Trouble brews for divorcees

• Published date: 29 November 2022
• Publication title: Signal

LAST Sunday I almost burnt down my house. It was drab and raining outside and I’d sat down to enjoy a nice cup of tea when I smelled something burning. That’s when I remembered the pita bread grilling in the oven

I ran into the kitchen, opened the oven door and almost burnt my face off when thick orange flames leapt out at me. Thinking quickly, I shut the oven door. This appeared to solve the problem.

As a former boy scout, I know all about fire safety. The closed oven door would deprive the fire of the oxygen it needed to survive and prosper. I counted to 10 and re-opened the oven door, this time keeping my face a safe distance away. Again, aggressive naked flames lunged straight for me through the gap of the opening door. So I closed it.

It was now clear that my strategy of opening and closing the oven door was not effective at putting out the fire. I needed a new plan. I was not panicked but my concern over the situation was growing. I pressed the oven’s off button and when the fire inside kept dancing I turned the oven off at the wall. Incredibly, this had no effect.

That’s when my phone beeped to announce I’d received a message. It read: ‘‘Are you burning the house down?’’

I assessed my situation. I had a fire blazing uncontrollably inside the oven, a fiancee away on the fourth day of her hiking trip wondering what the heck was going on back at home and the realisation that our 7-year-old daughter was a nark. It’s fair to say that Puschmann was in trouble.

‘‘Maybe,’’ I replied.

In the new Disney+ dramedy Fleishman Is in Trouble, the recently divorced Toby doesn’t even get the courtesy of a message. True, he’s not fighting fire, but he is dealing with an emergency. The school holidays have started, he’s rostered on at the hospital where he works and his ex-wife Rachel has unceremoniously dumped their two children at his apartment and vanished off the face of the Earth after saying she was going to a yoga retreat.

He’s also attempting to keep up his vigorous and adventurous dating life. After 15 years of marriage, Toby is now revelling in his freedom and the sexual revolution of modern dating apps. To his delight, he’s discovered that as a highly paid Manhattan surgeon he’s in high demand in a way that he wasn’t when he was a nerdish teen.

Problem is, the kids are cramping his style and Rachel won’t answer her phone. He’s inconvenienced. He’s frustrated. He’s angry. What he’s not, even after four days of no contact, is...