I don’t want you to think the Whacker has flipped his lid. But just lately I have been looking to buy a painting.
Not for me, obviously. Waste of space, I reckon, when there’s the Weekly Times dog calendar free every year.
However, we have had some work done at home and the missus seems to have her heart set on a “nice bit of art” smack in the middle of this new wall we have.
And with a milestone anniversary just around the corner, yours truly has determined to demonstrate there is still a bit of the old romantic in the old Whacker.
So I decided to do a bit of research in preparation for this major investment on my part and press-ganged one of the grandchildren to get me onto Google and track down something appropriate.
I told her the grandma was looking for something, well, romantic, so she started banging away at the keyboard and the screen came alive with an explosion of paintings of every shape and size.
She was reading down the right hand side of the page, rattling off names of which I have never heard. I, as you would expect, was reading down the left hand side where prices were listed.
And was; I can tell you, pleasantly surprised when I saw you could snap some up for $120 and up to almost $300. Well I thought $300 was a bit rich, but figured I could negotiate that down by getting one without the frame.
After all, if I couldn’t knock something up in the workshop as good as that I’ll go he.
So I pointed out a couple I wouldn’t mind tracking down and the youngster burst out laughing.
“You haven’t got anywhere near that much money Whacker,” she howled.
Now I know I have always been a bit careful with the cash, and tried to impress that on the young ‘uns, but I thought she was being a bit hard.
“Come on love,” I defended myself. “That colourful one of flowers is only $250 – I think even I can stretch that far.”
“You silly old man,” she mocked, now mopping at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Look,” she said, scrolling the page back to the top and pointing at the price column … these prices were in millions!
They had just used the shortened figures because they couldn’t fit all the zeros. I sagged back in my chair, thanked her for her help and told her and her laughter to get lost.
But it got me thinking, you know.
About so much that is fast becoming so wrong with our world.
Only recently I have been spluttering over my All Bran (don’t laugh until you are my age) as I was reading the paper.
Take winners at the Australian Open. You could go in there a pauper and two weeks later be a multi-millionaire. Just for smacking a ball around a tennis court.
And we have cricketers and footballers pocketing multi-million dollar contracts as a matter of course – and how many of them are earning their keep in India just now I might add.
Well, just like you, I would be happy if someone whacked a lazy million in the old bank account.
But I can’t help feeling this has all got way out of hand.
I know blokes who can’t get a job for $50,000 a year. And even if they do they won’t be living in Monaco to dodge the taxman. I know people who don’t invite anyone around anymore because they have sold just about everything in the house to try and keep afloat, rather than ask for a handout.
Don’t even think about people around the world starving, fleeing war, famine and drought, the lives shattered by flood and earthquakes. You don’t have to go any further than the end of the street to find someone in a financial hole from which they will likely never escape.
Yet some people can take the GDP of a small African country and blow it on a piece of old canvas with some paints on it. Or pay $100 million for a house.
Those young Packers and Murdochs spring to mind.
Like a lot of people on the land we don’t have a lot. But what we have is ours.
We don’t need to big-note ourselves so everyone can see how smart we are, or how well off.
And I don’t really mind the youngsters laughing at their old Whacker if he doesn’t really get the enormity of this pathetically ridiculous show boating.
But if you can keep a secret, I have been down to the workshop and knocked up that frame.
I have also taken an old wool bale with me, and nicked one of the grandkids’ paint sets. With a bit of practice I reckon I can knock one up much better than Blue Poles.
And when mine is finished you’ll even be able to understand what it’s about.
