Hang Like A Man

Of all the clichés I hate, the image of the character staring up at the sky and seeing shapes in the clouds is the one that irks me the most and if I happen to come across it in a book, or a DVD, or a toilet cubicle wall I am more likely to tear the page out, return the DVD, and take my business to another cubicle than I am to bear through it and keep reading.

Strange, then, that only a minute ago I was lying on the kid’s trampoline – freed from my child-rearing duties by Reservoir Mum, heavily dulled by the first giant glass of wine, cooled by the evening breeze, covered in pork crackle pieces, neglectful of the many household chores that lay waiting inside, wearing a new pair of competition grade Mentally Sexy Underwear (to gauge size and comfort), so totally lax in body and mind that I was only aware of vague images passing me by, and unaware of who I was or where I was in time and space – when a sudden bouncy-ball type sound caused me to flex at the hip and sit up rigid and I found myself pointing at a cloud screaming, ‘Holy shit, that looks like a fucking Marlborough-smoking Lama using a vending machine!’

Recovering my bearings I turn left and right in a mad panic, hoping desperately that I haven’t been seen or heard, but to my utter despair I see Jack – the young Muslim boy who lives next door – peering over the fence at me.

‘Could you get me my ball?’ he says.

Totally flustered I fall awkwardly from the trampoline, collect his ball, attempt twice to bounce it between my legs, hitting my foot both times, before trying to pass off my cloud-scream to someone else: ‘Hey Jack… did you hear that crazy… thing… that someone crazy… must have yelled from… I don’t know… close by here?’ I say.

With his ball tucked safely under one arm, he narrows his vision and stares at me, unconvinced, and so - resigned to the fact that I am looking irreparably stupid - I say, ‘Look, let’s just keep this little outburst to ourselves, okay?’ and even though I want to add, ‘Or next time I’ll take my favorite pair of scissors to your precious little ball,’ I decided to leave it there, and instead offer an awkward friendly smile.

‘You’re the funny man who hangs washing like a lady,’ he says, as he disappears behind the fence.

Even though I walk back to the trampoline, in my mind I claw my way there on my stomach, dragging my legs – actually two bloody stumps – behind me. I have been wounded by a young boy, and even though it’s not the first time, it is the first time that the child has not belonged to me.

As I lay back on the trampoline looking at the darkening sky, trying not to see shapes in the clouds – like the one that looks like twelve Maori dancers doing the Hakka, or the one that looks like a whale spanking a baby hippo with a walking stick, or the one that looks like Jeff Probst, the host of American reality show Survivor, getting a shoulder massage from Nicole Kidman (when she was playing a teen hero in the movie BMX Bandits) – I actually do see a cloud, that I just can’t ignore, that looks like a bottle of my favorite shower gel: Radox For Men, complete with the raindrop like appearance and pipeline-wave image that adorns the easy-to-handle, aesthetically pleasing casing.

As my mind drifts, cloudlike, in the Radox direction, and I think of the combination of sea minerals and herbal extracts that deliver a refreshing yet masculine fragrance, it occurs to me that my little friend next door might consider the use of a body wash – even one that has been dermatologically tested to deliver a skin-friendly, PH-balanced, soap-free wash – to also be more indicative of something used by a lady.

Hearing that Jack is still bouncing the ball around in his backyard I decide that I need to nip this old-fashioned, backward, socially-limiting belief system in the bud and I make a pact to start with those people located in close physical proximity to me, before making my way in an ever-widening spiral until I have achieved world-wide domination.

‘Hey Jack,’ I say, climbing the fence. He stops bouncing and eyes me warily. ‘Lots of men use skincare products these days, you know, even football players, truckies. I know a bloke named Daniel who’s a powerlifter – benches like 250kg – and he uses the Gillette Series Pre Shave Facial Scrub with Aloe Vera, and he’d have to be one of the manliest men I know. Totally full-on masculine. And there’s a builder I know – Rohan (pictured left) – who uses a Cleansing Exfoliator by Loreal Paris, which not only eliminates impurities but also resurfaces and refines the skin for a clearer, more youthful complexion. I mean, this guy built his own house for Christ’s sake. The point is, Jack, the world is a large and varied place and your opinion on skincare produ…”

Another cloud – a cloud of dread – passes over me as I realize that I have just been talking to a child about a conversation that only ever occurred inside my head, but as the humiliation reaches its crescendo and I watch him edging away, towards his back door, a strange sense of calm washes over me and I say, with authority, ‘I don’t hang washing like a lady, Jack. I hang it like a man.’

