Bad Karma

Jonathon Ross the British journalist once did a show called 'Only in America', which featured some of the outlandish things that we've come to expect from the place.

One article that stuck in my mind was a bloke who had modified his car engine bay to cook his dinner as he drove home.

So before leaving work he would wrap a steak and potatoes in alfoil place it in the modified oven heatedby the engine block, drive home and voila!, dinner ready as he stepped out of the car.

I mention this because this series of articles I'm doing could likewise be titled, 'Only in Byron Bay'.

The attached photo is one I took when I was in a local pharmacy.

Most businesses have a menacing sign saying something like, “It is the policy of Try-and-Save to prosecute shoplifters to the full extent of the law".

Either this particular pharmacy had tried threatening shoplifters and it didn't work, or the staff and owner were canny Bay-ites who knew that Karma is a more powerful force here in the Rainbow Region than the cops.

And while I'm on the the topic of shoplifting, those who know me well will tell you that it is no point calling me at six in the evening (or morning for that matter) because I'm watching The Simpsons.
Many think The Simpsons is typical American crap, but I've learned a lot there and one of those things was where the term shoplifting came from.
Traders on the Levant sold their wares from tents in the market place and shoplifters would literally lift the corner of the tent, reach under and grab what they could before, one would think, mounting a fast camel and high-tailing it into the desert.
It was quite a good episode and it starts out with the desert folk going about their lives before Moses came down off Mt Sinai with the ten commandments.
Homer the thief is chatting with Lenny the carver of graven idols and Rohab the adulterer.
Suddenly a shout goes up, “Moses is coming, everybody get busy!”
So Homer starts nicking stuff, Lenny begins hammering furiously on his stone figurines and Rohab starts cracking onto a nearby desert maiden.
Then Moses arrives and reads out his commandments among which are of course 'thou shalt not steal', so Homer's got to get a job, 'thou shalt not worship graven idols', so Lenny's out of business and 'thou shalt not commit adultery', so the scene ends with Rohab saying “looks like the party's over”.
Which loosely brings me to one night when I was in a local hostelery when a load of shouting began and a naked man was trying to get into the pub.

He was either on a trip, not uncommon up here, or a nudist, very common up here, or, now that I think about it, both.

Anyway the security staff assembled and dealt with him gently, they're used to events like this, I promise you that, so gently but firmly told him he couldn't come in.
After some moments he wandered off into the night and things settled down.
A bit later I asked one of the staff members why they wouldn't let him in and they said, “he wasn't wearing any shoes”.

Only in Byron Bay