At first Poppy forgot she’d even posted her challenge on NOP the previous night. But she was notified of a comment the following day and it all came flooding back, making her cringe at how nasty she’d been.
They were having their next NOP catch-up at a restaurant that evening, and apparently there were going to be ten women attending this time. It had all been arranged by Carla, and Poppy was feeling some trepidation as she and Annalise arrived. Would some of the women be less than impressed with the previous night’s Facebook tirade?
They wove their way through the dining area and found the group sitting at a large round table by the fireplace. Poppy only recognised three faces – Kellie, Jess and Carla. The rest of the women were unfamiliar and they all introduced themselves one at a time. At first, Poppy tried to keep up with the names, but in the end she gave up and took her seat.
A waiter approached and offered wine and she tried to decline. After the previous evening she wasn’t up for alcohol, but Annalise coaxed her – ‘Don’t underestimate the hair of the dog’ – and Poppy gave in. ‘Fine, just one,’ she said.
‘Hey, thanks so much for arranging this,’ Poppy said across the table to Carla, ‘I’ve been a bit slack lately with getting members together.’
‘Not a problem,’ she replied brightly.
‘Where’s your friend you brought last time?’ Annalise asked.
‘Sophie? She couldn’t get here tonight.’
‘Who’s looked at the menu yet?’ asked one of the other women whose name Poppy had already forgotten. ‘I’m leaning towards the beef cheeks.’
‘Yuck,’ said a redhead to her left. ‘Vegetarian here,’ she added. ‘I’m looking at the eggplant lasagne.’
‘Forget about dinner,’ said Kellie loudly, gaining the attention of all nine other women, ‘who else wants to talk about Poppy’s massive rant on NOP last night?’
‘Epic,’ agreed the redhead. ‘Swear to God, you don’t know how much I’ve been holding back with my posts because I wasn’t sure if others would be on board with too much bitchiness. But now those gates are open, there is so much I want to get off my chest.’
‘Anyone completed the challenge yet?’ another woman asked.
‘Me!’ exclaimed the beef cheeks fan gleefully. ‘Already did it today. I met one of my old high-school friends for coffee in my lunch break. Every time we get together she shoves her phone in my face to show me photos of her kids and I have never been the least bit interested in seeing them, but I always act the part and ooh and ahh over them. But not today! Today I pushed the phone away and said “No thanks”. You should have seen her face!’
Poppy’s stomach flipped. That wasn’t what she’d meant when she set that challenge. She’d wanted people to stand up for themselves if they were being marginalised, not turn against their friends because they were bored of looking at photos. That was plain mean.
‘Oh my God,’ said Jess. ‘Sweetie, I think you need to get laid if you’ve got that much pent-up frustration over a couple of photos. How did your friend react?’
‘Well, she wasn’t impressed, obviously. But I’m sure she’ll get over it.’
Poppy doubted that. She couldn’t imagine Nolan being particularly forgiving if she refused to look at photos of his children.
‘I did one too!’ said a tall blonde who was sitting next to Carla.
‘Oh yeah?’ said Poppy, her voice full of nerves as she waited to hear what came next.
‘I invented an appointment for myself this afternoon so my area manager couldn’t leave before me to pick up her baby as per usual. I waited until I saw her about to pack up and I just said, all casual, “Hey, Philippa, I have a doctor’s appointment today so I have to leave early.” And she was all put out and started to say, “But what about the Finnigan proposal,” and I said, “You’ll be all good to finish that, won’t you?” And then I gave her this really sweet smile and said, “You totally owe me after I wrapped up the Allacino job, right?” I mean what could she say? It was awesome.’
Poppy felt relieved – that was actually fair enough. Why shouldn’t she have a bit more give and take at her work? It was more in line with what Poppy had wanted to achieve with the challenge too.
A waiter approached to take their orders and as they chose their meals, Poppy hoped the conversation would move on to something else.
The rest of dinner ended up being fairly uneventful. Despite Annalise’s attempts at plying Poppy with more wine and hinting she ought to hit on the cute waiter, Poppy managed to stick to only one and a half glasses, and she enjoyed the company and the fact that they stopped talking about mothers. One of the women did bring up Poppy’s bandaged hand, asking her what she’d done to herself, but Poppy brushed it off as a ‘silly accident’ and thankfully, the woman didn’t push for more of an explanation.
As they were sorting out the bill – and arguing over whether they should split it evenly between everyone or have each person tally up how much they’d each spent and pay for their own meal – Poppy glanced sideways and saw Annalise’s red notebook peeking out of her handbag. She was filled with an urge to reach across and grab hold of it so she could open it up and see what it was that Annalise was always writing about in there. But a moment later, Annalise had pushed it deep back inside the bag and zipped it shut.
Throughout the week, the nastier posts on NOP continued to grow, with more and more members keen to take up (and expand upon) Poppy’s original challenge.
Dianna – I had a go at a family at my local pizza place last night because they were refusing to do a THING about their kid who was tearing around the restaurant, screaming his head off and almost tripping over the wait staff. I actually think the waiters really appreciated me stepping in and saying something.
