Dress To Impress

Number 5 in the series
‘Everything you ever wanted to know about Women’

‘Dress to impress’

So you want to attract attention, but not by having the lady of your dreams laugh hysterically, tears streaming from her eyes.
Open the door of your closet and take a good hard, honest look… If what you see looks like a rack of 70’s fashions in the costume shop, or something you last saw when the circus was in town… it’s time to make the hard decisions…
It’s time to buy some now clothes.

Sorry, but this is going to involve shopping!

There are those who believe that you should enlist the help of a sister or trusted female friend.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM
Can you be completely certain that she hasn’t just been dumped by her boyfriend and is itching to find a way of getting back at men in general?
Can you be sure that she can resist the temptation of the enormous comedy potential of seeing you emerge from a dressing room wearing the sort of outfit that would make your dog laugh?
(I think this explains pastel Safari Suits, cummerbunds and eye wateringly loud shirts)

“No, honestly Gavin, it makes you look dead set sexy, trust me.”

With this in mind there are two phrases that should see you scrambling out of the change room window to your freedom.
“ trust me” and “ would I lie to you”

Do not be tempted to buy through a catalogue.

The clothes in them only look good on chiseled muscle men with lacquered hair, who stand around in small groups looking intently at a clipboard.
In addition you will not be able to try them on beforehand, so you will end up with a parcel of uncoordinated, ill-fitting style crimes, that you will convince yourself will fit ‘one day.’
“I’m planning to lose weight anyway”
“This style will come back soon” (yeah, like bell bottoms and four inch platforms)
“It’s fine so long as I done breathe too much…or sit down”

The simple solution is to go into town, walk around a bit, and take a good look at what everyone else is wearing. Then, all you have to do is copy their style.
What could be simpler?
(Don’t attempt this during Gay Pride Week or when the carnival is in town)
Generally speaking, if you model yourself on someone who already has a girlfriend, you wont go far wrong.

Nicknames are funny things

Here at Watson Ball and Chain we have a large crew of highly trained personnel covering a large range of trades and helped by several trades assistants, (TA’s) our trade assistants are better known as TA’s, Gophers (Go for’s) or Shit kickers.
This week one of our longest serving TA’s was given a new nickname after what turned out to be a very expensive week…
Now this fellow is none to bright, but a nice enough chap in his mid 40’s. If given a task and left alone he does a first class job…but our 2IC (2nd in charge) rides him constantly because he enjoys freaking him out. He doesn’t handle stress very well…

We also have rules..
#73. The bloke that takes something apart is the bloke that puts it back together again.

Now lets call our trade assistant Brian, partly because it’s easier to write than ‘trade assistant’ and partly because it’s his name.
One of our trucks reached the ripe old age of 8yrs..Yahoo, whoopee… we get to strip it down and rebuild most of it. Off comes the tray and a new custom made tray is fabricated and fitted complete with new huge toolboxes, water tanks, hose reels, generator, compressor and lots more boring industrial stuff besides.
The chassis is grit blasted and repainted as is everything else…about here I notice a small rust hole in the air intake so I send Brian to remove the intake, air cleaner box and all the air hoses for cleaning, inspection, repair and repainting.
…rebuilding an entire truck is a long job and falling right on Christmas makes it take a lot longer. Last week the final things were finished and the now new looking truck went for the electrics to be done.
The worker that delivered the truck reported big problems..
The motor was running very rough, refused to go faster than 50km/hr (30 mph) and sounded decidedly sick. Despite it’s age this truck does very little work and spends its days idling around a huge industrial complex on permanent lease, very easy work for a big diesel. Records suggest that it’s done somewhat less that 200,000km…. Barely run in!
Our 2IC sent it to one of the towns best diesel mechanics who did expensive/extensive testing and decided that it showed all the hallmarks of broken rings…it was stuffed and needed a complete rebuild running to over ten thousand Aussie dollars.
Brian got the blame…after all, a motor simply does not break rings all by itself and our 2IC decided that he must have dropped something into the motor while taking the critical air cleaner parts off the manifolds.
It came back to our workshop to have the motor removed and my team was put in charge of taking the motor out.
Before we started in earnest we took the offending air cleaner and associated bits and pieces off to see if there were any parts missing that may have dropped into the motor.
The 2IC was not happy…wasting time we were!
He was just giving me the lecture about how much had already been spent on the truck when one of my guys came up and presented us with a piece of charred cloth as big as a hand…and the news that there seemed to be more inside the manifolds.
I clicked straight away…I’ve seen this before in a car motor.
With a strong light and various bits of bent wire we managed to pull most of an old shirt from inside the motor manifolds…
Brian had done exactly what he should have by stuffing the shirt into the open engine to stop dust, rust or water getting in and ruining the motor while the repairs were being done.
But he should have removed it as he refitted the air pipes, filter and snorkel. In fact he must have fitted the air hoses right over the manifold with the shirt still hanging out…
As soon as the motor started it sucked the shirt into the motor where it restricted and choked the motor as it slowly carbonized and would have eventually burned away.
One of the workers chided “Good one Einstein” …and a new nickname was forever branded.

..and the motor, is fine!

Number 17 in the series

Number 17 in the series
‘Everything you ever wanted to know about Women’

Meeting women

It’s going to happen sometime… Your eyes meet across a crowded wine bar, you smile, she gives the briefest sign of encouragement (she doesn’t run screaming into the traffic), you walk over to her, she turns, anticipating your wicked one-liner and…

Nothing! Zero! Blank! Your mouth is moving but no one is home…

All your carefully rehearsed spontaneous wit has dried up like camel pee on a hot rock, leaving you doing your ‘fish out of water’ impression.
You can skulk away without another word, ruining your one and only chance with this ‘Venus’, or you can go so far out into weirdland that she will think you really original and funny…Or the evil withered twin of someone whose jacket does up at the back….
Either way you’ll know soon enough.
Bear in mind though…if her reply is as weird as your question, you are in trouble deep.

One of the complications of talking to women is that sometimes they actually reply.
If you are lucky this might occasionally involve them using the word, ‘yes,’ …but don’t count on it.
It’s much more likely that you’ll hear something aimed at making Mr Twinky recede like a salted slug…

..It’s going to happen, so you might as well get used to the idea.
Write down a list of the worst put downs you and your friends can think of and get a friend to read them back at you…Loudly!

Practice being unfazed..

Walk away in a manner that suggests you’ve got to get back to your penthouse full of adoring love slaves….
Try not to cry…

Keep your nose in the air, chin up, best foot forward, eye to the future and ear to the ground. If you can do all this and still keep walking, you’ll be doing ok!

Next Week
Number 18 in the series
Talking to women