Growing up all I ever really wanted in life was to

be one of the following three characters – if not all

of them…
super woman

                              spider woman

                                                            bat woman
I could never aspire to becoming a “cat-woman”

as I was self-warehoused into a fear so deep,

so neurotically entrenched among any members

originating from the felidae family tree.

I feared the humble domestic moggy for as far

back as my memory elasticated.
So dire, so drastic, so real was my scaredy-cat fear

of the feline shadows it actually left me in a true

state of pussy paralysis, until, at the very least,

my late twenty-somethings. 
But that’s another apologue – for another page perhaps? 
Rewind to 1983, entering high-school. I pleaded with

my parents to let me opt out of the home-economics

subject in lieu of Biology One-on-One the Basics.

For I had already softened to the home-economics

teacher from an angled distance across the netball courts

and in my curious worldview that could only mean one thing.
Intuitively she made me feel sensational in places where

I didn’t know one could feel sensational. Thus began my

obsessive compulsive disorder toward long-legged vintage

women of the super-heroine persuasion. I knew in my

heart of hearts that this desire of lust would eventually

spell disaster for many episodes yet to come.

For she was my super spider bat all rolled into the one

DC extravaganza. 
First day of enrolment and there she stood triumphantly

in front of the blackboard with razzamatazz legs,

free-flowing hair akin to the dairy hues of homogenised

egg-nog, calling the morning class-roll with a click of her

provincial Dutch native tongue.
She was the Bo Derek of kitchen hardware in a tight

fitting pair of clogs with thick pillowy lips, the same

lips that ran over my every vowel and syllable with

words I struggled to pronounce such as stroopwafe,

poffertjes, pannenkoeken and kibbeling.
Indeed, Ms Meijer, affectionately known as Ms May,

certainly left me irriguous and I don’t mean pumpkin

scone moist either. I’m talking serious infringement

of sexual identity, hidden desires, confusion of self,

embarrassment, wonting of scent, improper imaginings.

It soon became impossible to separate the fantasy from

the reality.
Consequently my parents did not succumb to the pleas

of switching me over from home-economics to biology.

I was driving my parents crazy and I knew it. All vital

signs of domestic input on the family home-front went

out the window the moment I started dreaming of

windmills and red tulips. 
Washing up – I wasn’t interested.

Making the bed – never heard of it.

Bringing in the washing on laundry days – impossible.
I sweated out the first term like a crustless wholemeal

cucumber sandwich left all alone on the acacia-wooden

bread-board waiting to be either consumed or discarded.

I soon began to enjoy the weekly visual toing and froing

stares between Ms May and I, as we lowered our

extending fingertips into a myriad of Tupperware bowls,

kneading and Rolfing exotic pantry substances such as

flour, sugar, oatmeal, milk and eggs. 
Butter was optional. 
According to the then legendary teenage girl bible

magazine – Dolly, the last thing I needed was to

harbour a bleeding internal crush on any teacher.

I was roller-skating on thin ice and I knew it.

Shame on her for making me feel so lost inside

my own pre-pubescent skin. 
By the time final terms saddled up, suddenly it

dawned on me that I would never morph into a

bat woman, a spider woman or a super woman.

I had to face facts – I willed myself to put all Mattel

dolls aside once and for all.
Eventually I outgrew my high-octane penchant for

the Saturday morning cartoon re-runs too. I had to let

sleeping DC heroines lay, preferably in the backyard

cemetery next to the laid to rest budgerigar and a

junkyard full of Match-Box cars.
Fast forward to a brand new millennium and I can

now concur that in the long run I never did fair too

well in the domestic goddess Olympiads. I could

never conform to the wrapped-up butterfly motif

apron strings stainless steel state of wellbeing.

Nor did I ever master the artful skill of sharpening

Japanese kitchen knives in preparedness for Sunday roasts. 
I did however surpass the necessary grade for theory

and practicality of home-economics without too much

self-inflicted emotional injury. In fact I had heard

along the passionfruit vine that my take-home

lentil-walnut energy bars were a backyard hit among

the chorus line of neighbouring Garfields. That alone

made me feel proud.
Crikey, the world was still thawing out from the Cold War

and my biggest dilemma had been to pontificate over an

entire school year between my dearly beloved Maggie May

versus warm apple pie. 
The clouds lifted, the shackles broke and I was no longer

compelled to the infantilisation of comic book characters

propping up my self-worth of who I was and all I had yet

to become.
I joyfully made global peace with neighbourly kitty-cats the

world over. 
And I certainly didn’t need the excess crushing of

a teenage heartache to nurse for decades to come either. 
By the time I saluted a farewell to arms of

home-economics, Thatcherism  was well and

truly in full-swing and every now and then Ms May

would ladle a quote upon unquote of the Iron Butterfly herself:
Any woman who understands the problems of running

a home will be nearer to understanding the problems

of running a country.
Neoliberalism at its finest, perhaps?
Un_domesticated in home-economics, overthrown!