A man’s work is never finished. (With pc addendum; neither is that of a woman).

Driving home yet again from a bout of grandchildren minding in Sydney we noticed a large solar lit sign heralding that Bunnings is having a ladies DIY evening next week. We all know that Bunnings stores are huge cavernous hard ware and tools emporiums. A venerable treasure trove of everything a man can possibly dream about, even more than he could ever imagine even including that which he, as yet, can’t imagine. The ‘not yet’ being able to imagine is not all that difficult for many men that visit hardware and tool stores. They tend to be of a more practical nature rather than of the creative or philosophical bend. Still, many a woman would rather have a man of the nails and hammer variety than someone moping around with Hegel or Kant. Mary knew a thing or two about that when chucking in her lot with a simple carpenter! What would we do without the cloth peg or safety pin?

We often visit Bunnings to buy punnets of blooms or bags of cow manure. I try and coincide this with a Saturday sausage sizzle that gets put on by the Lions Cub trying to raise money for good causes. I am always in awe of how many people do good for society rather than complain or ‘mecker’, they roll up sleeves and do something about society’s ills…The Saturday sausage sizzle at Bunnings sells two thin sausages with lovely fried brown onions between slices of white bread for just $2.-including a choice of different sauces and a paper napkin. I usually go for the American mustard as a kind of gesture of forgiveness or atonement for their Iraqi and Afghanistan involvement, after all, Australia did also get involved. No soul is pure when wars are waged. I hope my simple sausage, with the help of Lions Clubs, will lesson future wars.

H is not so keen on my cunningness to coincide with buying blooms and manure with two dollar Saturday sausages, no doubt considering my health and her fondness for staying beautiful and svelte. I often tell her that voluptuousness is one of the most desirable qualities I admire in a woman and especially in her. Oddly enough, it doesn’t always work and the bloom shopping is steered towards a Friday to coincide with two lean strips of fish fillet, even though we are not, strictly speaking, peoples of the cloth.

One lucky Saturday, while queuing for my sausage allocation at Bunnings a man before me had the gall to complain that his sausages were over cooked and demanded to get new ones for himself and his young son. His four sausages were nicely brown and had crispy and desirable skins as well. In short, they were the perfectly barbequed sausages that could not be faulted except by this miserable ‘meckerer’ of a man. The women running the gas fired barbeque wore head-scarves. They were very busy with many hungry ’nail and hammer men’ lining up. For some reason it reminded me back of my war Rotterdam soup kitchen days long ago when I lost temporarily the touch of my mother’s hand.  I was imprinted for life never to waste food. The man complaining about his sausages almost made me lose the will to go on. Quick as a flash I told the ladies that I would take the four sausages already bedded down within their comforting slices of white bread and garnished with the loving onion rings. I had trouble explaining to H the extravagance of the four sausages.  It had barbeque sauce instead of American mustard as well. It all looked a bit suspicious to her.

A small price to pay.