Hitting Things With Mallets

 I was so desperate for something to write about that I reached out to my Tasmanian correspondent something I've become less inclined to do after the restraining order.  Still she is several hundred kilometres away so I can't really claim she's breaching it.

After the traditional formalities (screams, death threats and hysterical demands to stop pestering her) I got down to the reason for my call.

"I haven't heard from you in months."

"I send you a report every week," she retorted. "Is the institution still stopping your mail?"

"I keep telling you that was a misunderstanding, they released me almost immediately."  Three months counts as almost immediately in my book.  "So what is the news from Tasmania."

She told me her twelve year old daughter had been serenading visiting American sailors with merimba music.  So business as usual then.  There were a lot of questions to ask about this.  I paused to get my thoughts in order and assemble my questions in a logical framework.

"What the fuck?"

It turns out that Hobart has recently had a visit from the US navy.  They sneaked into the harbour in between the cruise ships which have recently been infesting my correspondent's shores.  My correspondent was actually more sanguine about the warships than the cruise liners.  Hardly surprising really, cruise ships are a blight on the horizon at the best of times but at the moment they're little more than self propelled disease cultures.  Apparently the Americans had picked a gap in the schedule of these petri dishes of the sea to drop in on Hobart.

Purely by coincidence, apparently, the school attended by my correspondents children had chosen this moment to herd their charges to the waterfront and drop a bunch of merimba instruments in front of them.  After that nature was permitted to take its course.

For those who don't know a merimba is sort of like a wooden xylophone.  You hit the wooden tubes with mallets thus making music or at least noise.  After a while it isn't only the merimba you want to hit with  mallets.  Lest you think encouraging anti social behaviour in children is restricted to my correspondent's school permit me to assure you that apparently all over the state teachers are handing their students mallets and encouraging them to go nuts.  This has been going on for years.  In 2019 Tasmanian students smashed the previous Guinness record for a bunch of recalcitrant shoolchildren being dumped in front of wooden tubes and equipped with weapons.  It's called Merimba Mania although at a pinch I think "mania" would probably be an equally apposite title.

So what did our American guests think of this welcome to one of our chillier shores?  Their reaction wasn't recorded but there is a persistent rumour that my correspondent's school has been reported to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for war crimes.  Certainly the American warships steamed over the horizon as swiftly as they decently could.  Unconfirmed reports claim to have heard hysterical weeping coming from the living quarters of the vessels concerned.

My correspondent was pleased with the results until I pointed out that the absence of American warships meant that it was more likely that extra cruise liners would fill the gaps.  I believe her children's school is planning another merimba assault when they dock.