So, my second column. The first one was a bit slow in coming out1 thanks to some issues with the budding management of SMOG2, but we managed to sort it out3. Hopefully this second column will be a bit4 quicker. Now, what to write? If I had any interest whatsoever in sport I might write something related to the Melbourne Storm scandal, but I don’t, so I won’t- although I do find it kind of odd that they got away with it for five years. They’re footballers, not con artists- they’re hired for their ability to get what is essentially a rubber egg from one end of a field to the other. Still, it does show that crime can be found in the most unlikely of places. Speaking of which, does anybody else find it odd that the mysterious lockdown happened mere days after the fatal bashing of Carl Williams? Not that I’m suggesting that the two are linked5, but it is slightly suspicious. In a similar chain of thought, am I the only person who finds the ever-present trucks outside the canteen slightly bizarre? Do we really get through that much food each day? At $4 a burger? I think not. And is a smuggling operation really that farfetched? How much does the average canteen worker get paid? Who would suspect them? And is it grammatically correct to have nine questions in less than 250 words of a column? I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions.

The list goes on. Ms M's office, for beginners. The drapes. The table large enough to host a small football tournament. The expensive ornaments on the expensive shelves on the expensive carpet which covers the floor of what is, overall, a ridiculously expensive room. How is a principal- and a public school one- supposed to pay for all that? Once again, I leave the reader to form their own conclusions. And the chocolate sellers- those furtive characters, boxes partially hidden in bags, loitering on the corners of the blocks. What exactly is in these so-called ‘chocolates’? Why the price hike to $1.20? I would like to point out that a similar technique is used by drug dealers, which makes a lot of sense as you consider the twitching, vacant-eyed chocoholics who wander around school asking if they can borrow any change.

But why would otherwise law-abiding teachers and students take up a life of crime? The pay? The adrenalin? The delusion that being part of a cybercrime ring (yes, Mr Gon- I mean "anoymous computer teacher", I’m looking at you) is guaranteed to attract young women? And where does that kid with the wheelbarrow in the main quad at lunchtime fit into it? Is he a crime lord heir, merely idling the time until Don Zabell lets him take over ‘the business’? Perhaps his role, along with the 15 other rhetorical question in this column, are destined to become Great Mysteries of Life, like Roswell, or what really happened to Elvis. In the meantime, I’m off to read the news. Apparently there’s been another murder in a Sydney jail, and I have a sneaking suspicion I overheard something I shouldn’t have in the English staffroom yesterday.

1-By two weeks.
2-ie Smog McSmoggy completely forgot about it.
3-I sent them an email politely reminding them that I do exist, I had sent them the article, and suggested some interesting places in which to put their editing.
4-Which isn’t saying much.
5-Actually, that’s a blatant lie. I am.

-Eric M.

Note: This article was written for Smog by a third party, and does not necessarily represent the views of Smogblog or its administrators-espescially the part about the managment of Smog. You just remember Eric, Smog McSmoggy never forgets....