The New Graffiti
I’ve never been a big fan of graffiti. I like order and obeying the rules. I think I might even enjoy living in Singapore where people get caned for throwing their gum on the ground (I have no idea if that is accurate or not, but I’m all spreading partial facts across the Internet).
When I see a big fancy word spray painted across an otherwise nice brick wall I get fairly annoyed, but don’t give it much thought. People are stupid and as long as stupid people are allowed to live I guess society will have to put up with things like this (would now be a good time to go into the policies for my new country I’m creating? Basically if you break the law or do something stupid you receive an automatic death sentence).
The last couple of days I’ve noticed a different type of graffiti. It’s not just the normal gang stuff that looks ugly but is incomprehensible to someone outside the inner circle of taggers. Nope. This stuff is disturbing.
It started with stenciled messages all over the sidewalks and crosswalks of Kiruna. Everywhere you go you see “Kill the one who rapes you”. Honestly I don’t have anything against a message like that. If at all possible I would probably stick a bullet straight in the brain of a man who raped me.
Then there was a message written on the grocery store wall–”Sexual sadists take what they want”. Odd. I wasn’t sure if it was promoting this behavior or warning girls against the evils of men.
About a half hour later I ran across a completely strange message that even Mike couldn’t comprehend (in Swedish of course, just like the other ones). “More many rapes are because of narcoticgasfuck off children while they sleep at daycare”. Does that make any sense to anyone?
So now I’m disturbed. Are the pimply teen boys of Kiruna planning an attack against women? Should I be afraid to walk outside at night? Or are the activist teen girls of Kiruna on a crusade against rapists? I have no idea. I hope I don’t find out the hard way.
On a lighter (or perhaps fatter) note: I don’t think covering banana slices in vanilla sauce (kind of like a thin vanilla pudding) before eating them probably isn’t what my diet had in mind when it said “eat as much fruit as you like”. I have this thing about bananas though. I can only eat them if they are perfectly yellow. A little bit of green is ok, but if they have a single brown spot I get grossed out and don’t want to eat them. I won’t even open the peel to see if the banana itself is damaged. I like bananas but I have a hard time convincing myself to eat a banana. I don’t understand it. I think it has to do with the texture. If the little strings aren’t removed properly you get a weird texture feeling in your mouth and then it’s just gross. I hate that weird texture. I have a bunch of bananas that have brown spots and I’m determined to eat them. I decided that if I slice them and then cover them with the pudding they will be edible. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the banana. It’s only the peel that is disfigured. I don’t need to cover it with fat. But I do. I’m an idiot. Or maybe just quirky. What would Dr. Phil say?
August 15th, 2003 at 5:32 pm
My bananas have to be slightly green or I won’t eat them. Why are we so picky about bananas? I have to go hide from the Witnesses some more now.
August 15th, 2003 at 6:02 pm
You are definitely the expert on texture!
August 15th, 2003 at 7:33 pm
Oh, my word! I laughed out loud while reading your banana paragraph. You are so right about those little strings!
Not that it is of any cosmic importance, but I actually like my bananas pretty brown. Not too brown, or they taste like rot, but just brown enough to be super sweet. The green ones make me wince.
August 15th, 2003 at 10:55 pm
Bananas are weird things, aren’t they? And you know what? I know I like the ones that are sweet and slightly brown better than the green ones because I’ve eaten them before but I can’t eat them if I see the peel first.