Jack disappears inside his house and as the slamming door echoes out into the night and the moon takes over from the sun to bathe my face in its silvery glow, I look up at her and say again ‘Like a man, Moon. I hang like a man,' confident in the knowledge that I am part of a growing movement of Dads – a revolution of Dads – who are making the world a better place, a fairer place, by tearing away at the established order, one old-fashioned opinion at a time.

Unday # 3 - The Search For Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad

George developed an understanding several years into our marriage that he was more likely to get me in the mood if he helped with the housework and did his bit with the kids. I’ve always found it hard to get intimate with him if there was a sink full of dishes or a laundry full of dirty clothes waiting.
- Christine, mother of three

Keep your pants on folks, the new pairs of official competition grade Mentally Sexy Underwear will be ready this week and so we’ll have some pairs to mail out to Mentally Sexy wannabes who are too far away from Mentally Sexy Central to do a hand-over.

Also, I’d like to appeal to the partners of the Mentally Sexy entrants. We’d like to include a quote each Unday to give us Mentally Sexy hopefuls an insight into how our efforts affect our better halves. So, women, if you’ve got something to say (see Christine’s quote above for a guide) either leave it as a comment or email it to Reservoir Dad.

Dads, the Mentally Sexy bandwagon is rolling on and who knows where it will take us. American site Dad-Blogs is on board having created a Mentally Sexy link on their website, with the promise of more to come this week, and as the competition intensifies I urge all Aussie Dads to get original with submissions. Take risks, push boundaries and make your Mentally Sexy spiels and photos as eye-catching and creative as possible. The Americans have vowed a mighty fight and we need some seriously motivated, wife-focussed Mentally Sexy Aussie Dads to go toe-to-toe with them.

This is your chance to represent your country at the highest level. Don’t leave it too late. Get your submissions in by emailing resevoirdad@gmail.com

Deano

Today’s entrant is Deano, father of Allanah, 4 and Emily, 2.

"Women hate filthy toilets. Seriously hate them. My wife is no exception. I clean ours every day. Every single day because I know that even if we are emotionally connected and spiritually centred and right on track for a physical connection one short trip to a filthy toilet can shift her mood dramatically. I never want the mood to shift. I love my wife and I want her to be thinking about me, not the toilet."

Unday - The Beginning

Unday 1 - Simon

Unday 2 - Joe

A Mental Airbrushing

We’re on our way to Joe’s house to attend this week’s Northern Dads Playgroup and we’re listening to What I Am by Edie Brickell. It’s a really good song – as in foot massage good – and I can’t help but find the line what I am is what I am to be personally affirming because, recently, an acquaintance introduced me to a group of strangers with the comment ‘He’s not quite usual’, and even though I laughed about it at the time and even started shimmying my shoulders and rolling my eyes – to signify that I could just shrug it away – the comment has stayed with me and clouded my mind for several days.

As I’m doing my best to convince myself that other people’s opinions don’t matter I notice, on a massive billboard, the image of a woman who is visually perfect and even though I know her image has received some significant technological enhancement I am still impressed and Archie has to call my name several times before I am able to focus on what he is saying.

‘Today I was pretending that our dogs were wolves and I had to climb things to get away from them,’ he says.

‘Cool!’ I say.

‘…but then when I told Lewis to play too he said no and wouldn’t let me climb things and kept pushing me.’

‘Did you do that Lewis?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ Lewis says. ‘And I threw things at him.’

‘But then I just ignored him and just walked away from him,’ Archie says.

‘Well, done Arch,’ I say, ‘That’s exactly what we talked about. Just walk away.’

‘Yes,’ says Lewis, ‘And then I followed him.’

‘Oh…’ I murmur, as another billboard catches my attention – a tall angry looking brunette, who is simply overwhelmingly stunning, sitting in a cane chair and wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses. I pause long enough to consider the genius of the person, the computer wizard, who can take a photo of a normal woman and airbrush it until she is so perfect that she seems to possess an almost alien beauty and as Archie rounds out the conversation with ‘And then he followed me up on the trampoline and then we pretended the dogs were wolves,’ it strikes me that out of all the people who will ever look at that billboard I may be the only one who admires it for the artistry of the airbrushing and with that realisation the pressure of the ‘not quite usual’ begins to settle over me again.

