True Horror: My Eden Lake (Day 1)

I'm not in the habit of posting personal crap here. Frankly, my life just isn't that interesting, and I struggle to understand the point of blogs where people, who have similarly uneventful lives, chronicle them in an inordinate amount of detail for public consumption.

I mean, you don't wanna read that I drank too much Weihenstephan one Friday night and woke up with a headache the following Saturday morning, do you? I didn't get in a bar fight. I didn't puke in public. I didn't shag a complete stranger. Hell, I didn't even leave home. I'm no Tucker Max. I just sat on the couch quietly getting pissed (I sort of forgot that the Weihenstephan stubbies were 500ml not 330ml), while I watched the footy on my big TV. The only reason to mention it is to make the point of how un-mention-worthy it is.

But a couple of weeks ago something eventful did happen. Well, it was eventful by my standards. I have to admit that the local constabulary categorised it as a "low priority". So, you see, even the exciting crap in my life is kinda lame in the overall scheme of things.

Wednesday - Day 1

I work at a manufacturing facility that no longer manufactures anything (which is a whole other story). In our heyday about 350 people worked here. Now there are 7. There's another small company who rent space from us who employ another 40 people or so, but their office space is quite separate from ours and we don't have much to do with them.

On this day, we had a couple of kids loitering around the facility. Let's call them Dipstick and Numbnut. They were approximately 12 and 14 years old respectively. They tampered with our mail bag. They were throwing darts near our front entrance. They refused to leave the premises after being asked to do so, on multiple occasions, by several different staff members. They were what people of my parent’s generation would describe as "trouble makers".

After the kind pregnant customer service rep asked them to leave, they refused. After the gently spoken churchy accountant asked them to leave, they refused. So, yours truly decided to have a go. Seeing as "asking nicely" wasn't working I instead used fairly strong language to indicate my displeasure at them tampering with our mail, throwing darts and refusing to leave. I photographed them and confiscated one of their darts, before they took off yelling abuse at me as they did.

Exciting so far, no?

About 20 minutes later I went to leave for the day. I was the only person left from my company. Yep, alone in the dark. When I stepped outside Dipstick and Numbnut were back. Dipstick had re-collected all his darts and was now screaming abuse at me "you fucking pussy, come here and fucking finish what you started!"

Now, as tempting as that proposal was, I had the good sense to know that if I reduced this kid's head to a crimson stain on the front path, the cleaning lady would not be happy, and I would probably end up in jail. So, I went back inside and called the police.

Police procedure is such an awesome thing. They will not come out unless you stay exactly where you are (you know, where the threat is), and they won’t give you an ETA.

"You're being threatened by 2 kids with darts? OK here's what you do... stay right there and don't move or you'll make it hard for the kids to aim properly. The more injured you are the more likely it is that we'll get the Sarg's permission to escalate your complaint from low to medium. Excuse me for a moment... hey Frank, can you take the speed camera out to the straight, we snared a shit load when Pete took it out there on Chewsdy... Sorry about that, where was I? Oh yeah, stay right where you are indefinitely and we might come out eventually."


I waited for the Police for a while but it was getting late and I was growing tired of listening to Dipstick screaming "come out, you fucking gutless pussy!" I mean, how retarded does a kid have to be to mistake me for a cat? And how on earth does he think any cat could possibly live without an intestinal system anyway? What a moron.

So, I called the police back and told them that, as fun as it was being subjected to Dipstick's verbal tirade, I really had to leave and go collect my own children from supervised care. The irony, of having to depart for that particular reason, seemed to be lost on the disinterested constable I spoke to.

When I left I got more verbal abuse and Dipstick actually chased my car screaming abuse at my tail gate as I drove out of the car park. As he chased me, the reverse gear in my car starting speaking to me, "use me, use me, use me," it whispered. But, once again, the practicality of removing the DNA of a dead kid off my rear bumper was something I wasn't really prepared to contend with late on a school night, so I drove away.

LOST DOG - Please call owner on:
2727-727368 (CRAP-PARENT)

I later found out that these charming characters had remained on site after my departure and dished out more abuse to some staff from the other company that operates on our large site.

Day 1 Thoughts

My run-in with these little fucktards bought home to me why Eden Lake is such an effective movie. I'm not going to suggest that my little stoush with these little turds was anything like what happened in that movie. If it was, it should be obvious to those who have seen the movie, that I would not be blogging about it now. But, it did highlight to me how young boys, who want to threaten or hurt you, are incredibly difficult to deal with. When you're confronted you feel helpless because you know that they are a protected species. You just can't touch them, and they know it. But they have the physical capability to harm you just like another adult. To me, that's scary shit. You just can't protect yourself until, well... probably until it's too late.