Ken would have you believe that he doesn’t care about the Dockers. In reality, Ken sees the purple-cretins as the red-headed step-brother that somehow managed to play sticky-finger with the hottest girl at school. A hateful mix of jealousy and resentment that boils over into shameless meme-sharing of the empty trophy cabinet variety.
Ken hovers around the morning tea table like a pot-bellied vulture in search of the last chocolate filled croissant. A young purple-hearted secretary tries on some Western banter, “finals footy and we’re going to whip your butt!” He looks up from his lukewarm Nescafe and shoots her a look that you would expect Tony Abbott would give a lesbian bus driver who was transporting a busload of Syrian refugee activists.
He adjusts his gunt-supporting belt and responds, “listen girly, the Shockers are simply not able to win a Grand Final. Fact”. His overly stern banter is born in a deeply held fear. A night of cold sweated anxiety over whether the Eagles could actually beat the purple shitheads on the big day. Hell, he has watched the entire season thus far with a sort of surreal surprise that the Eagles kept winning.
The young lip-smackered secretary’s playful jeers eat away at Ken as he complains about the Dockers on a Big Footy Forum. He spews obscenities about Fyfe’s mop-head, the inability of the Docker’s backs to shut down the Eagles’ forward line and obsessively harps on about the Docker’s pre-destined fate to choke like Chris Brown on a domestic violence flavoured lollipop.
He opens up the News and rolls his eyes at an article detailing the Freo v Sydney ticket madness. He posts a link to his wife’s sister who currently has Pavlich as her profile photo, “lol, bunch of unwashed savages, scalping tickets and acting like you’ve never been in a final before lol”. A keyboard war breaks out and his son-in-law decides to land a few purple death blows, “lol shut up meth coast eagles, bunch of drug addicts, yous fans are racists, and Priddis is just a MacManus-headedfuck lol”.
Like a typical dish-it-but-cant-take-it style oeprator, Ken destroys the semi-banterous atmosphere with some super serious cut-boy behaviour, “how dare you laugh at Benny and Kerry’s struggles… WA legends and deserve some bloody respect… turd”. Ken feels like a victim of purple-bullying and lusts to be nuzzled against the bulging packages of Kennedy and Darling – the great blue & yellow hope of his finals dreams.
Ken is perpetually irritated that he has to listen to the purple-bravado. For now, he must turn his mind to Friday and dream up the best Hawthorn slurs he can think of, “drink and dive, then you’re a bloody idiot”, “are you fucken drunk again Hodgey?”, “ha ha prepare to drive through the lose-bus!”
Genius, Ken.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?