To distract myself I tell the boys how happy I am that they worked out the wolf problem themselves and that although it is possible for them to have fun on their own, it’s always more fun to play with others, and then I continue mumbling something about two heads being better than one and their combined ages of seven being better than their individual ages because seven-year-olds are notorious for the amount of fun they have, before my voice trails off into nothingness.

It’s only after Lewis throws a sandal at me – and a good thirty seconds pass before I even think about screaming “I’ll turn this damn car around!” – that I realize I am locked away inside myself and I suddenly feel horribly neglectful. I look at their ruddy little faces in the rear vision mirror and make a pact with myself – I will share my inner-self more and, like a bull-rider bursting from the gates on a wild bull, I will drive my thoughts into the real world to make myself wholly present and ensure that every moment I have with my kids is a bonding moment.

‘Boys,’ I say, ‘Sometimes I have doubts about myself because I don’t quite fit “the norm” and while I’m generally okay with that – and aware that I possess many many outstanding qualities – I do find, in moments of weakness, that I doubt myself, just a tad, and wonder if perhaps I should be doing things a little differently. I wonder if I’m not doing things quite right….’

‘Lewis just stuck his finger in my ear, Dad,’ Archie says.

‘Lewis! … and here I am, a poetry-writing, powerlifting, stay-at-home-father with a strong aversion to actual paid work and so pragmatically-challenged that I’d prefer to write thousands and thousands of words of embellished reality-based fiction than spend even five minutes researching more practical and worldly concerns like – shit I don’t know – our family’s personal finances or… if global warming is real or… if Kevin Rudd is an actual person or just the product of a really really good cartoonist.’
Lewis’s finger is back in Archie’s ear as we pull up to Joe’s house but apart from that the boys seem unmoved. Still, I decide to persist with the idea of sharing my thoughts because it seems to be potentially freeing. After drinking some coffee, handing Tyson a rusk, ordering Archie and Lewis out onto the backyard play equipment and situating myself in a circle of several Dads I say, tentatively, ‘I was thinking, just today, that modern airbrushing techniques really have added to the field of unrealistic beauty, with the main beneficiaries being billboards and those who look at them.’

To my great relief, one of the Dads nods and says, ‘I gave up looking at Billboards for… a long time… but airbrushing has definitely revitalized the genre and I find myself looking at them more and more lately…’ and then Joe – who is hosting the group – interrupts us to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a great idea for the Most Mentally Sexy challenge’ and within minutes he is wearing a pair of my underwear and I am suggesting different positions to photograph him in, and it is only afterwards, when I am showing everyone the photos and we are discussing, earnestly, which is best that I consider for a moment that our Dads group might also be described as ‘not quite usual’ and I feel a strange kind of sedation – a joyous letting go.

On the way home Archie asks if he can listen to Stomp by The Brother’s Johnson and Lewis counters this with a request for We Built This City by Starship but, as we pass the hotly airbrushed model once more, I feel centered and I say, ‘Boys, stay-at home-dads are situated somewhere between the usual and the unusual but like aliens cloaked in human form we’re waiting patiently as more of us appear here there and everywhere and when our numbers reach a certain level of saturation we will receive word from the mother-ship that the time is right to rise up and take over the world.’

I tell them that we are going to listen to Edie Brickell again, probably several times in a row, because what I am is what I am – she’s absolutely right – and, for this moment at least, I can accept that there’s no point in trying to be anything else.

Unday # 2 - The Search For Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad

‘Women’s feelings about their husband were shaped by perceptions of fairness around housework,’ she said. ‘If the resentment factor was high that’s when their sex life was not great. The best sex aid a man could use was a vacuum cleaner.’
- Barbara Pocock, director of the Centre for Work and Life, University of South Australia

Cripes! The search for Australia’s Most Mentally Sexy Dad is really taking on the life of a raging love-struck beast. Thanks to everyone for your submissions, enquires and enthusiasm for this world first competition. We are currently in the process of making several other pairs of competition grade Reservoir Dad Mentally Sexy Underwear which will be music to the ears of all our interstate applicants as we will be able – thanks to Australia Post – to reach all corners of Aus.

