Confessions of a Grumpy Australian Man

By Bob MacDonald

My daughter recently called me an Old Codger. I corrected her and said, "No, you are wrong there, my dear. I am not an old codger, but a Grumpy Old Man!"

And as the saying goes…… 'I'm a grumpy old man. I do what I want when I want, where I want!'

I belong to the Silent Generation. That means my birthday falls between 1928 and 1945. I have mentioned the generation I belong to because I will touch on incidents involving those of the other generations later in this manuscript.

Now, having qualified as a grumpy older man, I have no hesitation in joining my mates every Thursday evening at the local RSL club. We sit on stools around a high table, sipping beer and criticising the behaviour, dress, hairstyles, telephone addiction, and whatever else of the younger members.

In between sips of beer and gripes, we discuss our medical ailments, recent operations we've had for whatever part of our body, and what pills and how many we may be taking.

But the purpose for me breaking away from the usual style and genre of my writing is to see for myself whether my wife is correct in saying I have reached the age where I am a grumpy old man. I know not what lies ahead of me. I intend to touch on things that annoy me as they enter my head, and I will list them in favour of separate chapters.

The episodes will vary in length. I am aware of other similar books where authors have listed their loves and hates. Genres of humour, romance, and fiction abound. Me, I mean to say it as it is. If it's funny, it's funny, although I don't foresee many of my chapters causing my readers to break out into peals of laughter.

I will ask the reader to put themselves in my place when browsing one of my stories and be the honest judge of whether I warrant my rant; or just the histrionics of a grumpy older man.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob MacDonald
• Release date: Jul 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201746346

Bob MacDonald

Bob MacDonald is a retired West Australian Police officer of thirty years experience. Bob's last day at school was his 14th birthday - commencing work, the very next day, in a timber mill in his home town of Pemberton, West Australia.He later self-educated and enlisted in the West Australian police force, retiring as a superintendent in the Internal Investigations Branch of the Professional Standards portfolio.Since retirement Bob has been working at remote aboriginal communities in Central Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. He also did a tour of duty on the island nation of Cyprus with the United Nations Blue Beret Peacekeepers.Bob, a keen sportsman continues with various sporting activities; which also includes fishing and camping trips. Writing articles for various magazines and now venturing into anecdotal short story compilations and fictional manuscripts ensures Bob leads a busy life.

Book preview

Chapter 01—Airplane Seats

Bloody aeroplane seats! I've reached the stage where I hate flying unless I fly Business Class or can get extra legroom. Yeah, extra legroom at additional cost.

The first time I flew on a commercial plane was between Geraldton and Perth in the late 1960s. The aircraft was a Fokker Friendship, and the seats were spacious and oozing legroom. We boarded, and the hostie handed out a copy of the Daily News to read, a croissant to eat and an orange juice to wash it down.

I made several trips with my work, backwards and forwards, and loved every moment. Later they upgraded to a Fokker Fellowship, but my favourite was the old Friendship with its high mono wingspan. Yep, those were the days of the propellor driven craft.

That reminds me of a corny joke I heard many years ago. 'Luigi the Ding got stranded in the wilderness of the Australian outback. He used the last remaining power of his radio to contact the emergency centre in Canberra. After hearing his plight, the base's radio operator returned his call. Roger, Roger. We will send you our Fokker Friendship. Luigi shouted back, I not wanna your fokker friendship, I wanna your fokker help!

*

The Australian Government footed the bill for my first overseas trip. I travelled First Class in a Qantas 747 jumbo jet from Sydney to Cyprus. I flew back to Australia under the same circumstances. If you have loads of money, First Class air travel is the way to travel, which shuts me out.

My wife and I have flown Business Class to London and return; twice. The first flight was with Emirates, and I'd award them a score of nine and a half out of ten. The second, with Qatar Airlines, paled in comparison. They only scored a seven.

We flew Business Class on those two flights because I'd travelled Cattle Class on three earlier visits. With the confines of the seats cramping my six-foot and four-inch frame. I emerged from the craft looking like Quasimodo.

*

But nowadays, whenever I board an aircraft, the seats seem to be narrower and closer together than on my last flight. The seat allocation always has me perched behind someone who wants to put their seat back as far as it will go. And they are prone to whack it back without warning, thus bashing my knees. I'm sure it results from a nasty conspiracy to make my flying time miserable.

I've had words with fellow travellers, too. One young bloke behind me poked his barefoot through a gap beside the craft's wall and rested it on my armrest. He took umbrage at my demand to shift the dirty plate of meat.

Another time, a French woman abused me when I looked behind to see who was kicking the back of my seat. I prepared to return serve, but my wife's look stifled that urge.

Then on a trip to London with my missus and kids, a Chinese bloke, drunk on whisky, abused the four of us with profane language. He tried climbing over a seat to get at me, but when I shaped up to whack him, he retreated but continued with his swearing. Cabin staff moved the four of us to vacant Business Class seats for the rest of our journey.

