Bad Habits

By Al Turner

Al Turner is a friend from Sydney who guests here from time to time

I was browsing in one of those new-agey shops the other day. You know, the kind that’s stocked with stinky incense, annoying jingly wind chimes and overpriced dresses made of cheap flowery nylon.

Anyway, I picked up this luridly coloured candle and gave it a sniff – it was a scented one that smelled like Redskins (my favourite – yum). “Yum,” I said, to no-one in particular. This woman standing near me tsked disapprovingly and said, “I only burn soy candles now. Of course, you know paraffin candles give you asthma.”

Suitably admonished, I put the offending candle down. But then I picked it up again, took it to the counter, paid for it and brought it home with me. It’s sitting here now on a shelf in front of me, no doubt plotting my respiratory demise as it rubs its little candley hands together.

No, I’m not a masochist. I mean, geez, it’s just a candle. It’s not what it is that matters to me – it’s what it stands for. See, it seems every time we open a paper, turn on a TV or cross paths with a particularly vocal know-it-all in the local candle store, we’re being told that something is bad for us. Mobile phones. The sun. Working. Driving. Eating. Drinking. Breathing. If we were to spend our entire lives avoiding stuff that’s bad for us (ie, everything), we’d be bloody miserable. (Which is also bad for you, BTW.)

Life is too short, and there are lots of crap bits in it. Why don’t we – instead of worrying all the time that something is going to kill us – take a moment’s pleasure in doing a little something that makes us feel nice?

Take my daily coffee (large skim flat white with two sugars, thanks). I enjoy my morning coffee so much, sometimes when I go to bed at night I start to look forward to it. But a few months back, after listening to too many people bang on about how wasteful buying takeaway coffee is – how I could be saving hundreds of dollars a year if I didn’t buy it; think how far that would go towards the deposit I don’t have on the house I can’t afford to buy, blah blah – I started to feel guilty.

So one morning I said to the (fortunately rather wise) girl who sat next to me at work that I was going to give up my morning coffee, because spending $3 a day on it was bad. “But,” she asked, “doesn’t it make you happy?”

Hell, yeah. Thanks, Alice.

So I shall continue to enjoy my coffee. Sometimes I might even have two. I shall also continue to do the following:

Clean my ears with cotton buds;

Read trashy gossip magazines;

Kiss my cat;

Eat olives straight out of the jar;

Drink wine (white) and cider (in a glass full of ice), although not at the same time;

Talk about politics at dinner parties;

Take a day off work if I’m sick;

Squeeze pimples (my own. OK, and maybe my boyfriend’s);

Pat doggies in the street;

Walk (not run) in the rain; and

Cook with lots of good quality oil.

That way, if I do die from a mysterious candle-related illness one day, at least I’ll be dying happy.

It’s really what it’s all about, in the end.

What small pleasure makes you happy?

if you enjoyed this you can read another guest post from Al here