Dads, it takes a strong man to walk the path of the Mentally Sexy. The early days are not easy and some of you may make several attempts before finally getting it right. Unfortunately, there will also be those who will simply fall by the wayside. I promise you this though – if you are relentless in your pursuit, forever vigilante to your partner's needs and fully committed to the cultivation of the Mentally Sexy Mind, the rewards will come. And what rewards they are!

JOE

Our second contestant is Joe, father of five-year-old Jasmine and two-year-old Rex. Along with this sensational photo Joe offered us this –

"My wife’s generally a pretty relaxed person but if she’s had a rough day or she’s a bit tired I notice that small things can get to her – so I like to keep certain things in order so that she’s able to take it easy and focus more closely on her time with the kids and me. She works her arse off so she deserves it, I reckon. I try to keep the bench tops uncluttered and clean and the kid’s dirty clothes out of sight in the laundry. And because my daughter’s room is in sight from the living room I do my best to keep it neat (which is tough) by packing the toys away and stacking the books in the book shelf. Since pushing myself to maintain a bit of order I’ve noticed that she’s been more relaxed and spontaneously ‘affectionate’. I should have been doing this shit years ago, instead of wasting time and money on those bloody gym memberships."

Unday – The Beginning
Unday #1 – Simon

The Motorcyclist And The Dominatrix

We’re on our way to the local playground and despite the cool breeze the sun is beating down on me like a Dominatrix with a burning whip and if it’s having this affect on me I can only imagine what it’s doing to Archie and Lewis and Tyson but as usual they seem oblivious to the weather – Archie is hoping along the footpath, Lewis is stopping frequently to pick up rocks and sticks and Tyson is kicking his legs and throwing his arms around in the shade of his stroller.

Lewis turns with a large rock, strikes a wide-stance pose and with a Hulk Hogan-ish facial expression tells me, ‘This is my powerrrrrr!’and then throws his power in my general direction and so I am forced – for the ninth time today – to adopt the crouching position and look him directly in the eye and tell him that what he did was naughty and dangerous even though I know that this approach will simply encourage him to apply his usual countering tactics of humming, or looking up to the sky or dancing a little jig or singing something childish and condescending like, ‘Oh yes Daddy! Thank you, you psycho!’

I love all my children in equal measure but Lewis has been testing me out lately with his stubbornness, his defiance, his repetitive misbehaving. If it wasn’t for his undeniable cuteness and his moments of spontaneous hugs and kisses and the way an ‘I love you’ comes out of the blue I would seriously question my parenting abilities and believe that I am somehow stuffing him up and failing him in a permanent way.

As we continue along the path the sound of a motorbike in the distance hangs over us like a mosquito buzzing over a sleeping man and even though I love where we live – because of the open spaces and the public reserve directly behind our backyard – damn-it-all-to-hell I hate motorbikes and two shitheads have driven past me and my kids at a thousand miles an hour already which drives me crazy because it’s not only illegal, it’s also mind-numbingly stupid – riding a dirt-bike in a public reserve is not a sport, is not challenging and makes about as much sense to me as sitting in your lounge-room recliner and extending and retracting the leg-rest repeatedly –

‘Hey, Mum, I’m just going to open and close the leg rest on the recliner for a few hours.’

‘Okay dear. Be careful. And don’t forget to wear your Helmet.’

What a bunch of arseholes.

I imagine for a moment that I’ve tied some fishing wire between two trees on opposite sides of the path and have managed to slice a bastard motorcyclist’s head off on his return trip but as much as this image pleases me I have to accept, at the same time, that killing someone is just as illegal as riding a motorbike in a public reserve – possibly even more so – and while I may consider the activity of collecting the fishing wire, searching for the right spot, tying the appropriate knots and sitting down anticipating the end result to be fun, others might find it disturbing – it may even make them angry – and contemplating this allows me to get some insight into the motorcyclist’s motives and by the time we reach the playground I have considered that I may have found a way to make my peace with them.

Archie and Lewis high-tail it towards the twirly-wirly slide and although Lewis had the head-start Archie cuts him off and gets to the ladder first. Lewis stops short and screams, ‘ARCHIE!’ and seeing the potential of the situation I yell, ‘Lewis, it’s okay you’ll both get turns, you’ll both get lots and lots of turns and if you yell and get angry you’ll just ruin it for yourself and…’

It’s too late. He’s lost it. Lewis is now a Gatling Gun spraying the slide with pieces of bark and debris and I have no choice but to scoop him up and carry him to the park bench. I secure the pram and wait for the kicking and screaming to subside while I watch Tyson oohing-and-ahhing at the falling leaves and feel the pleasant breeze on my baldness and try to not debate with myself if Lewis is a more difficult child because I don’t pay him enough attention or because I intervene on his activities too much and pay him more attention than is actually healthy.

