Smarten Up

This afternoon I heard some loud pinging noises from next door & Honey was going mental, so I poked my head out & saw a young teenage aboriginal boy ginging rocks at my neighbour's house. A ging is a kind of slingshot that the aboriginal kids are ferociously good at using, and they use them to smash windows, hit dogs, trucks, whatever they feel like.

I watched to see which way he was going before I called the cops, but he joined his family coming back down the footpath, all headed towards my place, so I just waited at the gate and politely accosted them. "What did you hit with your ging at the house next door?" I asked him. "Nothin! I don't got no ging!" (This is with him holding the ging in his hand, the moron) "Yes you do, all these people here saw you with it and so did I. What did you hit?" Then his mum chimed in. "I tell im not go gingin', they know they not posed to do it."  "Well, that's my neighbour Phil's house and he asked me to call the police if anything happens. I don't want to call the cops, but if people are ginging his house I will have to call them. So it has to stop."  "Yer them bloody kids, I tell em."  They shuffled off.  I remind myself that probably a really high proportion of them have got some kind of brain damage from foetal alcohol syndrome, beatings, malnutrition, sniffing fumes and god knows what else; it really is pointless trying to talk with them or trying to stop it.

Afterwards I sat down to put together my new camera; just trying to figure out how to attach the lens cap safety string seemed to require 7 pages of instructions and left me feeling like I had brain damage, and I was suddenly inspired. We could have a Meekatharra version of the TV show "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" - except ours would be called "Are You Marginally Smarter Than A Monkey?" The challenges would include Getting Joan Home In The Aged Care Van With No Directions When She Can't Remember Where She Lives, Can You Open Your Medication Pack By Yourself, and Should You Drive Your Ute Two Blocks From The Pub To Your House Passing The Police Station On The Way After Having 27 Cans Of Emu Bitter Or Just Walk Home.

Advanced challenge level would be things like Assembling Your Internet Flatpack Bookshelf Using Only The Tools Recommended In The Instructions, Not Setting Fire To Your House By Leaving Petrol Cans Next To Exposed Live Wires and bonus points for Avoiding Being Stabbed At The Royal Mail Hotel On A Friday Night.

The monkey would win.