I was incompetently water ballooned today. Really; as I sloped to the corner store, intent on buying OTC pharmaceuticals and tea (I forgot both, instead coming home with chicken flavour noodles and houmous), I was ambushed by some kids who were hanging around our street corner. No great surprise, I know – miraculous that I wasn’t stabbed for my socks or something – but what really irritated me was the complete lack of effort put in. The lead up was lazy; no abuse, no humourous taunts about my beard, for example. The act itself was frankly flaccid, as the balloon bounced off my right shoulderblade; even the getaway lacked verve, although I suppose here some of the blame is mine, as the most outrage I could muster was a croaked, “try that again, you little shits.”
It’s all very well Tony Blair sounding off about the shocking breakdown of respect in our society, but surely far more concerning is the fact that our nation’s youngsters are so utterly ill-schooled in basic mechanics that they can’t even construct a water balloon that bloody well bursts on impact. Nasa has done detailed research on this, you know; it’s not like they couldn’t have looked it up if in doubt.
The scalliwags in question obviously legged it before I could tutor them in the niceties of affordable hydration optimisation, but it’s really not difficult. A P.E. teacher could get a C in GCSE water ballooning, for crying out loud. Too little, it won’t burst at all. Too much, it’ll burst as soon as you try to throw it. Get with the program, for fuck’s sake. And anyway, you lot were at least eight years old – aren’t you supposed to be smoking crack and menacing grannies by now? If you haven’t mastered the art of water balloons, how are you going to be able to work out what percentage you can cut your key of charlie by to maximise your profit without Big Jimmy noticing? Hmm?
Our educational system is going to the very dogs, I tell you.
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