A few months ago a friend quipped to me ‘what Bianca wants
Bianca gets’ in a joking sort of manner.
I really hope she meant it in a jesting way, not in a -
you’re-an-over-indulged-spoiled-ungrateful-so&so kind of way. Ever since then I have been doing a lot of
soul searching about whether or not the statement is true.
My first reaction was HELL NO!!! I have always wanted the body of a supermodel
but no-matter how many cabbage soup/ no carb/ low carb/ low fat/ sugar free /
fasting diets I go on it doesn’t happen.
I don’t even come close to looking like a supermodel…. or even someone
who could be distantly related to a supermodel.
I would not even make a convincing hand model!!
But apart from the supermodel thing… everything else I have
REALLY wanted, eventually I have been able to achieve.
My friend at the time was referring to my birthday present
which was MEET & GREET TICKETS WITH BILL BRYSON!!!! I am sure you are all aware of my relentless
pursuit to win the meet and greet tickets on FB. I had everyone I have ever had any contact
with enter the competition for me. I
didn’t win. You may have read the whole
blog post I wrote about my devastation I felt at not winning. Little did I know that my sister, hubby, mum,
grandma and friends all chipped in and bought me the tickets for my
birthday!!!! (they were very expensive
tickets!!) So yes, in that circumstance
I did end up getting exactly what I wanted.
The presentation of the tickets to me was the best night of my
life. It was so funny. I laughed and cried all night long!! It’s a bit of a long story but I’ll tell it.
My sister, friends and I had all gone out for dinner and
trivia night to celebrate my birthday.
During the trivia the host announced that she had some Meet and Greet
Bill Bryson tickets to give away. I
squealed with excitement. The tickets
were to be won in a ‘who am I?’
round. You could only have 1 guess per
table and first to guess the correct answer won. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty,
I kept saying to everyone at my table ‘we got this, we got this’. First clue in the ‘who am I’ challenge was: I
was born in NSW in a place referred to as ‘the Shire’. Second clue:
I have 4 children. At this point
I excitedly tell everyone that being a Shire girl myself, I happen to know that
Andrew Ettingshausen has 4 children.
Third clue: I own a miniature
horse and miniature pig. I ask everyone
if they know whether or not good old ET has mini animals. From this point on I’m not sure what the rest
of the clues were. All I know is that
one minute I was puzzling over whether or not ET would be likely to own a mini
pig and the next minute I am raising my hand and guessing MYSELF as the answer. I may have been spurred on by some people at my
table but all I remember is the tears flowing from my face as I realised I had
WON!!! Not really won though, because
the whole thing was a huge set up and my family and friends had actually bought
me the tickets. #luckiestgirlintheworld
I wanted to meet Bill Bryson soooo badly and I got to!! The night I met him was magical. I just can’t believe that one single human
being can be so insightful, intelligent, witty, hilarious, generous and
kind. He is totally amazing!!! I felt an instant bond, not just with him but
with the 19 other people who had each paid just shy of $400 to spend an hour
with him. We were all as entranced as
each other (with the exception of my sister Kristy, who had come along with me
to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself).
This particular ‘getting what I want’ incident is not an
isolated event. So many things over the
course of my life have just happened to fall into place.
The story I am about to tell you is 100% true. The year was 2000 and I had just finished my
teaching degree and was waiting to see if Education Queensland would offer me a
job. After extensive research, I had
decided that I wanted to teach in the Torres Straits. I wanted to do my country service, but didn’t
like how outback Qld had no ‘edge’. For
someone who doesn’t like swimming and hates being hot it is very surprising
that I placed so much emphasis on wanting to be near the water in such a
tropical location. But you can’t really
choose where you teach – especially not as a uni graduate, so I just had to
cross my fingers and hope.
