WAKING up to an argument is never pretty, but it happens - ask Bronwyn Bishop.

Her flight of fancy from Melbourne to Geelong in a chartered chopper at taxpayer expense to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser in her impartial capacity as Speaker of the House really got the memes going.

Personal favourites included the one about Bronwyn taking the dog for a walk leashed to her helicopter, Bronwyn going camping with her chopper carrying a house, and Bronwyn "taking the car", which was being loaded into a transport chopper.

Rusted-on Laborites were quick to recall similar "injustice" dished out to former House Speaker Peter Slipper and ex-PM Julia Gillard from parliamentary attack dogs of the day like Tony Abbott and Julia's "loyal" old mate Kevin Rudd.

Calls to "Ditch the Bishop" abounded, triggering some Liberal readers to assert Bronny and the Libs were getting an unfair roast from the media.

But the media didn't make the story up. Bronwyn went from the chopper to the mincer all by herself.

Abbott conceded Bronwyn had "copped a justifiable hiding" and put Bronwyn on probation, whatever that meant.

Brons got to keep her job, unlike Slipper, or Gillard, and was quick to allay tensions by refusing to apologise, pointing out that even though the Age of Entitlement was over, she had only done what she was entitled to do.

And she reckons Joe Hockey says some funny things.

Compared to Tony Abbott perhaps, who dug deeper and suggested we try and keep things in proportion.

Fair enough, Bronwyn racked up $811,857 in taxpayer-funded expenses last year, not to mention the $93,000 she claimed as an Opposition Senator in 1993. Surely five grand was nothing.

Having heeded my PM, I decided to give putting things into proportion a go, mindful that my arguments would be on a far smaller scale than Bronwyn's.

Not to mention cheaper. But what price emotion during a difference of opinion?

For example, a person might refuse to feed the cats one morning. That might kick off an intense discussion about responsibilities and entitlement.

A person might already be on probation after forgetting to put the dishwasher on the night before, yet again.

So that might intensify debate.

Thereafter a fierce intellectual struggle for the high moral ground might ensue. A discussion that may sound remarkably like two hungry cats demanding to be fed. It may well be two hungry cats demanding to be fed, and a person may well get up and feed those cats, suggesting that person may well have lost the debate.

That would wrong, and a departure from Bronwyn's game plan right there. If Bronwyn had cats they'd be tigers, and she would never be the one getting up to feed them. She'd have Siegfried and Roy do it.

Having said that, Bronwyn did pay back the $5000 for the helicopter ride, after it was blazed across the headlines.

That's because life is not always an American feel-good rom com where the ugly truth is glossed over.

Sometimes it's a gritty Eastern European dirge about bitterness and struggle that drags on interminably, ending with a dramatic pan over mountains that hint at the timeless nature of who gives a shit.

Certainly not Bronwyn who would probably pan over the mountain in her chopper. But that's Bronwyn for you - never apologise, never explain.

From experience I know a period of reflection in the garage, to contemplate the existential nature of cat food, is not an act of surrender, it is a form of probation.

Often leading me to conclude, in hindsight, that nearly 100 per cent of all arguments I get into are not worth arguing about.

The trick of course is to realise this in foresight, in order to avoid them.

Bronwyn would never subscribe to such a surrender monkey view, as the Labor Party finds out each day in Parliament.

But, proportionally speaking, a more common type of citizen may not have the option of being ejected from the house, so in the tradition of gritty Eastern European cinema you deal with it.

Research reveals the thing that irks most partners in a relationship is their partners. So find a distraction.

In Bronwyn's case this week, it was Mick Fanning nearly getting eaten by a shark at J-Bay.

That was lucky for Bronwyn because it diverted a media feeding frenzy.

It was probably even luckier for Mick because it diverted a genuine feeding frenzy.

Proportionally speaking, heading to the garage to feed the cats is a pretty good distraction too.

Not as dramatic as a shark attack, but if the smell of cat food can't take your mind off your problems, nothing can.

Which brings us back to the idea that arguments happen. Sometimes, as Bronwyn Bishop's case shows, those arguments can be pretty rich. But proportionally speaking, it's often better to put yourself on probation, and get to the chopper, I mean garage.