Columns

I know who’s responsible!

I KNOW who was responsible for September 11 – and it wasn’t Osama Bin Nasty.

I know who was responsible for the Australian Wheat Board scandal and who’s to blame for the Tassie miners’ incarceration under several kilometres of rock.

On a more local note I can tell you who created the recent debacle that we call Queensland Health, and who to blame for the Maroons one-point loss on Wednesday.

It was me.

You’d think the burden of responsibility would kill a mere individual, but I’m used to it.

No matter what disaster occurs, in whatever part of the world, my family will find a way of making it my fault.

This week I had a row with my daughter. It was , because she was pre-menstrual.

Now I take this as meaning that her physical state at the time was throwing her judgment out of kilter and she was given to behaving like Attila the Hun.

She bit my head off and I sulked, but only for about three days.

My wife told me I should make up.

“But she had no right to talk to me like that. She was out of order!” I said.

“Yes, of course; but she was pre-menstrual.”

Yes, which made her bitchy. She should apologise for being bitchy.

But it wasn’t her fault.

“Oh? Whose fault was it then?”

“Well… you could have been a bit more understanding…”

“Understanding! I’m 62. I ache most of the time; I don’t see as well as I did. My hearing is suspect and my patience is as thin as a fag paper! How come no one has to be a bit more understanding of me!”

“Because you’re an adult.”

“My daughter is 28. She’s an adult!”

But I never win.

The reason my wife argues with me is because she’s menopausal; my boss because he’s stressed; my three-year-old grandchild because he’s just a baby and doesn’t understand.

Everyone has a good reason why they can yell at me; but I’m just an unpleasant, myopic, narrow-minded bastard who should know better.

I thought about visiting an old people’s home and finding someone who was 72, so I could yell at him and be generally unpleasant. When he objected I’d tell him not to be such a misery and to start behaving like a grown up.

Does this go on in every household?

Is this the real reason families are constructed the way they are – to provide a hierarchical structure of blame, with husbands at the top?

Is it just a myth that we are — at least traditionally — the providers who come home to a pipe and slippers and dinner on the table?

I can remember my mum batting us off my dad’s overcoat like the cats’ hairs off the carpet.

“Let him get his coat off first,” she used to yell.

He was revered, my dad. He lowered himself into an armchair and we talked in low tones while he recovered from a hard day at the shop.

If he’d yelled at us my mum would have boxed our ears and told us to give him some peace.

She didn’t say: “They’re children and they don’t know any better.” She said: “You’re just kids and it’s time you learned some manners.”

My wife had a row with another daughter last week.

“She’s an impatient, selfish, thoughtless brat with a tongue like a can opener,” said my wife.

“Maybe she’s pre-menstrual,” said I.

“Oh yes… trust you to take her side!”