The World Around Us

Every morning I go for a walk at 6am. It's a nice time of day to be up and around. And if I sneak out of the house leavingboy-gendered folk fast asleep, I can have a whole hour to myself and my thoughts while also getting some exercise. May be difficult to maintain in winter, but for the moment I am suffused in the warm fuzzy glow of self-righteousness that comes with doing the amount of exercise you are actually supposed to do.

On my walk, I get a good cross section of the town

- Big ritzy houses with their own tennis courts…complete with people I presume to be their owners, fully made up and dressed to the nines at 6:15am

- Smaller new houses with piles of shoes at the front door

- Local high school with heretofore unappreciated deco aesthetics (NB not the school I went to)

- Swimming pool/gym with collection of fitness fanatics and tired looking parents dragging after teenage kids in the swim squad


But the place I find most intriguing is the two storey, cream brick block of flats. I have never seen anyone go in or come out. In the window of one of the flats, there is a sign made out of cardboard. Before you get the idea that this is some kind of professional operation, the cardboard sign is clearly cut from a cardboard box, and written on the sign in black texta is:

Sex videos - $10

Normal videos - $5

Drop in after 4pm

While I’m not discounting the possibility that this is the den of hard-core porn that forms part of the seething underworld of a small town, I suspect that the inventory of said porn emporium is something like this

1 x oft-pirated, grainy copy of Paris Hilton sex tape

1 x Missing in Action II, starring Chuck Norris

Wouldn’t it be tempting to drop in for a laugh? Well, yes it would. Excepting the fact that the owner of the illicit video emporium could very well be some one I know.

When you have a friend with any kind of shop, you are obliged to buy something. Fact!

And I have already seen Missing in Action II.