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Meet Cate Bolt . . .
Cate is a Queenslander who has a business known as Pretty Fkn Embroidery, which sells pillows and other items emblazoned with profanities. In her own words, she is an “ex-heavy metal music journo/prison officer/bouncer turned Buddhist, humanitarian, activist, hippie, fibre/textile artist,” the mother of 9 children who lives in a bus and someone who swears a lot, “actually a real fucking lot”. The money she makes is used to fund an orphanage she started in Bali, the aim being to keep kids off the streets and out of sex trafficking.
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Read about Cate at:
and
The site for the orphanage, Foundation 18, is at:
Read Cate’s own comments and messages at:
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Cate’s business of embroidering swear words on items began as a joke, the juxtaposition of swear words with lovely embroidery. She was surprised to find that others also liked it.
She recently posted the following exchange with a disgruntled client on her Facebook page:
Good morning, petals! Happy Saturday. As promised, it's time for another round of our favourite game "messages from people who don't really like us very much". This one comes from Sam via email, who starts with a very direct approach:
Sam:
Where's my fucking order???????
PFE:
Hello, Namaste and Good day!
Thank you for your email and apparent faith in my psychic abilities. Despite my best efforts to ‘break on through to the other side’, my spirit guides have failed me once again. I am unable to conjure the information required to assist you with your enquiry. I apologise profusely for the inconvenience. I was able to sense some tension around you though, but that may be due to your excessive use of question marks and aggressive use of profanity.
Well done on the appropriate use of an apostrophe in the ‘where’s’ contraction. That’s a level of attention to detail I don’t usually have the pleasure of experiencing around here. If you could possibly extend that level of attention to detail so far as to provide me with an order number or name, that would be highly beneficial.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
Sam:
The order number is 580 I placed it like 3 weeks ago.
Sam (again) three minutes later:
Also theres no need to be rude. You're not fucking funny. Stop fucking around and just get my order here.
PFE:
Hey Sam,
Thanks for getting back to me. I’ve located your order, it’s right here.
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
Sam:
AND??????????
PFE:
Oh, shit sorry...
Seven horses seem to be on the mark.
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
Sam:
What?????
PFE:
What what? It’s international “Use a Doors Lyric In An Email” Day. I thought you were pointing out my mistake?! By the way, you’ve been letting the team down, bit rude of you to pull me up on it.
Oh well, I guess ‘people are strange’.
Have a great day.
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
Sam:
Theres no such fucking thing I googled it. Where is my fucking order????????
PFE:
Now Sam, don’t be like that. All great things have to start somewhere, I’m sure it will catch on. I mean who doesn’t want to use Doors lyrics in an email at least one day a year?
Anyway, back to your question. I’m sensing that hostility again. I’ve already answered your question. I’ve located your order and it’s right *here*. Technically that’s not entirely true. Your order exists in electronic form on a server that is part of the world wide web, but I have access to that information via my computer. If you’re enquiring as to the whereabouts of the item that you have ordered...well I can’t answer that, because it doesn’t yet exist. Although it’s entirely possible that in an alternate parallel universe another version of me has already made your item and therefore it would exist in that universe, however it would be for an alternate version of you. Perhaps one with a greater appreciation of Doors lyrics.
I hope that helps to calm your nerves. If not perhaps you could ‘take a long holiday, let your children play’.
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
Sam:
Why hasn't it been made? I ordered like 3 fucking weeks ago.
PFE:
Hey Sam,
It’s nice to hear from you again. Look, it’s entirely possible that you missed the capital letters at the top of every page of our website stating that the order processing time is 14 days. It takes that long because I hand make every single item to order. Despite your repeated assertion that you ordered ‘like’ three weeks ago, you actually ordered on the 20th. That’s nine days ago. You can’t even round nine days up to three weeks, so just hush.
Since I listed the “I’ve tried to stop swearing but I cunt” cushion on the evening of the 9th of April, I have sold approximately 780 items. Every single one of those 780 items has to be embroidered, sewn, packed, processed and shipped by me. Just me. Not a fucking factory or a magical tribe of Oompa Loompas. There’s no uni-fucking-corns flying in at 4pm to pick up the mail and take it to the post office. I have to take that shit there and stand at the counter for an hour, holding up a queue of pissed off people, while I lodge my 47 customs-declaration-emblazoned international orders. It’s just me, Sam. In a caravan, in a shed, in a fucking paddock with horses and horseshit, in the middle of no-fucking-where. I don’t have ‘people’, Sam. There’s no one to answer fucking stupid emails, I usually do that somewhere around 5am when I start my day. This morning I left the warmth of my bed and dream involving Norman Reedus and a hot shower to come and make sure I can deliver the customers’ orders in time. I don’t know where else you’d find *that* level of commitment.
