Friday 26 October 2007

Black Hawk Down

I had hippie parents. Christmas gifts included things like “Lets Grow Bean Sprouts at Home and Be Healthy™” home gardening kits (this is true). Not an action man or BB Gun in sight. The closest I got to a projectile-based toy was looiing a clod at Travis, my best friend. I wore corduroy dungarees til I was 10. The folks ran off to India every now and then, returning with even more dubious hippie presents, and kaftans smelling of patchouli.

In order to right the injustices of my childhood deprivations, Nick and I bought a remote control helicopter a few days back. Just a dinky one, about the size of a dishing up spoon.

Bored with buzzing Frankie (Labrador) and Stankie (Pug puppy), I went for the altitude record, the yardstick being the huge oak tree shaped like Grandpa Simpson’s head (a peyote-weighted observation, made some time ago by The Fat Guy with the Beard).

The ‘copter shot up, quicker than a child’s fumbled balloon vanishing to a dot in the sky above the fairground- and vanished behind the tree.

It’s been 4 days. I have posted flyers all over the neighbourhood. None of the local kids has claimed the R100 reward. Black Hawk is still down.

5 comments:

Dolce said...

At least you know you've bought early Christmas joy to some unsuspecting (if selfish) child.

Miranda said...

Ha! Did you also get one of those wierd worm farms as a kid? Where you can watch, with endless joy (uhhuh?), the worms making little paths all over the place trying to get the fuck out of this monstrous prison thingy. And ant farms. Ditto, as above. Or was that just me?

timothymarcjones said...

Miranda, ant farms were too new-fangled for 1970s Transkei. I do remember hours of fun with ant lions and flying ants though.

Miranda said...

Ah yes! That too! Entertain yourself dear - go and play with some animals. My presents to parents where rather irksome too, though. Every birthday and Christmas they got a painted stone of some form or another (sometimes I would even forget to brush the dirt off). Still do that come to think of it. ha. Love your blog. Do more!

Jake said...

I think some orphan found it. And went slowly insane because he had no means of making it fly. Or maybe he just tied it to a string and swung it around his head, thukka thukka. Good times. Question?Why do I keep picturing Dalmeny Road when I read yyour blog. I know it's not the last millennium, and we're still living there together, inventing chick magnets and shooting up riboflavin. Another relationship that's suspended in time. Maybe one day the whole universe will screech to a halt and do a u-turn and we can have it all again. Theoretically possible.