Ten minutes pass before Lewis and Archie are best friends again – squealing and hollering and egging each other on. Lewis screams, ‘Watch Dad!’ and hurls himself with enthusiasm down the twirly-wirly slide but half-way disaster strikes – Lewis’s leg sticks to the side and holds its place as the rest of his body folds over and sends him into a death roll to the bottom. For a moment I consider my options – should I run to him and pick him up and hug him and sit with him and tell him it’s going to be okay or should I wait and let him work it out himself to toughen him up a little and build some independence skills and will either way make any difference to the Lewis-centered behavioral issues I’m dealing with and hey, are they behavioral issues at all or just normal behaviors related to the developmental stages of little boys and why is there a fishy taste in my mouth, I mean I ate some tuna yesterday but I’ve eaten so much since then and flossed and gurgled Listerine….

Lewis is standing in front of me covered in debris and holding a medium-sized stick. He points it towards me, adopts the pose of a UFC wrestler and yells, ‘This is my powerrrr!’ and then runs off to the slide to start all over again. He is a stubborn little bugger but it suddenly occurs to me that in this circumstance, the stubbornness is good.

As I remember a blog post by Teacher Tom the playground's circular swing creaks loudly in the wind and moves a poofteenth in its circumvolution and a strange calm overwhelms me. My children are influenced by many things and these many things – some of which have been right there from the time of their conception and are more powerful than I could ever be in shaping them – are continually circling, minimizing and maximizing, working towards a balance and my boys are being shaped by the world as much as they are shaping themselves against it and – just maybe – I simply need to watch them more, relax and enjoy it, head off the occasional extreme and let the process take its course.

Another loud creak confirms it for me – too much parental intervention can offset the balance. I can’t stop Lewis from being stubborn anymore than my parents could stop me from imagining a headless motorcyclist and a flaming Dominatrix into my writing. This is what we are and while we may not please everyone and even inflame some and infuriate others the world and all its influences will shape us, as we shape ourselves against it, and we will find our place.

In the distance I hear the buzzing of a motorcycle. It’s hurtling towards us as Lewis and Archie hurtle down the slide, as Tyson hurtles a fine spray of raspberry-flung spittle onto my hand and as my mind finally stops hurtling inside itself for once and plays out a pleasing scene – I am walking alone looking for some appropriately placed trees on either side of the motorcycle-shredded path. In my hand I hold a nice length of fishing wire…

Unday # 1 - The Search For Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad

Just as the applications start to roll in and the search for Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad begins in earnest, we hear news from afar that a great challenge looms - American website Dad-Blogs - via co-founder Joe Schatz of "Daddy Where's Your Vagina" fame - has accepted the challenge to run their own competition to crown America's Most Mentally Sexy Dad.

This is now a global fight, Dads. The five most mentally sexy Dad's from each country - as chosen by female judges yet to be named - will battle it out to claim the title of World's Most Mentally Sexy Dad.

The stakes don't get any higher. If you are an Aussie Dad and think you have what it takes to fight for the Australian and World titles email Reservoir Dad - reservoirdad@gmail.com - to enter this heated contest.

Please provide a short paragraph detailing your Mentally Sexy activities and how these have impacted on your relationship with your wife. For examples of what we're after go here and check out, Simon, our first contestant below.

You now have an opportunity to represent your country and become an international super-star. Don't miss out.

On this historical day the people of Reservoir Dad are pleased to present the first contestant in the search for Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad.

SIMON

Simon is a father of two young girls and offered us this -

"I've worked hard on my mental sexiness recently. I decided to take note of what bothered my wife on a day to day basis. I found that listening to her before sleep gave me the best indication of what household issues were playing on her mind and then I went about trying to remove those issues if I could. I started slowly by picking up one or two chores and I have to say I noticed a change in her within a few days. I'm a man - I'm ready for intimacy every minute of the day but I'm really starting to appreciate how different women are. They need a clear mind for the mood to hit and that's what I tell myself I'm doing as I unclutter the lounge room or hang out the washing - I'm clearing my wife's head. So when we go to bed at night we're both in the right frame of mind and we're not talking about household chores..."