So, Sam, just ‘let it roll, baby, roll’- it’s a fucking cushion cover, man. The sky isn’t falling. No one’s dying. Calm the fuck down.
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
Sam:
What a fucking rude bitch. Thats no fucking way to run a business. If you couldn't get stuff out in three weeks maybe you shouldn't be so greedy.
PFE:
Dear numerically challenged cuntpuddle,
Thanks so much for getting in touch, yet again. How delightfully hypocritical of you to call *me* rude. Let’s not forget that this whole conversation started with you shoving your “Where's my fucking order???????” down my throat without even buying me dinner first. That, my friend, is rude. And while we’re on the subject of your first email. I’m utterly dismayed to see that you’ve let your correct use of apostrophes in contractions fall by the wayside. I had such high hopes for you. You’ve disappointed me, Sam, but I suspect I’m not the first woman to tell you that.
This is actually ‘a’ way to run a business. It might not be your preferred way, but it’s the way I do it. Why? Because the majority of my customers are fucking rad. They’re happy, fun, delightful people who enjoy a laugh and are of fairly sane and reasonable mind. Most of them even know that nine days doesn’t equal three weeks. I’m not saying they’re fucking scholars or anything, just that they are, as a whole, generally smarter than you. Unfortunately there are people in the world who have a grandiose sense of self-importance and an utter lack of respect for their fellow man (or woman). They tend to swan around calling people names and rounding nine up to 21, with little concern for those around them. That’s you, Sam. Again, I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you this, but you’re a bit of a cunt.
Where you’ve really lost me though is calling me ‘greedy’, let me tell you how I spend most of my money. About six years ago I started a little orphanage in Indonesia. I read a report into child sex crimes in Indonesia and Malaysia one day, actually it took more than one day to read, but not 21 days. This report contained the sort of stuff that would make the shit in your lower intestine curdle. Fucking gross stuff that no one should ever have to read – or write. I couldn’t walk away from that information knowing what I did without trying to make a difference. So I started an orphanage. It’s only a small orphanage, we call it a ‘group home’ for abandoned girls - the group that are at the highest risk of being forced into prostitution or human trafficking. We gave them a loving home, with a house mother who treats them as her own. We provide them with education, food, clothing, immunisations, medical insurance – everything that is required to raise strong, independent, smart young women who have choices in life other than to sell themselves.
I wasn’t content with that, Sam, so I started some more programs in the village where my orphanage is located. Education outreach programs to allow kids to stay in school, assistance with school fees, books, uniforms, shoes, backpacks. We even provide them with free food so they’re not going to school hungry. We’ll even pay for transport to get them to school if we need to. Do you know who paid for the first female student in the entire history of our village to attend high school? Me. I did. Do you know what else I paid for? Toilets at the high school for the girls. The school had only ever had need for male toilets. Now it has both.
There are more programs, Sam, but I’m sure your attention span is probably reaching its limits now. The point is that I think you’ll understand my reluctance to be schooled in greed by someone who has just spent enough money on a luxury item to feed a child in my care for a month. In the last five days I’ve had to deal with the murder of a child who has been my financial responsibility since he was a baby. He was murdered by his own father, who took out his own mother in the process, after being released from jail for killing his own wife. Pretty Fkn Embroidery isn’t a business, it’s my hobby. It’s what I do to make the reality of my existence tolerable in a world that is so fucking dark it scares me. In other words, I do it for the LOLz. Uppity cunts like you take the LOLz out of it and make me want to leave the shop shut and live in a cave.
Finally, and I’d like to say this gives me no pleasure, but if you could bottle the sensation I get from doing this, no one would ever talk about orgasms again...
NO CUSHION COVER FOR YOU!
I’ve cancelled your cunting order and issued a refund. Kindly go fuck yourself and have a nice day.
Oh and, Sam, ‘don’t ya love her as she’s walkin’ out the door’......*wink emoji*
Kind fkn regards,
Cate
Pretty Fkn Embroidery
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Go Cate!
As for Sam . . . Go on now, walk out the door, turn around now, you're not welcome anymore . . .
