Kwinky Dinky (Coincidence)

Who are these guys? What are they doing in our SMB blog? It’s obvious by their weird clothing and goofy grins that they must be ‘murcans.
Then there’s the tall guy, the chick, the short guy and the nonentity – probably CIA.

Have they come to whack us about discovering the Burkina Faso link? (See post – ” The Uniforms”) Or am I being paranoid?

We need to backtrack. Remember in a previous post I mentioned rival gangs? One of them is called the SMC (Sunday Morning Crew) an extremely fit but somewhat derivative outfit with a leader called Bobby “The Shark” Stewart. These dudes swim from the point, back to the main beach each Sunday morning (see map in previous post) a distance of around a mile, then preeen and gloat on the foreshore eating muesli and prunes, boasting of recent marathon runs, winning chicks with muscle man poses. At least that’s our story.

Now, in the 1.5 degrees of separation that the world has turned into since the concept was first developed, one of the lapsed SMB brothers, Br Tailor is the oldest friend of Bobby “The Shark”, having known him since pre-school, around the early 1950s. Br T , Br E and Br K have known each other since ‘65. Br T introduced SMB to the SMC gang, with an uneasy truce over lattes developing in the Coffee Club after our respective outings, despite their continual boasting about fitness, muesli and prunes. Retribution on the Mooloolaba foreshore precinct is not allowed.

Fast forward to Sunday 30th April 2006. Brs Flounder and Eel are frolicking in the warm but uneventful surf when they spot the measured stroke of a long distance swimmer about 30 metres off shore. Br Flounder casually says something like, “Looks like the first of the swimmers coming in”, when a ‘murcan voice says, “Say do you guys know Bob Stewart?”.

Flounder froze. His eyes narrowed in a fierce stare. Not that fierce staring is his forte in the surf because he’s as blind as a bat without his specs (remind me to tell you the story of the time Br Flounder lost his glasses during a scuba diving expedition), but more because that’s what superheroes do when confronted by their nemesis*.

Flounder’s mind raced. Acknowledge or not? Reach for the special waterproof pistol hidden in his speedos?

 

Russian SPP1 underwater 4-barrel pistol

favoured by Flounder, Brother Flounder.

 

Hmm. So a split second later he goes, “Yeah.
Well that started a whole new story. It turns out that Bobby “The Shark” is house swapping with the ‘murcan dude, Stu, from Rochester NY, and it’s all just a big coincidence.

After lattes we all went home tired but happy that we had avoided an international incident at Mooloolaba Beach. Stu is second from the left and he and his mates are on a five week tour of Australia. After a brief committee meeting we have decided to confer upon them honorary SMB status during their stay, and look forward to hearing about their exploits on this blog.

BTW honorary SMB status does not, repeat not, allow you to sport the SMB tattoo (a shoal of 200 fish swimming into the grotto).

””””””””””””””””””””
Ed Note: in order to avoid extraneous matter being brought up as part of the great conundra, an explanation is provided.

nemesis

/nemmisiss/

• noun (pl. nemeses /nemmiseez/) 1 an inescapable agent of retribution: inflationary excess brought its nemesis in subsequent deflation. 2 retribution caused by such an agent.

— ORIGIN Greek, ‘retribution’, personified as the goddess of divine punishment.
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