean putting down your glass of chardy (chardonnay) or Toohey's (beer) and getting yourself and your fellow citizens organized. You are a beautiful and blessed people...start small...start with your shopping carts....just start!

Opening My "Pie Hole"

I couldn't believe my own brain....I was hearing Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in my head last Tuesday night. I don't listen to the DC's anymore. The minute Natalie opened her mouth and criticized the commander and chief of our country in a London (hence FOREIGN COUNTRY) bar, I broke and tossed all my Dixie Chick CD's in the trash. What could have happened for such a monumental break in my character to occur???

Well, Tuesday night was the Year 7 Meet and Greet with Skierdude's teachers. When I arrived at the designated atrium at the school, I saw the customary (and complimentary) wine, beer and champers (champagne) awaiting me. This tradition of serving alcohol at these events still completely floors me....I want to remember what I talked to the teachers about, thank you very much..... I declined the libations as the penalties for "drink driving" are stiff and I am a foreigner here on my husband's visa and would be punished even more harshly if caught. (Plus, it was a Tuesday...I mean, really!)

After meeting with Skierdudes teachers, I was chatting amiably with some of my "mom-friends" when a particularly unkind mom (with her posse....these type of women always have posses...have you noticed that?) sidled up to me. She conspiratorially slurred/whispered, "My son tells me you are heading back to the US soon. I'm sure ___(Skierdude) will be sad to leave Australia. It's such a fabulous country..."

Ok...time for backstory. This happy homemaker's son has spent the last two years being a little snot to my son (with his posse, of course...are people like this just not brave without their posse's?). The general tone of the snottiness is that America, Americans and American twelve-year old boys are **** (insert expletive here). My son has been called a selfish yank (because the US hasn't solved world poverty), an arrogant *******(use alliteration here) because all Americans are arrogant ********, and (my favorite) "An Iraqi baby-killer." That one was particularly nice since he was called that after his beloved uncle (an Iraq war fighter pilot) had just passed away. Countless meetings with school administrators later and this child is still at school and I get to watch this witless fool of a women sidle up to me sloshing wine all over the place.


Well.... this is when Natalie Maines' voice echoes in my head. I hear....

I'm not ready to make nice.

I'm not ready to back down.

I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time

To go round and round and round.

I calmly turned and addressed the designer-clad women with this....

You know ____, my happy and eager 11-year old entered this school in a brand new country all ready for an new adventure. All he wanted to do was make friends. And do you know what happened? My son was attacked and picked on about a president he didn't vote for, a war he had no say about and American policies he had never heard of. He was mocked because of the country into which he was born... all the time just wanting to make friends and enjoy living in Australia. And you know the worst part? He had to learn the lesson that, as nasty as these kids were to him, they were innocent victims too. They were victims of small-minded, angry adults who obviously said similar things around them. All ___ /Skierdude/ wanted to do was make friends. So, NO ____. My son will not be sad to leave Australia.

Two of the women in the posse hugged me. There were tears in their eyes. We were all moms after all...we understand children in pain. As I turned to leave, I thought again about Natalie Maines and all her ilk...the Johnny Depps of the world, who nonchalantly bash our country while traveling or living overseas. Thanks a lot for that. You embolden women like the one above to say nasty things about America in front of their children. You justify their already putrid and sad opinions. I have never said anything negative about our current president while living here....not once. Not one Australian knows my opinion about our president. It is not ok to bash our leaders on foreign soil. It just ends up hurting other ex-pats, like us, or foreign-deployed military. To quote the sage and wise philosopher/songwriter Toby Keith..."Natalie, shut your pie-hole."

After returning home, with my feet tucked up beneath me and a lovely cup of Lady Grey tea in my hands, I related my encounter to BigDog Daddy. I was feeling a little un-Christian about the whole thing...I really had evicerated the poor, drunk creature. BigDog Daddy held my hand and said "You spoke nothing but the truth. Jesus spoke the truth and sometimes that truth made people uncomfortable." I still had to say a prayer for her, for Skierdude, for the unlucky kid and his "posse"and for all moms who watch as their kids are bullied. I will try to remember to pray for the DC's as well...when I get around to it.

So, maybe opening one's "pie-hole" is ok if it is in defence of the defenceless. My son needed a champion. Right or wrong, the whole incident was also a good reminder that ... our children are listening.