Unday

Tasty and Licky

It's 5.30am and the traffic is light and I can’t stop scratching this fricken mosquito bite on the inside of my left thigh and as I head to the Elite Sports Performance gym to begin a massive year of powerlifting where I will smash all my previous 'personal bests' I am almost vibrating with excitement and aggression and this is most likely the cause of a white flash of anger that overwhelms me when I see - through the rear vision mirror - that I am being encroached upon by a Red Porche hammering its way towards me in my 1989 faded red Toyota Corolla .

The Porche is very very flashy and supercool and as the right-hand blinker signals the driver's intention to overtake me I am relieved that I fitted my Corolla with two hubcaps and a nice aerial only ten years ago as I am sure this will not go unnoticed.

He's going way too fast and the fact that he's doing so is purely an expression of his desire to dominate me and while I am trying to maintain my rage to attempt a 300 kilogram deadlift at the gym I feel my foot pressing into the accelerator hard and as I fight against the urge to burn this prick off in a car that was previously owned by a ninety-year-old lady who only ever drove it back and forth to the corner Milk Bar I notice that he is not only speeding but also talking on his mobile and the arrogance this displays and the danger he poses to the average motorist gives my accelerator foot no choice but to hammer down hard.

Disappointingly, my Toyota Corolla with the hotted-up aerial has just reached 65 KPH as the Porche begins to disappear over a rise one hundred meters ahead and in a mad rush to gain back some sense of power I attempt to flip the bird to his rear vision mirror but am impeded by the Dictaphone I hold in one hand and the IPod I hold in the other... suddenly I am aware of the fact that I can only really be so furious with his mobile phone-compromised driving if I was equipped with three or possibly four arms and so I sheepishly put the Dictaphone down.

Fuck him anyway. I am going to lift 300 kilograms and I'll be doing it at a place where such a display of useless strength is much more impressive than a useless Porche and a useless suit and a useless pooncy gel-filled hair style.

This frickin mosquito bite itches and the more I itch the closer I get to drawing blood and this reminds me of how badly Archie was bitten last week at a family barbecue and how Lewis escaped unscathed which in turn reminds me of a story that Reservoir Mum told me and in order to remember this story so that I can blog about it later I pick up the Dictaphone again, press the record button and begin to recount the details.

'Well,' I say to the Dictaphone, 'Reservoir Mum is driving Archie, Lewis and Tyson to Nanny and Gramps’ house so that she can go to work and I can pick them up on the way back from the gym.’

I pull up to traffic lights. I suddenly feel like I am being watched. As I turn to the right I see a middle-aged woman sitting in her car. She looks forward – rat-trap fast – when she realises I’ve caught her spying. I reason that she’s probably a bit freaked out by seeing a bald guy who is dressed in filthy filthy powerlifting clothes while sitting in an old lady's car and talking into a dated piece of electronic equipment – like some relic from the days of tape recorders and Rubik's cubes – and I like this very much and so wind down my window and talk loudly in her direction.

‘So, Reservoir Mum told me that, on the way there in the car, Archie licked his fingers and said ‘Mummy I just licked my finger and it was tasty.’ to which Reservoir Mum replied, ‘Don’t lick your finger Arch, you never know what’s on it.’

I look down momentarily as I scratch again at my insect-inspired welt and see that I have created a rash that is approaching the outskirts of my nether-regions. When I glance to my right again I see that the woman is staring at me and shaking her head and I lose some of my previous confidence and feel just a tad self-aware and so speed off as fast as I can to get in front of her when the lights change. I get to about five KPH above the speed limit and put some distance between us so that I can continue recounting the story.

‘And after a long pause Archie says,’ I say, to the Dictaphone…

Another red light allows me to go back to scratching around the mozzie bite's edges, furiously – back and forth, up and down, round and round and damn it all to hell the woman has pulled up beside me again, this time on my left side. To my horror she goes right back to staring at me, with an expression on her face that makes me feel like I am a big pile of poo she’s just stepped in but despite this I am determined to appear as if I am not intimidated by her and I continue, but only after I slink down a little – and whispering...

‘Archie says. “Oh, I know why mozzies bite me Mum – it’s because I’m cool and mozzies don’t like you to be cool.”’

