Everyone knows one, either from within their own extended family, or as workmates, neighbours

I want them all put down

They walk around with their fiddle-long faces, misery and depression etched, just waiting for some FOOL to ask them how they are

Then they TELL you.  And TELL you.  And won't SHUT UP

Me 'arta.  Me asthma. Me artritus.  Me who knows-a.  Moan. Groan. Pre-verbal speech sounds

And I absolutely detest mobile scooters or whatever the hell they're called. They get bigger all the time. Driven by hypochondriac narcissists mainly, where I live, which is an ethnic enclave still whining and moaning about the olda country

Two in particular: fat lazy so-and-so with dyed black hair and a massive backside.  Drives in her mobile scooter to the shopping centre every day for her dose of ATTENTION and POWER

She couldn't make it in industry. She couldn't make it in show biz.  She couldn't make it at anything, apart from breeding more of herself

But now her fledglings have flown the heck away from her and she's not getting the pity, misery, ATTENTION she craves.  So the general public cops it

In she rides, immediately looking around to see who's noticed her.  Then the standard routine of getting staff to run around from shelf to shelf, then scurrying back to her majesty with their findings: ' Is it this one? Is it that?'

Oh, she plays them along to the max.  Of course it's not this one or that. She hardly buys anything, ever.  The whole purpose of her supermarket visit is to gain attention and have people running around after her

If staff avoid her, she tries to enlist other shoppers. First the whine, ' Excusa -- coulda you getta that for me from the toppa?'  And of course they do, because most of us were raised properly. She's sucked me in too, a few times.  But most wake up.

But no, it's a not a this a one. Not a that a one.  Maybe its a down a the bottom a shelf.  She must be keeping book on how long she can keep people doing her bidding. She  knows we all like the feel good of helping the 'less fortunate', and she exploits it

Except ---- and I wish I'd filmed this a dozen times -- when the staff have run and warned each other about 'it' and when she's run into people she's suckered before and they are now ignoring her --- she hops out of the 'handicapped wagon' and browses the shelves herself. Just like that.

In other words, she's not handicapped apart from her massive backside, ignorant head and narcissistic craving for attention and control.  No, that handicapped wagon must have been the price her kids and their spouses, grandchildren, etc. have had to pay to be free of her.  'Here mum -- get yourself into this.  Now we won't have to drive down twice a week to take you to the shops for three items.  You'll be able to get there for yourself. Seeya'

There's a plague of handicapped wagons for hypochondriacs around here.  One gets one, so the others demand their families buy one for them. Gotta keep up with the others

I hate them.  And I say so.  I think I'm one of the few who've argued and snorted at them and abused them -- in broad daylight -- in the middle of a crowded supermarket

I've also abused one of the local tribe right there on the footpath.  And it worked. She no longer parks her massive mobility scooter across the footpath to force me to go around her and onto the muddy verge.  Others will have to fight their own battles with the plague of malingering hypochondriacs.  Everyone for themselves.  Some will never rise to the occasion. Their parents taught them to defer to those who falsely claim to be handicapped 'just in case they really are'

Fat arse backed her mobility scooter into me at the frozen foods cabinet yesterday evening.  I yelled at her loudly.  She mumbled a fake apology. We both knew she was doing it on purpose because five minutes earlier I'd snorted derisively in her direction as she was putting a new staff member through his paces

And a few months ago, I told her off well and truly.  There she was, her massive steed taking up the entire Express Lane as she dragged junk out of her scooter to show it to her countrymen's (or her own, all the same) grandkids who were manning the ridiculously named 'Express Lane' (standing joke around here).  And they expected random strangers with two items and who just wanted to get out of the dump, to stand in line while they jabbered away in their pidgin lingo (although ordinarily they speak normal Orztralyun) and looked at the bits of crap the hypochondriac was so thrilled about

'Move aside please or bring the manager here'

