Manning the bucket

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2009-05-24 > 6:50 p.m.

Manning the bucket

Daniel and I did some volunteer work collecting for the Salvation Army's Red Shield Appeal this morning. I was actually surprised at how many people were happy to give; it was quite heartening. However, it got me thinking about how the Salvos often have a little table set up at our local shopping centre, usually manned by a couple of smiling, eternally saved retirees who nod and say "God bless you" when you put a few coins into their bucket. From time to time, though, they have these ludicrously old biddies � and I mean in a beyond-the-natural-human-life-span kind of way � manning the bucket. They look a hundred and fifty years old and so frail that you worry that if they attempt to move of their own volition, they may get caught in an updraft and float away. They don't speak; they probably can't see you; you're not even sure if they know you're there. When the money clatters down onto the bottom of the white bucket their watery irises wobble vaguely towards you, mostly to let you know they're still alive. Where do they find these people? I imagine some sort of casting line-up each morning in a nursing home, where the charity director strides in looking for that perfect face to produce maximum guilt in passers-by.

"I'll take that one. Wheel her in!"
"She's three hundred and six years old!"
"Perfect. She's about as close to God as we're going to get."

Oh, and speaking of casting: now that we have television again, we're getting to see all the ads for things we don't care about. The only difference between now and last week is that last week I didn't know that I didn't care about what's happening in Home and Away. It's nice to feel informed again.

There was this wonderful promo on a couple of days ago for Home and Away showing two characters � two of three in an apparent love triangle, and one that by all appearances had gone a bit scalene � standing meaningfully on a doorstep, looking TORN and WISTFUL because their LIVES were being RIPPED APART. He looked like a fairly normal guy but She, being a fun-loving, beach-going girl in a soap opera, was tinted a particularly offputting shade of orange and built like a car antenna. In short, she looked like she'd been carved from a carrot. Anyway, He was looking all angsty and saying to Her, "I can't get you out of my mind. (Dramatic pause.) 'Cos I've tried!"

Of course he can't get her out of his mind � the poor guy can't look at a bowl of fruit without seeing her face in the mandarins.

---

Things that made me happy this weekend:

- Buying tickets to see Judith Lucy with mum and my sister at the start of August.

- Drinking red wine and watching Black Books and a bit of Eddie Izzard stand-up.

- Eating lamingtons after dinner this evening.

... Yeah, it's been a quiet weekend, even by my standards.

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