Reservoir Mum says, ‘Maybe that’s it, Archie…’

I turn the Dictaphone off and put it on the seat behind me as I once again race forward to get ahead of the staring woman and I’m feeling rattled – here I was psyched and ready to lift 300 kilograms and now after being attacked by the Porche guy and the staring woman I don’t even know if I have enough energy in the tank to pull 200.

Taking the Dictaphone I do my best to finish the story. ‘Um, then Archie, after licking his finger again, says “Oh! No! Mum! I know why the mozzies bite me now! It’s because I’m so tasty!” and Lewis, who has remained quiet till this point almost bursts from his car seat restraints to say, “Yeah! And I’m licky!”’

I am now convinced that hell has opened up and released this she-devil upon me. I am at the traffic light and she is beside me again. Her eyes burn into me and – having just watched Drag Me To Hell recently – I am approaching a level of fear-induced hysteria. I throw the Dictaphone down, turn to her and mouth, helplessly, the words ‘What do you want from me…’ and then, following her line of vision right down to my groin, I become horribly aware of what furiously itching that area of myself must look like to someone outside my car. I suddenly see that I am not just a bald guy dressed in filthy filthy powerlifting clothes sitting in an old lady's car talking into a dated piece of electronic equipment. To the staring woman I am a bald guy – badly dressed, sitting in a rundown car – who is leering at a middle-aged woman, pleasuring himself and recording the moment for posterity, and that is just filthy filthy filthy.

When the lights change the staring woman takes off and I sit there watching the back of her head as it gets smaller and smaller and I feel just a tad under permanently humiliated.

A few blocks later she finally turns off and I drive on feeling safer, but weak and small, and as capable of a big deadlift as the anti-hero Strawberry Jelly Man – who is not a real anti-hero but someone I made up just now to represent my level of physical power and intellectual esteem.

To prevent myself plummeting further into the realm of insignificance I shuffle through my IPod for something uplifting. The Dictaphone lies beside me like a dead bird. I have forgotten the rest of Reservoir Mum’s story, but she’ll remember, and the fact that I will blog about the funny things my kids say allows me to feel some justification for all the madness I draw into my life. One day they will love to read about the things they said and how I took the time to write about it. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. Plus, the sound of the partially angry song Monkey which is so great – in a gay-ish, George Michael-ish kind of way – may lift me again, if I give it enough time.

Unday - The Search For Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad

We all want to be sexier to our wives. It's just that we don't know how to make that happen. I mean, I tried doing push-ups and wearing multi-colored Y-fronts... but shit, I dunno...' - Brian, Mentally Unattractive Dad, Hexam.

After reading an article at Dad Blogs that suggests that sexiness to a woman is as much mental as it is physical the people at Reservoir Dad have decided to search for Australia's Most Mentally Sexy Dad to serve as a guide for all of us who are interested in becoming more attractive to our wives and staying that way for eternity.

The contest begins in earnest next Monday with a photo of our first Dad engaged in a mentally sexy activity while wearing the official Reservoir Dad Most Mentally Sexy Underwear which will combine the visual with the mental and deliver the killer punch.




Dad's from all over Australia are welcome to email Reservoir Dad (see right) to enter this heated contest. Please provide a short paragraph detailing your Mentally Sexy activities and how these have impacted on your relationship with your wife. See these recent entries as examples -

"I sometimes will just rub her hair and touch her arm, like in an affectionate way, and also try to listen to her talk and then... just leave it at that, you know, without trying for anything else. This is a new thing for me. And usually, a few hours later or the next day I'll catch her looking at me weird, like in a sexy way...'

or

'I clean the toilet. I have also started making the kids lunches before we go to bed so that she feels less pressured and more relaxed. I'm going to try some other stuff because it's made a big difference - our 'snookins' time has increased by twenty-five percent, she touches my butt sometimes as she walks past me and we both seem happier more often. Oh, and she's also started taking photos of me and putting them on her Facebook Page.'

The people at Reservoir Dad will choose contestants based on strict selection criteria.* In fifty weeks, at competitions end, a panel of wives - headed by Reservoir Mum - will select the top twelve Most Mentally Sexy Dads for a 2011 Calendar which will serve as a visual guide to Mentally Unattractive Dads everywhere.

*Distance from the official underwear and limited places will affect selection.