We've got a rat in the ranks.
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By "we" I mean my little street. My suburban patch.
By "rat" I mean a busybody.
A dobber.
No one likes a dobber. Not even dobbers.
From childhood to adulthood, in every walk of life, these annoying little squirts pop up regularly to remind you that not all humans are OK.
Some are sneaky. Some are strange. Some are passive aggressive. When all these dubious traits are rolled into one, a neighbourhood rat is born.
A dirty dobber. A grass.
Like bindis in an otherwise pleasant lawn, dirty dobbers are waiting for you to put a foot wrong.
Then (ouchy wah wah) they stick it to you for no good reason, just because they think they can.
Common garden variety prickles and common human variety pri..., ummm, dobbers, both exist to teach us a lesson.
Bindis are pinging you for forgetting to put on the double-pluggers.
The green nasties are saying "Bare feet on a suburban summer lawn? I don't think so missy. You underestimate me".
"Wear thongs idiot - (ouchy wah wah) - That'll learn ya."
The common garden variety human dobber is teaching you the less valuable lesson that they know better. I call them urban cops.
Urban cops love rules and regulations. Like a light from above, rules and regs guide an urban cop's mission to keep their street, apartment block, caravan park or suburb in line.
Nothing untoward will happen on their watch.
Unfortunately, due to unrestricted access to the internet, urban cops now think state/national laws fall within their remit. The world of rules is now their iffy oyster.
Be warned. Most of them have probably just finished an online course in international law and are poised to use their new knowledge to address several festering issues on the verge outside your house.
It's called a Doctorate in Dobbing from the Ponds Institute. Is there anything that Ponds Institute can't do?
So how to you deal with a urban cop?
It's difficult, especially when they are undercover.
But I have one, maybe two, blips on my radar. The information came via the neighbourhood resistance (which is made up of basically just me, and a small, yet highly skilled, network of informants in the 'hood).
I can't say much, as the investigation is continuing, but I will reveal that the dobber's focus was bins.
As anyone who follows the Facebook group "Angry People in Local Newspapers" would know, bins are suburban grenades.
If things are all kicking off in your suburb, there is a good chance the flashpoint was a bin.
The neighbour who had been visited by the bin police (complaint: bins left for too long on footpath after regulation emptying) warned me that there was a grass in the 'hood and that I should check the exact time I watered the garden. She feared that if I fired up a second before 4pm with "the restrictions and all" I was going to get a visit from the water police or something.
Thank goodness restrictions are easing soon as I won't have to double check the exact eastern standard time magic clock before pulling the trigger.
Before anyone calls the cops, I can confirm I have a trigger nozzle as I was warned by another member of the network that any non-regulation gun might be a one-way ticket to a session of water torture.
When you roll all these dubious traits into one, you get a neighbourhood rat. A dirty dobber.
I haven't managed yet to flush out the dirty dobber, but it's not through lack of trying. The last foray involved me theatrically dragging my hose out onto the verge at 3.45pm.
You would think this would be like a red rag to a urban cop, but it remained all quiet on the homefront.
I thought I'd see a twitching curtain, sense someone eyeballing me, hear a siren. Nothing.
Things have been strangely peaceful in the past week.
Maybe the dirty dobber is occupied with getting their own backyard in order?
Who knows?
But, I'm standing by.
It's bin night tonight.
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