Culturazi

How do you know you’ve had a good weekend? When you wake up on Monday with pash rash, boozers blush, a notebook full of indecipherable scribble, and a blog deadline you’ve failed to meet.

A very busy weekend. My introductory lines aside, I also participated in other more wholesome activities, such as gardening, bottling home-made cordials, and volunteering for a local grass-roots organisation. To be exact, I spent a few hours at El Presidente’s, engaged in some desultory chair washing and a bit of decoration in preparation for the Backyard Backanalia. Then I manned the gate for a while, bravely fighting off a bombardment from the next door neighbours, who are apparently not lovers of music.

They showed their lack of appreciation by throwing things over the fence at me. It is hard to greet visitors, take membership monies, and ask for donations when tubes of busted sunscreen and other flotsam are being pelted in your direction. I managed to bravely smile and keep the front desk sailing along smoothly until a metal rod caught me squarely in the head.

At that stage another CMC member came and took over desk duties. I grabbed the metal rod and with a rallying cry of “Right! We’ll see about this”, I went bravely to the neighbours door and rapped firmly against it.

It was a timid woman who opened the door, but not to be put off by her unthreatening appearance, I launched straight in to my complaint. “Someone is chucking stuff at us. What the hell is going on? We’re good people,” I went on, “and we’re just trying to do our thing, you know?” This sounded pretty feeble even to my own ears, but it seemed to strike fear into their hearts.

“He did it!” said the woman, pointing at a bemused 3 year old. An older lad nodded in agreement to this. I seriously doubt that the small child had the muscle power to pitch something so accurately over the fence, and felt it was rather unkind to make him the scapegoat. However, it was a good ploy because this accusation rather took the wind from my sails, and I left them with a stern, “well, don’t do it again”.

I never returned to my duties at the desk, preferring instead to join the party and drink too much beer. I think there’s a lesson in that for all of us.

Tags: Gertrude // Add Comment »