Mail Order Bride Awareness Week

Ever notice how every week seems to be Something Awareness week?

I reckon there has to be more awareness weeks now than there are actual weeks in the year. I forgot what this week’s was only moments after hearing it because I’ve become so immune to them. It may have been Hyperspadia Awareness Week actually. Who knows?!

It could be Mail Order Bride Awareness week though judging by the turnout I witnessed at my local mall the other night. Either that or a catalogue delivery had just arrived. I counted several such couples in roughly a 30 metre radius whilst dining at the food court and quite frankly it made me gag. Admittedly that usually happens when I eat food that’s sat under heat lamps for a day but this was more than campylobacter at work.

Once upon a time it was only the filthy rich dirty old man that could afford to fly over to the Far East and bring home their favourite hand maiden. But now the perversion has become a phenomenon and you don’t need to be rich to get one these days, just filthy. I know why this has happened though. We’ve all had our barren spells and contemplated paying for it, or begging a good friend for a pity shag, or even done stuff to a cooked chicken we’re not proud of - desperate times can call for desperate measures. But now the desperate have the Internet to thank for allowing them to make a life partner out of someone who looks only marginally like the picture they posted.

Ting Tong benefits of course. She gets whisked off her tiny little Asian feet by the man who looks only marginally like the picture he posted, to a life away from the overcrowded, poverty ridden country where she spends her days cooking and cleaning and giving five dollar boom boom. Now she spends her days in clean green New Zealand, cooking and cleaning and giving five dollar boom boom. Not quite fairytale stuff, but close.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness and whatever gets you through the day is fine by me, but its not real happiness is it? Is now buying a five kg bag of rice at the supermarket every week to be used in every meal you eat worth it? Is it satisfying to have a totally subservient spouse who feels they owe you a happy ending every time because you rescued them from their predicament? Why not just buy a doll; it’s certainly a cheaper option? It’s definitely a sad day when it’s easier to pick a mail order marriage in a crowd than it is a Brethren – and they dress up!

If you had a Brethren themed party do you think actual Brethren would try and gate crash it? It wouldn’t be long for them to be ousted if they did though; they’d know a little too much about the faith to pass for fakes I reckon.

Anyhoo, the stereotypical guy in the ThaiBride scenario is usually an older gentleman and I can sympathise with their lack of alternatives as they get on in their years. And I’m all for respecting your elders and allowing the older generation certain liberties as a sign of respect, like allowing them to go ahead of me in the supermarket or bank queue. But I draw the line at cutting them slack when they do the idiotic things that only old people do, like driving dangerously or crossing the main road when the traffic lights are green. Ever noticed how that seems to happen a lot?! Just because you’re old doesn’t mean that the rules of the land are wavered whenever your tight sphincter leaves the house.

Case in point - the older couple who decided they were exempt from such rules when they jay walked their way through the two main roundabouts in J Town on the weekend. Completely oblivious to all but what their tunnel vision allows them to see, they missed the fact that there was a pedestrian crossing several metres back up the road that was put there to allow safe passage through the high speed arterial route. A fact I would not have needed to point out to them had I hit them with my passion wagon as they would have then been lying on the said crossing.

I suspect the woman’s Depend undergarments paid for themselves given the sound horning I gave them both. By the look on her face I dare say the white linen trousers (that all older women seem to wear on the weekends) wouldn’t have fared so well though. For my troubles I got that one index finger gesture that all old people give. What is that exactly? It’s not the bird and it’s not the fingers. It’s just a point. What up wit dat?

All humour aside, it was a fucken close call, even by my Ninja reflex standards and it proves a point, that just because you’re old, you don’t have to be ignorant. You don’t have to order a Ting Tong online either, but if it keeps you away from the cooked chickens at Woolies, then so be it.