Divers Things

Yesterday Bezley and I went snorkeling at Point Peron. We picked exactly the right moment to arrive: at precisely the same time as about 30,000 bogans decided to show up for a big group dive. We found a corner of the car park not yet colonised by shaggy hair and skin-tight black jeans and prepared to "slip" into our wet suits, as gracefully as one can slip into a 5mm-thick sheath of rubber.

Then what happens? This bogan teenager and his dad/paedo diving mentor roll up, park right next to us and turn Jimmy Barnes on at full bore. The kid swings his legs out of the car so he's facing us and sits, half-slumped, slack-jawed and unblinking staring staring staring while the whole world is filled with terrible screams about a simple man with a heart of gold in a complicated land.

After giving us the once over - presumably to ascertain what threat we posed to his son/latest play thing - the father/drug dealer went off to check out the water and the kid continued his blank gaze in our direction. He was either (a) a typical teenager who was catatonic if woken before 11am; (b) "stoned out of his mind on some drug or other" as Grumpy's mum said when she and his father returned in disgust from a Meatloaf concert (Mr Loaf a user and abuser of illicit substances?!Surely not!); or (c) dazed, drugged and traumatised by whatever activities he'd been forced to endure the night before with Uncle Bully.

Whatever the reason, he seemed totally unmoved by watching us change in front of him. This was partly reassuring and a little depressing. But when old Dolly Dunn finally reappeared, you'd think by the looks we got that we were the ones who'd administered his ward with a dangerous level of narcotic in order to impose our will on him all night long.