I worked at Jenny Jones Rugs for three years, from around May 2003, and left shortly after my separation from Laura, to head out to Kalgoorlie with just a few clothes packed in my car to become a truck driver.
When we lived together in our previous house we had all of the accessories that most households have, and when we divided most of those goods, it was decided that I would keep most of the furniture. This was all put into storage at a friends place, and off I went into the desert.
Six months later I returned, a fully qualified and suitably experienced truckie (see this video for more detail on what that involves). My new house had been completed and I moved in, putting all the furniture in there.
I started working in a mine way up north in Western Australia on a fly-in fly-out basis. The company would fly our whole crew out to site, and we would live there for two weeks, working six twelve-hour day shifts, followed by seven twelve-hour night shifts. We were then flown home and had eight days off, before heading back to work again.
Work uniform in the mines has certain requirements, including steel toe-cap boots, and orange reflective shirts. However, the presentation of these uniform is completely irrelevant. Many of the guys work in oily or dirty conditions, and a clean, crisply ironed shirt is not a requirement.
It was completely acceptable, and very common to turn up at work unshaven, hair uncombed, and shirt fresh out of the tumble drier, still creased and wrinkled.
At home on my eight days off I lived almost constantly in bare feet, shorts and a t-shirt.
So it never even occurred to me that I didn’t have an ironing board!
I did have an iron however. In our previous home we had two of them for some reason, and I had been given the oldest of the two. Since returning to Perth it had sat unused under the sink in my laundry.
But when Darryl and Jane moved into my house a couple of months ago they were both working in an office in the city, and had moved over from New South Wales with just the clothes they needed. Jane struggled with my old iron for a while, using a towel on the floor as an ironing board, but one day she got a shock from it, and into the bin it went.
She eventually bought a new iron and ironing board, and as my old one was now no longer working it was very useful for ironing my JJR work shirts.
However, when Darrl and Jane moved out into their own place, they took both the iron and ironing board with them. For the past two weeks my shirts have looked a bit crumpled, more like mining attire than shop attire!
But I won’t be here for much longer, if things go well next month, so I am going to do without an iron and ironing board.
So be warned, if you buy my life, and ironing is important to you, you will need to arrange your own ironing equipment!