I stopped in at a local ‘pothecary on the way home tonight, as my Lady Companion needed to purchase a cure.
This particular pharmacy happened to have a child’s play/creativity area, at which I couldn’t help noticing the following baffling message:
I did not know whether to laugh, cry, or call Child Protection Services.
What was the meaning of this startling observation/plea?
Was the youth – judging by the penmanship – in question really so flummoxed by the most noble of all arts? And what was the ‘hawker’ to which he referred?
Was it one of these:
Pwned Messerschmitt ME-109s in the Battle of Britain.
or some of this?
I'll sambal for ya.
Was this poor East Brunswick tyke crying out for help with his/her heartbreaking nostalgia for an acknowledged icon of RAF WWII air supremacy, or merely hankering for some tasty SE Asian nosh?*
And what had it all to do with music? Why such a caustic antipathy to melody linked to this ambiguous expression of longing? Was some hideous yuppie mum forcing her children to listen to Lady Gaga (you know, that fucking annoying ‘Just Dance’ song always belting out of Supré or Boost Juice) or those ball-less Jonas Bros in the ride home from school?
Being male and recalling my own obsession with militaria as a lad, I immediately assumed the ‘hawker’ was the heavy metal type. Lady Companion, being a hot halfie part-Malay herself immediately empathised with this waif’s thinly veiled angling for an ais or ice kacang.
But the connection?
We finally agreed that the link lay in the desire for some wanton destruction or calming comfort food as a balance against some enforced musical practice – piano lessons or some such. After all, LC pointed out, Mini Maestros was just up the road…
I was unfamiliar with Mini Maestros’ stock in trade but, once informed, empathised again with the desire to strafe hot leaden death from above East Brunswick, rather than simply drown my sorrows in “… ice served with sweet flavoured syrup and jelly… sometimes also containing red beans, sweetcorn, grass jelly, cubes of agar agar and cendol, even novelty toppings like durian, chocolate syrup and ice cream.”
I am still not satisfied with our assessment, concocted in the heat of intrigue as it were.
Any other thoughts?
*We did – tentatively, I’ll admit – skirt around a third possibility; of the ‘hawker’ being a hawk instead. An allusion to the archaic and beautiful art of falconry? I seem to recall an early scene in Stephen Kings Gunslinger series from my teenage reading, where the hero goes into a duel using his pet falcon to tear out the eyes of his enemy or something. So often I too, have felt the urge to send some feathered fury to inflict permanent ocular injury on the 4WD pram-toting twats that clog the footpath in that particular section of Lygon of a weekend morning… all I want is a damn Croque Monsieur from Sugardough without tripping over your toddler and incurring your death stares, you cunts. Why should a small child’s hate for substandard musical pedagogy be felt any less fervently?
Wherever you are, I salute and validate your anger, tiny person.
