Sunday 27 April 2008

what does it mean

What does it mean when people throw coins at you out of car windows? This happened to us for the second time just this evening, indeed, just a few short minutes ago. We were looking in the lit window of a bathroom fittings shop (I like to do this just as a regular precautionary measure in case I have to sit next to Hugh Mackay at a dinner party) situated on a well-known hoon road which runs like an implacable river of impenetrable darkness through the suburb where we live when the incident occurred. It was a ten cent piece and we took turns carrying it home. Last time a passing motorist threw money at us it was a 20 cent piece, and the scene was a somewhat further distant corner on the same thoroughfare.

I assumed it was some sort of quaint folkloric custom to do with signaling to people on the footpath that they ought to grow up and get a bloody car, but there's no mention of this on the internet so I have doubts. The existence of two separate incidents seems to rule out random whimsy - unless it was the same person both times. Some of my students reside out in that direction.

Other stuff I've seen while walking around here at night:

a very shy cat which has its own cat-sized gate in the front fence and dedicates the nocturnal hours to poking its head in and out of same

wild party at the RSL, featuring actual spontaneously generated conga line egged on by a Monkees cover man (like a cover band but solo) playing and singing 'Daydream Believer'

drunkard opening door of parked car and requesting the stranger inside give him a lift to Diamond Creek

possums

8 comments:

made in melbourne said...

Why is it always the crazy drunk people who come from Diamond Creek?!! The Hurstbridge train line is testament to how full of nutters we are in this area.

TimT said...

Never had coins thrown at me from cars. Eggs, yes. But not coins, no.

Probably not likely to become a profitable business option, one imagines.

Anonymous said...

Presumably the coin throwers are confused Weddings Parties Anything fans.

At Weddoes gigs it is traditional to throw coins at the band during the song that sports the line "But now I’m ten cents short of a dollar – but I feel like a man with a ticket in Tatts. We got, blue skies and window shopping and a back lane full of cats."

I'd like to make it clear to anyone who's wondering that I have this knowledge due to my partner being a die hard. I'm not a die hard ever of any band. I fear it would mess up my street cred.

Ampersand Duck said...

That's a jolly article about Mackay, isn't it? I like his thought processes.

That cat sounds charming. Photo please!

My friend in Diamond Creek is not a nutter, but is mildly eccentric. She is an eccentrix, methinks. Is there something in the water?

Zoe said...

Well, I've met her Duck, and I'd go in a little harder than "mildly". NTTAWWT.

As for you, Laura, I believe the coin tossers are desirous of obtaining a wish.

lucy tartan said...

It's called 'Diamond Creek' but what's mostly in the water is e.coli

made in melbourne said...

Well, it is named after a bull that used to sit in the creek (rather than a wealth of bright shiny objects)...

lucy tartan said...

that's an excellent piece of information, thank you.