Catriona – So I have a stack of nieces and nephews, and all my sisters and brothers expect me to turn up to celebrate every little milestone and I don’t think any of them has ever considered just how much money I have to fork out for gifts for them. Well, last week two of my nephews had birthdays, so when the fam-bam got together at the park to celebrate I decided to mess with them by giving one of ’em a card with fifty bucks in it and the other – the shitty one I once caught breaking a Christmas gift on purpose cause it wasn’t the ‘right brand’ – a card with only ten bucks in it. Totes hilare seeing them compare their spoils and the looks on their faces – priceless. Waiting to see if my sister (the one who has the shitty kid) is going to have the gall to call me out on it and if she does . . . well, who knows just what I might say to her.
Nicole – I was at the Pear and Fig with a few other women for a business meeting. This group of mums came in and I just don’t understand why they would choose this cafe for their mothers’ group catch-up. There’s so many other cafes that are more suited – you know, more space, more noisy, whatever. The Pear and Fig is known for being a corporate hangout. Anyway, I look over and as I’m watching this kid starts pulling one sugar sachet after another out of the container in the centre of the table and he’s opening each one up and tipping them all over the table. And the mum isn’t doing a single thing to stop it. And I just thought, this is ridiculous. I happen to know the owner of the Pear and Fig and I know they work hard to turn a profit and things like sugar packets are one more expense that this mother was letting her kid completely waste for his own amusement. I’d had enough. I went over and let the mother have it. I’m sorry but I just couldn’t let her get away with it. And you know what she did? She didn’t clean it up, she just LEFT!
As the stories continued to pour in, there were clearly some people in the group who didn’t like it. They lost a few members – women who said that wasn’t what they thought the group was all about. To be honest, Poppy wasn’t sure she blamed them. But there were others who loved it – they relished completing the challenges, they thought it was hilarious. The group was taking on a life of its own.
OMG! commented one woman on Catriona’s post. I have two nephews and I refer to one of them as ‘the shitty one’ too! How funny is that. My sister would die if she knew, she thinks he’s an angel.
Another comment read, Well, I have a thirteen-year-old niece who is the devil incarnate and, same as your sister, my brother thinks she can do no wrong. Yet I can tell she’s the bitchy girl at school who bullies all her friends. What is it with parents and their inability to see past their kid’s big blue eyes?
If Nolan and Megs had a daughter next, Poppy couldn’t imagine ever thinking about her niece that way, even if she did grow up to be a bit of a queen bee. She’d like to think if she had any concerns about her own niece, she’d be able to chat openly with her brother about it. But then again, maybe this woman was right – maybe her brother would be blinded by his daughter’s ‘blue eyes’ or whatever, and maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to broach such a subject.
Either way, it was all hypothetical for Poppy, whereas the stuff happening on NOP was very real and very current and she wasn’t sure she could put the lid back on Pandora’s box.
It was one thing to bitch to each other. It was one thing to tell the world you don’t want kids or you’re just not a kid-person or whatever. But to start waging war against parents? Well, Poppy supposed they were all just doing exactly what she’d told them to do.
‘Say something,’ she’d written in that original post. ‘Stand up for yourself.’
She should have deleted it the moment she was sober. Annalise kept trying to reassure Poppy that it was all harmless fun. ‘So what if some of our issues are creeping out into the real world?’ she reasoned. ‘Why shouldn’t we be allowed to be honest about the way we feel?’
And then new challenges started popping up. Members who thought Poppy’s idea deserved to be expanded even further.
I challenge you to choose a venue that’s NOT kid-friendly for your next get-together with your friends or your family. When the parents within the group complain that it doesn’t suit them, tell them you’re done accommodating them!
Here’s another challenge for you all! If you have to buy birthday and Christmas gifts for your friends’ kids or your relatives’ kids, it’s time to tell the parents it’s not fair and they need to cough up for it themselves! Because you’re never going to have children, which means they’re never going to spend the same amount of money on you, are they? I don’t know about others, but I reckon I spend hundreds each year!
Poppy didn’t know what to do. Should she put a stop to it? But how could she demand that other members refrain from setting challenges when she was the one who’d kicked it all off?
Others kept it fun and light though. For instance, Viv was somehow able to continue to tell stories about her annoying neighbours’ kids that Poppy could relate to without being so harsh.
Kid’s next door were having a screaming match this arvo – something to do with Pokemon (don’t ask because I can’t explain it). It was driving me up the wall. Anyway, next thing their mother is banging on my door. I’ve barely opened it up before she asks, ‘DO YOU HAVE ANY WINE?’ If she wasn’t on the verge of tears I would have killed myself laughing. She snuck inside for a quick vino – not sure if her kids even noticed her missing – and I gifted her with the rest of the bottle to take home and enjoy later after the little monsters went to bed. It was a good reminder that even though I might find their noise annoying, it’s ten times louder and more stressful for her.
Viv made Poppy empathise with her and she made her laugh at the same time. And to be honest, Poppy thought that was the kind of healing she needed, not this insidious poisonous joy the other women were sharing at someone else’s pain.
But the worst thing was that sometimes a part of Poppy would want to join in with those nastier conversations. She would remember Garret and Karleen and everything they’d done to her, and she’d see the image of the two of them in that hospital room, holding that neatly wrapped package, and the same hatred she’d felt on the night of the scalpel would surge up inside. She wondered if she was no better than any one of the women on NOP who were turning nasty and cruel. If she saw Garret and Karleen in person, would she have to fight against the desire to say something horrible? Your kid is ugly. I hope your kid ruins your life. I hope your kid screams the house down every single night.
She didn’t like finding that much hatred still inside her.