The greatest swimathon of all time.
A million athletes, all spermy-boys from Cul-De-Sac College, lined up and ready.
On your mark, get set…
Bang!
Off they go from the starter cock into the gene pool in a great big happy hurrah.
The 100 millimeter butterfly,
The trophy lays ahead.
Some go ‘round in circles. Some wriggle on the spot like they’re fittin’. Some go completely bonkers, swimming backwards like a dude lining up for his/her/them/it’s 33rd booster shot with a double hit of Bell’s Palsy and myocarditis, winkin’ at me with his one good eye in a fury yelling ‘get vaccinated, get vaccinated!’ Others are DOA the moment they hit the waters at the Gina Swim Centre, but the bulk of our boys know exactly which way to go.
But sadly there can only be one winner.
And yes! He scores! Oh yes he took it!
Look at our winner, and he’s no time waster.
Look at him, munching’ into that great big ova-cake.
The losers…millions of potential surgeons, philosophers, artists, architects, singers, story-tellers, serial killers…all die.
And how does our little champion tadpole toast victory to that big sim called life?
By sitting on their useless beefcake giggling at screen memes with that thing glued to hand.
Yes, by becoming a Smart Can’t.
For many thousands of years our ancestors through the ages have struggled to survive.
Wars. Plagues. Disease. Droughts. Famines. Pestilence. Even the odd scallywag pirate or n'er-do-well trying to pull the old swifty knife in the guts for a penny.
And here that sad train they call Struggle has arrived at the terminal end.
That end-of-the-line station they call Waste, a place most parents dread because many of them too, are First-Class passengers on that very same train. That place where the platforms are littered with a billion pointless dreams fuelled by a billion glowing screens, for this is the land where hope dies.
A crying shame. FUBAR the world around.
…
Look and see
All around,
For years lost,
Happy not to be found,
You can meet them,
Anywhere,
‘Cause, well,
They’re everywhere.
For they are the Can'ts.
The Smart Can'ts.
They can’t do this.
They can’t do that,
And are quite happy
Broiling in their big pot of unknowledgeable, unskilled general inability,
Knowing for every hundred can’ts out there,
There is one overworked, time-poor can.
They can't think outside the rectangle...in their hand.
They just can’t put the wretched things down.
They can’t see just how frustratingly stupid they look holding them.
They can’t spell.
They can’t use grammar.
They can’t tell the difference between there, their and they’re.
They can’t recall the vowels other than A and I.
They can’t name a single book they’ve read front to back that wasn’t a Where’s Wally?
They can’t count without calculators.
They can’t think without Hey Googling it.
They just can’t put the wretched things down.
They can’t recall ever having shopped in store with cash.
They can’t go a day without taking another
tongue out, cross-eyed, peace-sign-fingered selfie to post alongside all the other tongue-out, cross-eyed bubble-lipped selfies their nitwit besties took.
They can’t go for a walk without a device in their ear.
They can’t hear you talk to them, whilst working, because of the device in their ear.
They can’t do manual labour.
They can’t stand getting out of bed before ten.
They just can’t put the wretched things down.
They can’t do chores.
They can’t mow a lawn.
They can’t change a tire.
They can’t check a radiator.
They can’t drive A to B without downloading an app.
They can’t go without it while taking a crap.
They can’t empty a bin.
They can’t focus for longer than a minute at a time.
They just can’t put the wretched things down.
They can’t converse about offline topics, because offliners are ‘just like, kinda weirdo, like kinda cave-dwelling’ creepy, you know, whatever’.
They can’t have offline relationships.
They can’t eat out without posting a pic on Instagram of the $150 plate of some fancy-named dish in some fancy-named five-star dive that really is just a bowl of murdered cow and spaghetti.
They can’t get out of bed without picking it up.
They just can’t put the wretched things down.
They can’t take their eyes off of it.
They can't bear the pain of not holding it.
They can’t imagine living if it ever got lost.
They just, well.....can’t.
For they are the Smart Can'ts.
It's French,
For Hopeless.
…
Fun Fact; between two sets of traffic lights in Brisbane Street I thought today I’d play a game. It’s called ‘How Many Zombies Are On Their Mind-Control Devices?’
I passed nine pedestrians.
How many were staring at their dumb phones?
9.
Of those one was a doctor and another was a homeless guy, just proving that anyone both rich and poor, can be a Smart Can’t.