To pass time, while waiting for my offer, I was working at
Franklins Supermarket. One Wednesday, Franklins rang me and
asked if I would pick up and extra shift that afternoon. I happily agreed and went off to work. While working on the registers a girl came
through my register wearing a t-shirt with the Torres
Strait emblem on it. I
began to talk to the girl about the Torres Straits and told her about my desire
to teach there. She was really lovely
and told me that she had lived there all her life and it was such a beautiful
place. After I finished scanning her
items she went off on her merry way and I thought no more of our brief
encounter.
The next night, while working my usual Thursday night shift,
a very important looking man came into the store and asked to speak to me. He introduced himself as the father of the
girl I had met the previous day and told me he worked for Education Qld in the
Torres Straits!!!!! Can you believe
it?!? He happened to be in my home town,
thousands of km’s away from the Torres Straits visiting family with his
daughter. He asked me to drop my details
and resume off to him and he would make sure I had a position.
I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been
asked to do that extra shift at Franklins
that day, or if the girl had of gone through another register – or not worn a
shirt with a TS emblem on it!!
Apparently, Palm
Island had flagged my
application and I was going to be sent there.
It was only that I had that chance encounter that led to my application
being intercepted and sent up to TS instead.
If I hadn’t gone to the Torres Straits I never would have met Ben and
had our 4 beautiful children.
The girl who came through my register is one of my FB friends
and I am so grateful to have met her. We
stayed in touch when I moved up to Horn
Island and she invited me
to a lot of traditional events with her family.
You may be completely astounded by that story but there are
sooo many more.
I just seem to have this special gift to make people want to
do things for me. Back when I was 21 I
managed to convince a bloke in a mobile phone store to give me 10 tickets to
see Killing Heidi even though I did not purchase a phone (the shop had a
promotion on that you received 2 tickets to see Killing Heidi with every phone
purchase). THEN I managed to convince
security at the concert to let me and my friends go back stage and meet the
band.
Ben only ever wanted 2 children. My magical powers of
persuasion convinced him that we should have 3…. then 4. I employed similar persuasive techniques to
convince him on a whim to let me spend more on a German Shepherd puppy, than I
had on my first car. I saw the puppy one
day and bought her the next. *These
persuasive techniques were not employed for the Killing Heidi tickets or any
other event outside our marriage.
When we bought our new lounge I noticed that it had a lovely
$400 poof to go with it. Ben said that
if I bought the $400 poof he would divorce me.
Under no circumstances did we need to spend that amount of money for
something to put our feet on. Needless
to say we have the poof. And we aren’t
divorced. And I love putting my feet on
it.
I realise that this blog post is making me sound like some
kind of master manipulator. I’m
thinking that maybe I shouldn’t post it!!
But I promise my intentions really aren’t to manipulate people into
doing exactly as I want. I guess that
when I want something, whether it be to meet Bill Bryson or a $400 poof, I go
gung ho until I get it.
When I was 19, back before it was trendy and the norm to
live waaaay beyond your means, I somehow secured a loan for a brand new
Rav4. I had to work 3 jobs while being
full time at uni to pay for it – but I didn’t care!! In my day it was customary for your car to be
roughly the same age as you. So you can
imagine the huge deal it was to get a BRAND spanking new car!!
Luckily I’ve had the experience of owning a new car because
I don’t think it will ever happen again.
Nowadays I’m happy with function and comfort in a car over how
new/fast/shiny it is. My only
pre-requisite is that my car have air-con and cup holders (for my diet
coke). My current 4wd, has those ancient
manual window turner thingy’s!!! You
have no idea how many bewildered children have sat in my car and enquired about
the location of the buttons to make the windows go up and down.
So the moral of this post is – Yes. I do get what I want, most of the time. But I will work my arse off to get it. (Except for the poof. I did not work my arse off to get the poof, I
just bought it).
At the moment I am working on expanding our *mini*
farm. I’ve made some enquiries about
mini cows and I’m also on the lookout for another mini pig and horse to be
friends with Moo and Kelvin. So I’m just
putting it out there – if this ‘Bianca gets what Bianca wants’ trend continues
you can all expect that Nobel Acres will be home to more mini animals in the
near future (even if I have to do a weeks worth of relief teaching to pay for
them!!!).
B xx