But, in a nutshell, I will no longer engage in air travel unless it's by Business Class or seats with extra legroom. I know it costs more, but I'm over with going for the cheaper option at my age because I firmly believe in the saying, 'You get what you pay for.'

*

Talk of no leg-room and unruly passengers jogged my memory when I was the Regional Officer of the Kalgoorlie Police Region. I supervised the region's out-stations and sub-districts, representing the world's largest police patrol area. I can't recall the exact square kilometres, but when describing its size, the dimensions of France matched that of the ground I covered.

Based at Kalgoorlie Police Regional Office, I had on call the services of two pilots and a small single-engine two-seater plane; the outcome was a police drug bust that saw the aircraft forfeited to the Crown.

We flew as far as Eucla on the South and West Australian borders, into the Central Desert Region of WA, SA, and the Northern Territory (NT). The number of dirt airstrips that existed throughout the land surprised me. Each aboriginal community settlement and the isolated cattle and sheep stations boasted landing strips.

When on patrol and inquiries, I visited each aboriginal community and often touched down at a station to stretch our legs and have a chin-wag with the station people. I found it difficult to get away on most occasions, so keen were the station folk for a chat. They appreciated seeing new faces and catching up on gossip.

*

During my time in Papua New Guinea, I grew to accept strange goings-on from air carriers and their passengers. One time, while on the island of Buka, awaiting the island-hopping plane to arrive and cart me to Arawa on Bougainville Island, things went awry.

The plane I was to board crashed on its way to Buka, killing all eight people on board. I then hoped to secure a ride on a banana boat moored at the island's jetty. It had already booked thirteen passengers, and I missed a passage. It sank on the way to Arawa, and two passengers drowned.

Never to mind, I scored a lift with a small charter plane carrying a dead body from Buka to Arawa. The pilot and another man sat in the two front seats. They'd removed the rear seats to make way for the stiff in a body bag. I joined the corpse and either sat or lay down beside it. And during the trip, I learned body bags are not 100 percent smell-proof.

Annoyance Scale (A/S) = 9

Chapter 02-Barking Dogs

My beef on barking dogs, in effect, has less to do with them than their owners. Two doors away from me live a bachelor bloke and his large dog. Often, he takes off somewhere and leaves the mutt outdoors; it barks non-stop. When he is home or lets the animal have the run of the house, it's as quiet as a mouse.

I found it astounding that a dog could bark so loud for so long. If the owner is away for an hour, the neighbours hear barking for an hour. If he is absent for two hours, we get two hours of baying.

The homeowners living next door to the dog's master have spoken to him and aired their concerns about the annoying habits of the hound. Their approach has gone unrewarded, and nothing has changed. I know not whether other householders in the vicinity have been in touch with him.

I need to shut my doors to keep out the noise and be able to watch television, or more correctly, hear the TV broadcasts. I drafted a letter telling the dog owner how the animal behaved during his absence and placed it in his mailbox. My correspondence met the same fate as the next-door neighbour's approach.

I wrote another (more strongly worded) note and put it in his mailbox. Nearing my wit's end and till no change! Drastic times call for drastic measures, so someone once told me. I wracked my brain and came up with a solution. Well, not in the true sense of a solution, but an action that might soothe my fractured nerves.

By using the services of the eBay auction site, I bought a ging (shanghai, catapult, slingshot). I purchased a bag of marbles from one of the local department stores. The marbles were the ammunition for my sling. I'd beforehand searched the neighbourhood while walking my dog on the hunt for marble-sized gravel stones, but to no avail. I could only find quarry-produced crushed blue metal gravel in people's gardens. The shape of this gravel was not suitable for firing from a ging as it flew through the air as might a thrown frisbee. I didn't fancy an irate householder with a broken window living so close to me.

On most nights, nature calls at around 02:00 am, and I need to get out of bed for a leak. I haven't done it yet, but the temptation to land some marbles on his roof when I'm out peeing under the lemon tree is strong. My view was that if he continued to annoy me by not doing something about his dog, I intended to do something to annoy him.

A/S = 10

Chapter 03—Fat Women

It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

How often have you heard that saying? People often use it when it has nothing to do with any singing or a lady of any shape.

History: The phrase is generally understood to refer to opera sopranos, which were traditionally amply contoured. The imagery of Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and its last part, Götterdämmerung, is typically used in depictions accompanying uses of the phrase.

The fat lady is thus the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, a lady routinely presented as a very buxom lady. Her farewell scene lasts nigh on twenty minutes and leads directly to the finale of the whole Ring Cycle.

Present-day use: It ain't over till the fat lady sings is a colloquialism, often used as a proverb. It means that one should not presume to know the outcome of an event that is still in progress. More specifically, they use the phrase when a situation is (or appears to be) nearing its conclusion. It cautions against assuming that the current state of an event is irreversible and determines how or when the event will end. Most commonly used in association with organised competitions, the phrase targets sports.

