Linda has appointed herself the Chief Commissioner of the WA fun police. She is a highly decorated buzz-kill veteran who has earned her stripes defending outrage on the mean forums of Perthnow. She has now turned her sights on the sticky-fingered debauchery of the Leavers sloshfest. Armed with bullets of hypocrisy and the shield of outrage culture, she knows she definitely ain’t too old for this shit.
Linda drops an ethically sourced plate of Paleo slurry in front of her daughter. She takes a seat, and Oxfam’s the shit out of her daughter’s plans, “me and your father have decided that instead of leavers, you will be heading to East Timor for relief work”. Her daughter’s heart sinks as her hopes and dreams fade faster than a 12 beer erection at 3am.
Having successfully bubble-wrapped her own daughter, Linda turns her sights to the teenage population of Western Australia. She whips up a quick petition on Change.org and forwards a copy to her loyal latte-sippin’ outrage-soldiers that make up her Facebook contacts. For extra exposure, she posts the petition on the TODAY shows wall: “when will we as a society say NO! Every year teenagers go to leavers just to hoon, binge drink, have unprotected sex and violently assault each other! We must protect our children! BOYCOTT LEAVERS NOW!”
The comments section on the post reads like a who’s who of human-goldfish with memories like a politician on the stand. She gushingly argues her case, “yes, I did go to leavers myself, but I was RAISED TO RESPECT MYSELF and OTHERS. These kids we have now are raised on the Instogram and the Tweeter. We never got up to the CRAP these morons are doing”. Of course, the only difference between the drunken munch Linda copped in 1993 and the drunken munches going on now, is society’s less liberal attitude towards full bush.
Every baby-boomer with a poorly cropped polaroid for their profile pic weighs in on the topic. They aged consensus is that the youth of today are pill poppin’ balcony jumpers who are totally unable to look after themselves. Anyone who calls Linda a prude is accused of being a predatory toolie who is only defending leavers so they can go and peddle the “party drug ice” and passion pop the cherries of defenceless juvies.
Linda is outraged that her politically correct fuckery is being questioned. So she decides to go nuclear and drops a comment on an article in Perthnow, “Kids going to leavers have TOO much money and TOO much time on their hands and NOT ENOUGH maturity to handle it. Let’s BAN leavers, RAISE the drinking age and PROSECUTE the dimwits who go and run around like headless chooks!!!” Her sentiments are thoroughly endorsed by a torrid stream of opinions more outdated than a servo sausage roll.
Bubble-wrap feels secure, but it makes us weak. Back off Linda, as we’ll always learn the most profound lessons from our own staggering fuckwittery.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?