“Ahh, the nieghbourhood prankster is at it again”, says Cliff Waters to his wife Agnes as they break with tradition and speak to each other during their morning tea on their new Baby Boomer special white metal table and chairs over a cup of tea and some Nabisco Grahams biscuits.
Of course Cliff was talking about Garry Gradi, the man who lives by himself in number 12 of a quiet cul-de-sac in a quiet outer-inner northern suburb of your city.
Garry has earned himself the title of the neighbourhood prankster with a series of mild, low-level, well-intentioned hi-jinks since moving in 18 months ago.
On the whole though, Garry keeps to himself, which of course fuels the street’s rumour mills of predominantly baby boomers. “Is he a divorcee?” “Does he have a job, I never see him leaving in a suit?” “I bet he’s doing drugs.” “Is he gay? I never see any women at the house.” The street also presume he is under 50 as he doesn’t get the local News Ltd paper home delivered.
But whatever Garry’s actual story is, he is always polite, with conversation starters always ready ranging from the weather to more weather, local sporting teams, and gardening.
So why the prankster term you ask? Well Garry does go a little overboard in the quiet street on Halloween night. His display of three skeletons dangling from his carport, and a piece bits of spider web sadly attracts children asking for “candy”. Which draws the tsk tsks from most of the street, as they think Halloween is nothing but “seppo crap”, and that kids are too lazy to get there own chocolates because back in the day they had to walk three miles without shoes to the corner store to get one of those 20 cent bags of random lollies. Bags that always managed to include the fake teeth which tasted like tainted rubber.
Then there was the time he shaped a map of Australia into his front yard tree with solar lights for Australia Day. Before then the neighbours has presumed because of the lack of News Ltd paper and he looked younger that he was a woke, ABC Commie loving leftie that hated Australia Day.
Then there was the reindeer antlers and Rudolph red nose on his car for Christmas, They pondered why he cared, as he had no kids. “Probably drugs” most of them said.
He also put a “No Newspaper sign on his letterbox, despite that fact he didn’t subscribe to News Ltd.
His other “prankster crimes” were even more mild, yet similarly derided.
But the neighbourhood agreed this time, led by Cliff and Agnes Waters but not during the no chat morning tea time, Garry went too far.
The “talking” point for Garry’s ire raising behaviour was he put his Recycling bin out in the off week of the fortnight rotation on purpose to get a reaction.
Of course the yellow-lid menace caused absolute panic and disorientation in the street, as the neighbours scrambled to work out if it was Recycling week or not.
Was it Recycling Week? Surely not, or was it? Were they wrong. Surely not. Maybe the Council is at fault? These were the conversations had outside of morning tea time in the street on that fateful Tuesday. And you can be rest assured that the Council hotline rang off the hook courtesy of this quiet cul-de-sac. One even rang the local ABC talkback to complain about it, and the state ALP government.
The fallout of Garry’s act eventually subsided, as the neighbourhood realised it was just Garry up to his antics again. They also presumed it was the drugs that made him disorientated enough to forget it wasn’t Recycling week.
Either way, they’ll be watching Garry even harder now. From behind the curtains. Quieting wondering about what he’s up to now. But never chatting. During morning tea time that is.
Everyday News is a brand new general news/parody section of The Gurgler, and definitely not a lame rip-off of ‘The Betoota Advocate’. We swear.