Anyway, they moved. And the two lumps from the Express Lane are gone now. They must have aged beyond seventeen years and two hours.  But their dyed hair, harridan grandmother is still around, beeping her stupid mobility chariot, her black eyes flashing right to left to see (a) if she's getting the free attention she thinks she's entitled to and (b) to see if there are any new suckers she can bung it on today

Then it's the battle for right of way on the footpath. 'I'm HANDICAPPED.  You have to get out of my way '

Uh huh.  Within reason.  Get your chariot over to the side.  I insist on equal footpath space. Don't beep your way down the road like Moses parting the Red Sea.  Get over. Or you'll injure me with your unlicensed piece of junk and I'll sue you

Taxpayers will not be thrilled to learn that an elderly man absorbed thousands of their tax dollars recently on a series of idiotic medical errors and misdiagnoses

It began when he decided to have an ugly deformed toenail removed.  Not major surgery. Happens all the time. Toenails are not a major illness

Off to HIS doctor

HIS doctor referred him to a specialist of the same ethnicity

In hospital, the specialist removed said nail, bandaged it up. Sent the old guy home

Few days all was fine. Old guy told everyone within earshot about HIS specialist

Then the foot went red, then purple. Was painful, apparently

Back to HIS 'ordinary' doctor

who sent him to HIS specialist who took a look, messed around, re-bandaged it, sent him home where he moped around as if he'd just given birth to quads

Few weeks passed and nothing had improved
So he went to a medical centre where they messed around, re-bandaged it, gave him antibiotics, said come back in few days

by that time, he was becoming a local celebrity

Few more visits to different medical clinics

Then back to HIS original doctor

who sent him back to THE specialist

Eventually, he ended up in hospital, 'on a DRIP, mate'

Things had moved up in the hypochondria register. A DRIP.  A stay in HOSPITAL.  Nurses running around, doctors taking a look at THE TOE

A week in hospital, treated like a king.  In a ward with a guy who'd had half his guts removed and another guy with issues of reasonable severity. Both guys were out in a few days while Toe-Man lolled around being fed and changed by nurses

Then he went home.  Foot went red and purple again

Back to HIS original doctor
By that time the medical clinics had said, 'Stay away and stop dragging us into it'
Back to THE specialist
who sent him back to hospital for ten days this time

Lots of doctors looking mystified.  Nurses wiping his backside.  Yeah, this was more like it.  Attention.  Waited on hand and foot.  Backside wipers.  It should always have been this way.  It will be this way forever now.  He'd be an official invalid.  Visitors.  Retelling the story of the toenail

Tests and more tests. Then more tests

'Tests, mate. They're doing tests'

Important and recognized at last.  Tests

Then back home, swathed in bandages, lying around like the dying swan.  People asking, 'How is he? Have they worked it out yet? Will he have to have his foot cut off? '

No

Guess what it was?

Go on

guess

Guess how much all that medical attention cost Medicare

all because of a rotten old toenail


Worked it out yet?

Clue:  big drinkers and over-indulgers get it. Monks used to get it and it's still there hundreds of years later, telling its tale in their unearthed skeletons

Gout

Simple gout

Took months for the experts to work out

Gout

not much more we can say
about the medical industry of today

And of course, the old guy decided gout must be a rare disease worthy of much discussion, long faces and head shaking

you can die from gout, you know

draining it for all it was worth

serious stuff

No. Just get off the booze and do some exercise and lay off the chocolate and prawns, ninny

He didn't like hearing that

HIS doctors need a thump around the ears

And then there was the other one

She claimed to be a holycost survivor

The numbers didn't stack up.  She would have needed to be a lot older than she was.  Although to be frank, she looked like the ageless undead

Before we bought in here, we rented for a while. She was our neighbor.  She began with flattery, endless flattery about how thrilled she was we'd moved in.  Now there would be someone to do some gardening.  Well not really, we were paying a ridiculous amount for the dump and as it ran up a hill from the harbor and was overgrown, we didn't feel inclined to slave for free & had better things to do

She hated her husband. He was her third, apparently.  We used to see his adult sons come to pick him up every weekend. The poor old guy seemed a decent sort.  You could almost hear him breathing a sigh of relief as he left (escaped her). When he returned, so did the insane shouting from their unit

