A 60-year-old woman with expensive hair and fluoro tights leapt from the ferns and threw her arms out, blocking the track in front of me. “Stop,” she said. “Stop right there.
” I did. I would have had to push her out of the way to pass; she was waving her arms and flexing knee-to-knee like a goalie, ready to leap left or right to thwart my progress. I was startled, not knowing whether I was in a penalty shootout or chosen as a gigolo by a randy hermit.
People so rarely physically arrest my progress when I’m at my leisure that when ambushed in the forest by stringy-armed biddies in stretch fabrics I am generally aghast. And I was this day. “What the f--- are you doing?” I asked gently.
Credit: Robin Cowcher The “Karen” phenomenon has been widely reported of late. You can go online and view a slew of middle-aged white women throwing their weight around in public, having hissy fits, bossing shop workers, telling strangers where they can and can’t park, waggling their phones at cyclists and scooter riders and threatening them with arrest. I’d seen them on YouTube, policing their neighbourhoods, but I hadn’t expected to be Karen-ed so far from a CBD.
“You can’t take your dog along this track,” she said. “It’s a national park. No dogs in here.
Turn around.” At one time I would have replied to this self-anointed (yes, anointed – she blared with orange Trump gloop, perhaps in imitation of that other great wall-builder) sheriff by claiming to be a lord or an outlaw – above, or beyond, her bylaws. Loading At one time, I would have told her I couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about what park rangers and shrink-wrapped vigilantes think.
At one time, I would have told her that if her idea of mayhem was dogs wandering where they shouldn’t, then I had a greater and contradictory idea of chaos, and it was a world where control freaks jumped from behind trees and railed at innocent folk as they strolled with their pooches prior to downing seven pots of beer for lunch. At one time, I would have told her to get the hell out of our way because Wilma and I were coming through. But those days are gone.
Fighting against grim-faced authoritarians always ended with my defeat; fined, warned, bullied, red-flagged, my infractions recorded and accumulating on some agency computer until they tripped a level that required a knock on my door. It took me far too long to learn you can’t beat law-and-order freaks with honest dissent, logic, or brave disobedience. There are too many of them, and rules are rules and beyond the reach of rules lies a dark pandemonium where the able-bodied park in spaces reserved for those who have burdened their knees with selves that are twofold greater than they ought to be.
It took me too much of my life to learn it – but I now know how to prevail over society’s expectation that I do the right thing. I’ve developed a method. I call it Shorten’s Gambit.
As she was flapping her arms, wailing about fines and rangers and threatening to call the dog squad, I pointed at Wilma and said: “She’s a therapy dog.” Then I pointed at my temple and said: “NDIS”. The wannabe vigilante lowered her arms and began to gaze about, addled, as if the sky had turned purple and the birds become fish.
Loading I’m no novice at Shorten’s Gambit, and certainly not clueless enough to nominate a particular disability. Why name a syndrome or phobia and limit the scope of my suffering and the profundity of my struggle? No. I simply pointed at my head, the problem area, wherein the problem could have been anything, and was therefore everything.
I was schizoid, paranoid, bipolar, depressed, anxious ...
and counting. Shit, for all this woman knew, I voted for the Greens. And if I was thus stricken, then my therapy dog must surely be a crotch-sniffing saviour, easing my disorders with unconditional love.
When her eyes came clear and the birds lost their scales, the woman apologised in abject torrents. She was ashamed and sorry and said she had a sandwich in her car if I wanted a snack to take on my walk. And for all her other faults, (listed above) she was a good snack-maker.
Smoked trout and dill on rye. Not that this woman deserved the truth – but I wasn’t lying about Wilma. All dogs are therapy dogs.
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License this article Pets Opinion For subscribers Spectrum Anson Cameron is a columnist for Spectrum in The Age and the author of several books, including Boyhoodlum and Neil Balme: A Tale of Two Men. Most Viewed in Lifestyle Loading.
