Tuesday 20 May 2008

Welcome to cranky old fart-hood

I reckon I am halfway towards my retirement persona of becoming a Colonel Blimp. That moment came the other day when I was buying some tools at the hardware store and bought myself one of those grab-handy things on a stick. The sort of thing that you give to convicts who are sent out in chain gangs to pick up rubbish from the side of the road. A very Council worker kind of thing.

I actually paid money for it. I voluntarily handed over cash for a symbol of the cranky.

I originally wanted to get one a few years ago after spending half a day doing Clean Up Australia - spending a few hours bent over picking up rubbish just about killed me. I don't mind picking up rubbish, but I have no desire to end up bent over like one of those old Vietnamese strawberry picking women. But could I find one anywhere? No. I was told to try calling one of the handicapped groups, but never got around to it.

Then I spotted on at the hardware store, and I had to have it. I use it to pick up all the crap that the drunks drop when they stagger down our street from the pub on the weekend. Soft drink cans, beer bottles, chip packets, burger wrappers - that kind of thing. And the drunks leave an awful lot of crap, and some manage to do it every night. Sometimes I think that half the junk in our bin at the end of the week is stuff that I have collected from the gutter outside our abode.

The only problem with the cranky old fart grab-handy thing is that it is made of rather fragile looking plastic. It's nice and light, but it has no heft. I want something with a bit of a heft to it, so that if I ever catch one of these bludging turds tossing a chip packet on our verge, I can scone them with it with extreme prejudice. I figure the best way to remove the litter from out street is to crack the heads of those that drop it, rather than me endlessly picking it up each morning.

Fuck it - I'll trade it for a .303.

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