There was a quaint character, one of the owners of one of the nicer, renovated units. He warned us, in whispers, to 'Be careful. Watch out for her. She won't let you do much. Don't argue with her. She's vicious '

We laughed, good naturedly, because he was a lovely guy, although obviously scared stiff of the Dragon

You won't be able to wash your cars in the car-washing bay', he advised, because, 'She doesn't like it. She'll attack you.  Trust me. Go to a car-wash instead'

and, 'She doesn't like people who stay up late at night. She'll have a go at you. Keep the lights low'

etc.

We thought he was just a downtrodden migrant and over obedient.  We didn't think much more about it, to be honest

One day, son and I were washing our cars in -- of course -- the appointed car-washing bays

The Dragon took it upon herself to simultaneously do a bit of gardening in the neglected rock-pile nearby, her eyes never leaving us.  We thought it best to just ignore her. Nothing wrong with doing a bit of gardening, poor thing. So we gave her a smile and kept on with the hose

Seeing as we hadn't taken the hint, apparently, she must have felt it was time to up the ante and bring out the big guns, 'You can't wash cars here. It makes too much run-off. You have to go to the car-wash like everyone else.  Move your cars, detergent is going on the concrete'

Water going on concrete ?  Is that actually the end of the earth?  We pretended not to hear.  She grew louder and more insistent. Apparently the sight of cars being cleaned drove her to rage.  The fact we were NOT obeying her -- is actually what drove her to a rage.  She grew more and more ridiculous, tossing clumps of earth next to our car

I had to do it, holycost survivor or not

So I responded to her provocation as if she were a child or an animal

' Do NOT do that! (the clods of soil).  Leave now ! '

she stared in disbelief. WAR!

She started aiming her hose at us.  Yelling. Issuing orders

No more. No effing more from you, Dragon

' Did I give you permission to speak to me?' (I asked)

She was rooted to the spot.  Confusion. Disbelief. Disobedience?  Did I not know who she was? She had survived THE WAR.  Take your wet cars AWAY !

'I did NOT give you permission to speak to me.  Leave now.  And do NOT presume to speak to me again, ever, unless I specifically say you can.  Begone'

and we continued washing our cars

Within days, she'd had the internal air disconnected

She also had the lights running down the steep driveway disconnected

The quaint Asian property owner looked terrified when he passed

We left shortly afterwards

Saw her a couple of years later, standing at the traffic lights

A sight to behold.  She was wearing a very short, permanently pleated skirt. Short up to her visible knickers. Looked as if she'd picked it up at an op-shop -- it was a dirty yellow.  With it, she wore equally odd looking tops.  And a pair of massive white sneakers.  On top, her usual bleached, permed thatch of fried hair.  I reported this vision to the family and we surmised she must have joined the bowls club

Next I saw her -- some eight or more years later again -- she was domineering a woman who appeared to be one of those volunteer 'helpers' who take old people to the shops, etc.

The Dragon was having the time of her life now she finally had an official slave.  Don't imagine the helper would be doing much volunteering after that experience

Guessed the Dragon's old man had finally kicked the bucket or killed himself

Haven't seen the Dragon for a few years.  She's hopefully rotting in hell now

However, a bit of maths suggests that back when she was crapping on to me about being a holycost survivor, she would have been approaching 60.  A bashed-up, ridden hard 60, but nowhere near the age she would have needed to be if she had even been alive in THE WAR

Hope that Asian guy is getting some peace now and able to actually USE his lovely balcony over the water instead of feeling he had to hide indoors because his insanely jealous, insane generally Dragon neighbor 'forbade' him to enjoy his own property or wash his own BMW

and hope whomever bought her unit had it thoroughly and repeatedly fumigated and exorcised before they put a foot inside it

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Sep 12^th, 2016 at 3:33pm:


Are you trying to become my nemesis 

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Sep 12^th, 2016 at 3:56pm:



You make me laugh 

Do you have worms?