Open Writing

A leaflet arrived in the letter-box. Exotic and Australian pets. Scorpions, Siamese fighting fish, bearded dragons, freshwater stingrays — you can buy them all at a shop two suburbs away from here. They're having a Mammoth Sale, too. I wonder if they also sell Goliath Bird-Eating Spiders?

The huge tarantulas in that category have a leg span of up to 25cm. The Australian version is a mere 16cm across. That's only six inches in old-fashioned units but it's nearly twice the size of the horrible hairy huntsman spiders that sometimes lurk around my house and in the car, looking for warmth. Bird-eating spiders eat lizards, frogs, and other spiders, plus the occasional fledgling. If one of them bites you, it can cause pain, nausea and profuse sweating, but it won't kill you.

My next door neighbour has a Chinese Scary Owl, with menacing orange eyes, to scare pigeons in his back garden. There were so many of them, making such a noisy fuss as they pursued their love life all over the place. Since that owl arrived, the pigeons have kept well away. The only bird to come near, and attack, is an Australian noisy mynah (miner). They'll attack anything.

Pigeons don't get on my nerves. If they want to commit sexual intercourse in every corner of my garden, coo-cooing their silly heads off, that's OK. But there are several other species I'd like to deter.
There are, for instance, the people who drive those over-size SUV's, 'people movers', and 4-wheel-drive things round the suburbs and park them at local shopping centres. You find yourself a nice parking place, waddle round the shops, and return to find that your car is jammed between two petrol-guzzling monstrosities. When you reverse out of your parking place, you can't see a thing on either side.
It isn't merely a problem of height. Owners seem to have no idea of the width of their ostentatious vehicles. Yesterday, I found one parked next to my car, at an angle over the white line, such that I couldn't get to my door, let alone open it.
Then there are the folk who use their mobile phones in public places. Because the phones are so small, the mouthpiece is nowhere near their mouth, and because there is so much background noise, they shout.
If there's an emergency, that's fine, but why the heck do they stand in front of a supermarket display of baked beans and tinned spaghetti, discussing with their loved one which brand to buy and at what price? Or start up a shouting match at the next table in the quiet corner where I like to sit and have a coffee while finishing the crossword puzzle in the newspaper?
When mobile phones came in the door, good manners flew out of the window. Check-out assistants have to wait while a customer answers a call during a transaction. When I was running classes in creative writing, I asked everyone to switch off their mobile phones. That didn't stop one woman from having a long chat, refusing to leave the classroom, while we all sat and waited. A parson friend tells me that mobile phones even ring while he's preaching; the culprits have included worshippers, a choirmaster, and another parson. Ye gods!
It would be nice to emulate my next door neighbour. Perhaps a Chinese Scary Owl could be trained to deter all these pests. Unfortunately, that is not possible. The owl is Made In China, that's true, but It has no feathers. It's made of plastic. Its glowering eyes are made of sparkly glass. Maybe I should go to the Sale at that Exotic and Australian Pet Shop and buy a Mammoth, instead.

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2008