Glassy-eyed on Friday

It’s not just that a week at work makes me glassy-eyed (although it does) – or that the unseasonally hot November weather (expecting 37C again today – noooo!) puts me in a daze.

I want to know WTF is behind an apparent fascination for breaking glass out there in Canberra.

I don’t get it.

I live in a not-so-salubrious part of town, with a high population of delinquent kids – and I work in the middle of the city, not far from several pubs. Both places are littered with shattered glass. These broken bottles tend to be grog bottles. I’m trying to imagine what’s behind this antisocial glass-breaking behaviour, coz I counted 6 smashed on the walkway/bike path between my place and the local shops yesterday – a distance of less than a kilometre.

Every Friday morning I find them in the car-park near work as well. I think there are late-night car park parties when Mooseheads closes, and then, rather than leaving the bottles behind, or god forbid, putting them in bins, some bright drunken spark gets the bright drunken urge to shatter the bottles in the motorcycle parking area. It's really pissing me off.

So - what’s so satisfying or entertaining about breaking a glass bottle? Is it the noise? The klunk-tinkle? The way the glass flies everywhere on impact with the concrete? Or is it perhaps the thought of the potential injuries to fellow travellers unfortunate enough to step on their leavings?

Hey, how cool would it be if someone was walking barefoot here? If the used syringes don't get 'em, the broken glass will, tee hee!

Maybe it's just exciting to ruminate on the magnifying-glass effect that any shards might have if they fall on grass in this hot, dry, fire-prone place? A whole neighbourhood up in smoke…..oh well, it's not a particularly nice neighbourhood anyway. But that's not the point!

I don’t think the antisocial Neanderthals who are into smashing bottles would actually have the brainpower for such complex thought, so I’m going with the ‘Duh, it makes a nice noise’ option.

Given the kind of bottles that they generally are – i.e., empty beer/alcopop bottles, I suppose the alcohol, once consumed, makes the owner of the bottle clumsier and/or stupider than usual, and puts them in the fame of mind where shattering the bottle sounds like a highly original and brilliant idea.

Dickheads!