*

I can remember an incident back in 1992 when New Zealand's political leader Jim Bolger, when trading barbs with Joan Kirner of Victoria's state ALP, came up with this beauty: —

'You know, they say that the show's never over until the fat lady sings,' Mister Bolger said. 'Well, I think it was her we heard warming up in the wings this week.'

Women from both countries went into meltdown. They rubbished Bolger uphill to down-dale. At the time, I excused people for thinking the NZ premier had murdered the pope; such was the mayhem his comments caused.

Bolger at first refused to apologise for his remarks, but such was the pressure from women from political parties of both countries, he folded and issued a half-baked expression of regret.

His retraction took most of the heat from him, but not so from 'Our ABC.' The ABC and its stooges bashed the airwaves with allegations of 'fat-shaming.' The ABC network, packed with female ultra-left-wing journalists, was in its glory to have a conservative male, of note, in its sights.

The callers at a bingo game use sayings associated with various numbers. I have read reports where bingo halls won't allow the calling of Two fat ladies, with the drawing of Number 88. Despite that, we have the TV show titled 'Two Fat Ladies.' The name of this BBC cult favourite isn't exactly politically correct, but that's the way larger-than-life hosts Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright prefer it.

*

I will cop it here from the sheilas, but I've never understood why people find to call a fat woman fat to be more of an offence than a rudeness issue. For one time, I used the phrase, 'It’s not over till the fat lady sings,’ I copped a seven-day suspension from the Facebook administrators. I did not direct the comment to a fellow user, nor was it posted in a derogatory manner. While devouring a box of chocolates, I imagine a fat sheila took umbrage from my post and reported me. And the Facebook administrator who presided over my case, knowing my luck, was another lady waiting in the wings to sing.

*

Gland trouble. That’s what every fat person I’ve worked or spent time with, both men and women, claims glandular issues are behind their excess kilos. Yeah, sure. They may well suffer from gland malfunctions, but from my observations, they also suffered from gluttony.

To witness the behaviour of a glutton is mind-boggling. One guy I worked with for a brief spell (thank goodness!) was scary in his efforts to get food. He hid behind bushes, gutsing vittles like someone who hadn’t eaten for a week. He needed to be supervised and stopped from abandoning his work to get food. Secreting foodstuffs under his clothes was another ploy he used. And according to him, he suffered from gland problems.

I have dubbed this chapter ‘Fat Women.’ I did so more for the effect and the scolding I’d get from female readers. But having said that, I must admit to coming across my fair share of fat blokes.

During my working career, I met many of my colleagues' wives. Of course, my mates and I (out of earshot) devised suitable nicknames for some of them. Fat legs Fiona (the name sez it all). Killer Kowalski (after the WCW badarse wrestler). Miss Leonora (being facetious to the extreme). Fat & Skinny (two ladies who matched their monikers to a T). Big Bird (hello, Sesame Street). Miseryguts (a friend told me he’d seen her smile once!). Bugs Bunny (she had such buck teeth, her husband reckoned she could eat an apple through a picket fence).

See. Yes, see for yourself; we did not fat-shame all the wives we dubbed with tags. I laugh when I imagine what those women got up to when gossiping with friends. I never got to hear what they called me.

The theme of this chapter provided me with a higher level of amusement than annoyance.

A/S = 2

Chapter 04—Call Me a Taxi

During the 1980s, I worked for three years at the Fremantle Police Station. The centre was within easy walking distance from the Henderson Street Mall and the CBD’s multi-story car park; thus, we received plenty of foot traffic at the front desk.

Many a reveller, having drowned what good manners he may have possessed with alcohol, made their way to the public counter and demanded service from the junior constables on duty.

Those blokes (always men, never a woman) got under my skin with the disrespectful manner they behaved, and more than once, I had to leave my fishbowl office to oversee an unruly visitor.

One of the regular demands I heard from them was, Call me a taxi. No, please, thank you or kiss my bum, nothing other than for someone to call him a taxi.

One evening, in answer to that demand from a boozed-up customer, a young PC walked to the counter and, standing square in front of him, shouted, You are a taxi. With that, he returned and sat at his desk.

The drunken yob stood nonplussed and repeated his appeal. The PC, sighing dramatically, went to the counter and said, Okay, just one more time. You’re a taxi.

Office staff, me included, cracked up laughing. We laughed as much at the victim’s failure to understand the constable was making fun of him as we did for the quality of the prank.

When the PC said to him, Okay. I’ve called you a taxi. Do you need me to call you anything else? Maybe a kitchen table, a chair, a doormat? Please tell, things began to dawn on the befuddled bloke. And as he’d been the butt of our joke and had livened up an otherwise dull night, we called him a taxi by phoning a cab company.

From that moment on, whenever someone came to the counter and asked staff to call him a taxi, they must have thought escapees from a nut house ran the station. Why else might a group of adults crack up laughing after hearing such a simple request?

Yes, humous retaliation outdid the annoyance brought on by rude drunks.

*

I’ve locked my keys in my car. Can you help me?

Hardly a week passed without hearing that request. At an earlier stage, patrol constables had seized a heavy sledgehammer and a wrecking