Sheila Magazine

Michele PHILLIPS F S winning writer and editor at The West Australian, Perth's favourite female columnist relocated to the South West and now works for ABC radio. Here's the first of her regular columns for Sheila. Read her blog www.michelephillips.com.au ollowing a highly successful career spanning more than two decades as an award number 34 and waiting to be treated like crap, I pass the time by scanning the cooked meats to see if I can spot anything that looks like Jesus. It's a pastime born of a long-time Internet habit that involves looking for strange items for sale on eBay. Seeing as Jesus' face has already been spotted on a tortilla, a pancake and a fish finger – all of which were put up for auction – who am I to say a slice of adelphi ham won't be next ("Would you like your Redeemer with pickle or mustard, madam")? This game of Spot the Saviour isn't designed to make me wealthy by turning me into a purveyor of religious artefacts to the rich and stupid. It's more of a coping mechanism that springs into being when I turn up at the deli counter after work looking like I've been galloped hard and stabled without a blanket. It's at times like this I'm actually grateful for the take-a-number system of service. Pitifully grateful, if you must know, and it's not just because I'm exhausted. It's also because once a woman reaches a certain age she becomes invisible to shop assistants. I'll re-phrase that: if you're Helen Mirren, the people behind the counter OMETIMES, when I'm standing at the supermarket deli counter with 33 other customers, clutching will obviously punch each other in the throat in order to be the first to get you your 150g of speck. But if you're not – if you're just an ordinary, older-looking sort of female – you have more chance of a sexual encounter in the bread aisle with Johnny Depp than of being noticed by anyone under the age of 40. After a recent encounter with an assistant who didn't make eye contact and was breathtakingly non-committal (I got two words out of her: yeah and yeah), I went home and watched the news on one of the free-to-air "If it bleeds, it leads" channels. First up was the usual parade of stabbings, bashings and fatal car crashes. Next there was a report that said there's been an increase in the number of peri-menopausal women who think of killing themselves. Like everyone else watching, I thought, "How truly, truly awful." But then I went and spoilt it all by thinking, "I wonder if there's been an increase in the number of POST- menopausal women who think of killing OTHER PEOPLE." To be honest, I think about killing other people all the time and post- menopausal has not really got anything to do with it - I've been like it since the onset of puberty. Once a month a group of rogue hormones shouts, "Ovaries to Michele! Ovaries to Michele! Go on, you know you want to." I TO BE HONEST I think about killing people ALL THE TIME the Dalai Lama, only with a bra. I'd assumed that once I reached the age where the most exciting thing in my bedside drawer was a blister pack of indigestion tablets, I'd achieve this Zen-like state where I actually like people for four weeks of every month, rather than just three. I'm worried that one day I'll give in to the urge and when I'm in court and the 'd assumed – wrongly as it turns out – that once the menstrual cycle was but a distant memory I'd turn into judge asks, "Why did you commit this terrible murder?", I'll be forced to reply, "Because she didn't look at me when she gave me my bacon." Should that day come to pass, I can only hope that said judge will be female and over the age of 50. Because if that's the case she will surely say, "More power to you, sister. You are free to go." S SHEILA MAY 2012 27

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