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A soft spot, but not for young people

IT may been that in the past I have inadvertently said things that would lead you to believe I have a soft spot for young people.

This was a mistake. I have modified my opinion of young people. It happened when I found myself glued to a train seat by a wad of chewing gum.

Not a random piece inconsiderately spat by chance on to some unsuitable surface, but a strategically positioned lump designed to catch the unwary.

It was on the back of a folding seat, hidden from view until you unfolded it, and sat on it, without looking to see if some evil little ratbag had left a disgusting, saliva-soaked morsel of human detritus there to trap you.

You may think I’m overreacting and that I should direct my fury at people who chew gum in general, regardless of gender, religion or age. You’re probably right.

They make a pathetic sight, adults and young people alike, as they sit, chomping furiously, manic as a gorilla prowling its cage.

It’s even worse when they chew with their mouths open. This renders them not so much pathetic as truculent.

But the incident with the train seat has reminded me that it is not the general society of gum chewers that are the problem. It’s people who want to shake me out of my comfortable and complacent niche.

They are the same people who let my tyres down and throw rocks on the roof of my house at 3am. They are young people.

I have the answer, though. And it’s not birching. I think we should have them all put down.

At least, this was the answer that occurred to me as I peeled my jacket away from the seat and found the ropes of chewing gum stretched like cheese in a fondue.

Since then I have grown more tolerant. Instead I think we should scrape the chewing gum off all the surfaces between The Strand and Rasmussen (Flinders Street East would supply a shipload), knead it (using some mechanical device that would involve not actually touching it) into a homogenous lump – and make all gum chewers eat it.

Not only would this give me a childish sense of vengeful satisfaction, but it might also pass around to those who deserve it a whole range of interesting and debilitating diseases.

You may say I’m unreasonable. You may say I have forgotten what it was like to be young. But I have not. I never chewed gum. I wish I had. Then I could put this latest little drama down to some kind of well-deserved karma.

I guess, as with so many things, the parents are partly to blame.

I remember telling my kids not to swallow gum. That if they did it would accumulate in a cannonball of the stuff that would have to be surgically removed.

Naturally, they stopped swallowing it. If I could trace the lump that is smeared down the back of my jacket I’d probably find it was more than 20 years old and belonged to a child I reared.

If that’s the case I blame the mother.