Young people are a 'funny lot'. At the best of and of ordinary times we all know, having once been one (haven't you?), where the young exhibit silly inexplicable whimsies of varied sorts despite a public-faced bravado, bolshiness, selfish loudness and apparent faux-confidence and assuredness. Yet, said same will faint and fall on the floor at the drop of a hat when finding themselves in uncertain conditions requiring etiquette and where they have no control to be their normal horrid selves. It's probably the ritualistic performance of it all with these vaccination centres overseen by commanding, demanding matronly types many as power-wielding volunteers coralling us as of yews and lambs toward the sheep dip. There’s a palpable sense of ‘something in the air’ or something is about to happen’ out of our complete control in these places of esoteric gatherings. Let them faint at the sight of a needle or of blood. There’ll fall down and after a “There, there dear” they’ll arise once more to perform their usual and expected obnoxiousness. Or, is that being too harsh toward the nasty little darlings?
Bobbie Carnegie ● 1954d