And it wasn’t my husband. Every now and again we have a spate of weird people come in with strange queries and conspiracy theories. We affectionately refer to it as ‘who put the sandwich board again’ (the mythical sandwich board offers magical help for all complaints). There is a particular piece of legislation that is about to go before the Parliament, and it relates to changing the laws regarding abortion. This is the sort of thing that brings in the strongly opinionated (either way), the religious and the end-of-days sort of people.
We listen, we take down the notes and promise to pass it to the boss, and to keep them informed of the parliamentary process and when the bill passes and any amendments etc. We are good at keeping emotional people happy.
However, today a visitor to our office threw me a curveball. About three feet high, balding, and barely a tooth in his head he proceeded to lecture me about the evils of abortion and weren’t we meant to be increasing our population, and he was prepared to do his bit and start with me.
Me: Pardon? :eek:
Him: Yep, I’ll do it for Australia.
Me: Well, I’m about to go to lunch so you’ll have to reschedule.
With that, the obliging little patriot waddled out. Bizarre.
Ah yes, those gentle folk. I know them well. I spent a quarter-hour on the phone with one last night, a nice gentleman with some off-the-wall theories about global warming who was deaf enough that he couldn’t hear my increasingly loud and desperate but polite attempts to break through his stream of consciousness and get off the phone.
Australians are so good natured. I would have decked the guy. (if I were British, I would have blasted him with some withering riposte along the lines of not sure his gene pool was up to the challenge or some such. Ah, cultural differences–the spice of life).
In case this happens again, you should arm yourself with the appropriate child support guidelines table. Where I live, you’ll find plenty of women who would jump at such an offer.