What kind of Western Suburbs Housewife are you? Quiz for WA Western-Suburb Housewives to sort the wheat from the chaff anielka published on April 19, 20145 responses 0 « Previous Next » Questions in vertical order 1/11 You think a silver Prado is: De rigeur. Not big enough to pull your boat. Vulgar – unless it is a GXL or a proper Land Cruiser and even then you don’t like it because it’s Japanese: it ought to be European. Perfect if somewhat expensive to run. Not big enough to seat all your children. An enormous truck that seems to be masquerading as a car. 2/11 2 You think vegetables should be Bought from Coles or Farmer Jacks and an object of your continual complaints to all and sundry re. their poor quality. Organic from your own vegetable garden which is maintained by hired labourers who arrive weekly in a van and charge you $45 a visit. Bought from the Boatshed. From Swanbourne IGA (because you can’t be bothered to park at Claremont Quarter and get them from the cheap bit of Farmer Jacks) and the object of your continual complaints to all and sundry about the price. Laboriously hand-selected at Freemantle markets on a Friday. From anywhere you happen to be where they look edible. Although you do wonder why the locals can’t call a green pepper or an aubergine by their correct names and why a cucumber costs more than the average annual wage of Brazil. 3/11 Your child goes to school at: The local Primary but you talk endlessly about where they will be going to senior school. Wherever you or their father went which is actually a choice of only four places – MLC or PLC / Hale or Scotch. St. Hilda’s nursery followed by the local primary but only to year 4 followed by wherever your friend’s children are going in year 5. The local school followed by Shenton (but you secretly and smugly know they will go to Perth Mod.) Montesori Beehive. Any paid school that has good academic results. 4/11 Your house: Looks like something off The Block – or at least you think it does. Is worth more than 4.5 million. Contains pieces of hideous brightly coloured craft-items which you are incorrectly convinced are ”art”. Usually has four walls, a floor and a roof that doesn’t leak too often. Is a monument to green technologies that made it cost twice the price of everyone else’s house on your street. Was decorated at great expense in 1980 and is still frighteningly polished, clean and sterile thanks to a cleaning company and the fact that you don’t work. 5/11 At the front of your house is: An unattractive facade of grey concrete and high windows that looks like a Las Vegas funeral parlour. Very very big, imposing and old but perfectly restored by almost-invisible little tradesmen who surreptitiously swarm over every minor imperfection fixing every detail. A twee restored white picket fence and David Austen roses alternated with lavender and intense reticulation. A mysterious collection of empty beer bottles on the front verge that appear every Friday night interspersed by Australian natives and dog poo. Lettuce. Immaculate lawn that someone else cuts. 6/11 A good Friday night out consists of: Champagne with The Girls at Elba where, once you are two sheets to the wind, the respective Boys turn up with cocaine. Dinner with Gina or Colin or Twiggy on your boat. An interesting experimental piece of theatre at the Heath Ledger Theatre which you don’t understand but talk about loudly. Sem. sav. blanc at home with fish and chips and a video to keep the kids quiet. A talk at a library hosted by a famous author whom everyone has heard of and no-one admits to not having read whilst your children are babysat by lovely teenagers Cassiopeia or her brother Augustus who charge you $50 for the privilege of watching your telly whilst your children sleep. Taking the children out to discover the sights and sounds of Perth only to discover the entire city shuts at 8.30. 7/11 You are throwing a party. Naturally it is: Fancy dress. Even though you are in your mid-forties and this happens on no other continent after the age of 21. Hot and cold running champagne and cocaine compulsory. Fully catered featuring dim-sum with things dim-sum never usually contain (eg. Golf-ball-sized mushroom wellingtons, mini-parathas stuffed with bacon and emu, tiny caviar quiches with native fig jam etc. etc.) served by overly-familiar waiters and waitresses who reckon serving is beneath their dignity. (You just can’t get the staff these days.) Tasteful standing chit-chat with restrained drinking of quality wines only. (NB no Jacobs Creek will be served and all beers must be boutique) . A crate of Sem sav. Blanc at home with a large order of fish and chips and a video to keep other people’s kids quiet. Primarily focussing on vegan cuisine with at least one guitar-playing guest awkwardly silencing the conversation by narcissistically playing a range of Joni Mitchell songs which everyone pretends to enjoy. Not happening whilst you live in Perth because you never meet anyone you would want to invite to a party. 8/11 Your home is cleaned: . By a cleaning lady whose existence you advertise loudly By a cleaning lady who has worked for your family for over 56 years By a cleaning lady whose secret identity you zealously guard lest one of your friends or neighbours poaches her. By you. With water and a wide selection of Enjo cloths. By a cleaning company contracted by your husband’s employer on your behalf. 9/11 Your children’s behaviour is: Erratic since you don’t notice what they are doing when drunk / on coke /socialising /away on a girl’s holiday to Bali. (strike out whichever do not apply. All may apply) Irrelevant as you are exceedingly rich and people always speak well of your children in an obsequious and fawning manner. Dreadful but you continually find excuses for it or, when all else fails, you point out the faults in other people’s children. No worse than anyone else’s children. Spiritually enlightened but otherwise lamentably ill-mannered and selfish if you did but know it. Different to the local children. Thank goodness. 10/11 You holiday: At your place in Dunsborough at Easter and the October holidays, in Bali in July and ski in Japan at Christmas but New York with just hubby for a special occasion. Almost continuously. In Europe and Canada. On the rare occasions you can afford it. In a tent. All the places in Australia that no-one who actually comes from Perth has ever been to: the Kimberleys, Alice Springs, Canberra, Tasmania, The Great Barrier Reef and Brisbane etc. etc. etc. 11/11 You read: Menus, wine lists and Facebook. Company reports. Books recommended by your book club. Internet News, Deals.com and some of your emails. Self-help books and Scientific American. Fairly fluently in at least three languages.
