What women think - June 2006

Mining for my affection

Brown is the new black, Asian-fusion food is the new Chinese and miners are now the new firemen.

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Usually I lose it when I see the fire truck go past Pane Vino while I'm having alfresco lunch. I'm guilty of setting fire to the toaster in the work kitchen so I can perve on firemen. I own DVD copies of Ladder 49 and Backdraft. I bought a FDNY t-shirt last time I was in New York.

No more. Now it's miners, miners, miners. Dirty filthy hulking men who each day head into the bowels of our earth to find energy sources to keep the fires in our hearts burning.

Of course, had Todd Russell and Brant Webb not been forced to endure a fortnight in a steel cage not big enough to hold all my shoes, I'd be none the wiser. I'd still be all firemen crazy. Mercifully I've seen the miners light.

I started getting sucked in from watching Mel and Kochie ooh and aah over everyone at Beaconsfield. My heart ached at the sadness of Larry Knight's death, felt the anguish of the perilous wait for news of Todd and Brant, watched in awe at how these small communities pull together in times of strife.

When the guys were found alive, little snippets would be reported, like how they bopped away to their iPods, asked for the footy scores and generally put shit on each other as blokey blokes do.

I've got a soft spot for hard men. I spent years married to a bloke who wore a suit and tie and was all squishy around the middle. Now, I want steel caps, Holden utes, tool boxes and a three day growth. Now I know this type of man isn't every woman's schooner of VB. Most of my girlfriends think I'm a bit odd, like I've been zapped by a live electrical wire (when I dated a sparky) or had my brain frozen in an air conditioning duct (when I dated a fridgie).

Or, more topically, had a pile of coal fall on my head the day I had my hard hat in for dry cleaning (absent mindedness from dreaming about dating a miner).

I would have freaked out if I'd been stuck in that cage. No hair straighteners, no tweezers and a mirror, no Twinings tea, my nails in desperate need of a refill. Not to mention the lack of civilised toilet facilities. This is why I don't camp or climb Mt Everest.

I wouldn't be asking for vitamins, Sustagen or an air bed. More like valium, Rosemount and Dunhill.

The day they got out, I happened to be up early, trying to get myself in the clear for some boring work deadline. I got to see them walk out live, punch the air, and clock off. They were wearing those reflective, bulky miners clothes and their hard hats. Men in uniform. sometimes they look so hot. They hugged their wives, cuddled their children, looked at the early morning sky and I cried.

I watched the Channel 9 interview in the company of three million Australians. You know, the one where Tracy Grimshaw got to be within touching distance of them. Bitch.

Did you see Todd in that t-shirt? Apparently it is a $12 number from Jay Jays. I'm loving that it wasn't some fab Billabong, Mambo or Jag number. Hell, even Tarocash. Step aside Armani, Jay Jays is now on the red carpet.

In true groupie style, I bounded to a Jay Jay's store not long after, buying the exact same t-shirt. It says "Big Willie's Shooting Inn, Beaver Canyon". I know, don't go there.

Mind you, the t-shirt could also have read: "I think all blondes are idiots" and I'd still buy it. And a bottle of Nice 'n' Easy #116 Natural Brown. Sucks to be me.

I didn't even realise there were that many Jay Jays stores in Brisbane. Or Launceston.

I wonder if Todd asked his wife, as men are prone to do, what he should wear to appear on national television for two hours, for the princely sum of $2.6 million?

Did she say, "How about that lovely t-shirt the kids gave you last Christmas?"

"Oh sweetie, top idea, be a love and pull it out of the dryer and run the iron over it for me, will ya?"

No self consciousness, no up himself carry on. He would have looked at the shirt he wore with the same interest he would show a can opener. The shirt doesn't matter, the family do. I bet he would have woken up on the morning of that interview, ate some eggs (poached by channel 7), tousled with his kids, built a deck, changed the spark plugs in his ute, had a shower and wandered over to the television studio. No big deal.

The other thing I did was buy every Kenny Roger's CD that HMW could produce. If that's what my boys sang, then I'll sing along. I mean, a girl's gotta know when to hold 'em.

I hope it's not the last we see of them. First there has to be the movie. Russell Crowe obviously would have a lead role. He'd look a bit of alright in a miners kit.

Jay Jays will probably soon release a Todd Russell line of t-shirts. Then there'll be a snakes and ladders style game where the winner is the first person to get the boys up to the surface. All dogs will be called Harley, Beaconsfield will be the capital of Australia, and the mining skills shortage our country is facing will be over, with MIM, Rio Tinto, BHP and the like marketing the sex appeal of their industry.

Do they make steel caps with a stiletto yet? I wonder how I'd look with hard hat hair.

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Read other columns written by Bron

Bron McClain p 0412 326 300 e bron@bronmcclain.com