Hardly a day goes when we don’t see sub machine gunmen on TV, clutching their sub machine guns proudly to their chests.
It’s time we got real about this: they’re in the grip of an adolescent male power fantasy. There’s nothing ‘big deal’ about them. They were the boys at school who resented other boys being able to kick the footy further than them, and being able to recite the twelve times tables a couple of years before they could, and they’ve never got over it. They’re sick of being second best. Well, now they’ve got a sub machine gun in their hands, they’ll show they’re no pushovers. They’ll be able to put those sporting heroes and mathematical geniuses in their place.
They won’t.
They’ll spend all their time being told what to do by over-weight men who wear suits all the time, and who don’t give a damn if a few thousand sub machine gunmen get killed, as long as they get into power.
They’re jumping straight out of the school yard into the grave yard.
So what do I tell my best friend who wants to be a sub machine gunman? Tell him to forget all about the glory boys at school – they’ll probably rot in a bog of security and easy living. Tell him to get stuck into the perilous joys of the bold instead. Does that mean jumping out of planes and climbing up skyscrapers?
Not necessarily.
Things like dating Miss Universe, wearing a Pommy Bastard T-shirt in the House of Lords, or launching an advertising blitz in New Zealand aimed at stopping the Kiwis from dropping their vowels.
There’s another thing he can do. Everyone uses the same expletives.
BORING!
What about some originality? So tell him next time he`s on a crowded bus or plane, to go down to the front and announce: “Passengers, this is an expletive invention competition. All entrants get a Minty, and a packet of potato chips goes to the winner!” Then hand out cards and pencils to the passengers, and collect them as they leave.
When he has a good collection, he can start an online new-expletive sales business.
That’s better than being a sub machine gunman.
Illustration by Abigail Widijanto
We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.