Tobe Frank: Some days are like scrambled eggs

To be frank, I wake up some days and just want to do something different.

Oh, bugger it, I’ll have my eggs sunnyside down today…no wait, I don’t like sunny side down, no wait, I’m suppose to be trying something new…wait, no, wait. Inevitably I change my mind so many times that I end up with scrambled eggs, and quite frankly I find eggs of the scrambled variety a disappointment, particularly if they’re from the breakfast buffet at some outback motor inn.

Truth be told I actually like my eggs poached. However, poaching a perfect egg is a bit like trying to fit a bra (or so my missus tells me). You know the size you’re after, have your preferred brands, you know if you want caged or free range (HA!), and despite the adequate packaging you still need to check under the hood for cracks. You also have a store of little tips and tricks for every type of [dress] scenario, just like all the old wives tales as to how to get that egg just right (a dash of vinegar, swirl the water and all that). But, no matter how hard you try to get it just right, sometimes the girls just don’t fit…or in the egg’s case, you end up with a frothy concoction of boiled little nodules of what was once described as an egg and now looks like alien spawn from a sci-fi flick. It’s somewhat removed from the perfect little round ball of goodness that looked so perfect in the picture with soft gooey yolky centres and a drizzling of hollandaise sauce.

But I digress. They say procrastinators can take eight hours to do something that should take 30 minutes but then cram eight hours worth of stuff into the last 30 minutes (I’ll have a look into that a bit later…). But every now and then the procrastinator in all of us needs a good kick in the pants. We get used to our routines and the same old same old. Over our 60+ years we’ve found our comfort zone and have eased into it more deftly that a Doberman on a beaten up rustic couch. By the time you’ve settled all the way in and found that perfect spot for an Autumn’s afternoon nap, it’s pretty hard (with knobbly knees) to get back up for a spot of something else, let alone something you’ve never done before.

My problem, predictably, is every time I try something new, I:

1. get hurt (which might have something to do with what I’m trying in the first place!)
2. burn a hole in my wallet (more through having to fix things that were damaged in the process of trying something new).
3. burn an even bigger hole in my wallet because my new found hobbies are not of the inexpensive past time variety, like origami.
4. don’t like it and think I wasted a perfectly good morning’s worth of newspapers and coffee time and vow never to stray too far from the nest again.

Jokes aside, I do force myself to have a dabble with new things from time to time. The other day I was up visiting the kids and grandkids and I popped into a local parkland that I had been meaning to go to for years. I knew there was a model aeroplane club there and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I’d always been a plane lover grew up wanting to be in the air force, but resigned myself to assembling and intricately detailing those plastic 1:200 scale models. What I saw at the model aeroplane club was truly amazing. They had B-25 bombers with wingspans of 1450mm, Spitfires that would zip through the air at 40mph, bi-planes that could doo loop-de-loops and other futuristic contraptions that looked as awesome on the round as they did in the sky. I was in awe and in little boy heaven. Those that weren’t tinkering or flying or pumping fuel into their planes were sitting in the shade swigging on a beer and talking shite. Perfect. I found my new hobby.

Predictably though:

1. I got hurt when I put my finger into one of the rotating propellers to see if it hurt…it did.
2. I burnt a hole in my wallet because I broke the poor guy’s said propeller when I stuck said finger in it.
3. I burnt and even bigger hole in wallet because it’s not origami and I was talked into buying a stater kit of one of the old blokes.

So next Saturday, I’ll be gladly sacrificing newspaper and coffee for a spot of something new. Something tells me though that points 1. through 3. above are going to referenced frequently.

On the contrary, when the missus tries something new, she tends to love it. A new dress, a new handbag (in a different shade of yellow), new bathers, a new pair of shoes (normally plural!) or a new form of fashionable group exercise…like hot palate’s Zumba with a side of 80s aerobics, followed by a long breakfast out with the girls…probably with perfectly poached eggs.

What are some of the things you have tried or want to? What’s stopping you getting out there?