Boys in Black

This morning I did my usual morning 'thing' and pedalled down to the bakery to get my coffee before heading over to the boat ramp.  As I walked along past the supermarket and the wall of mailboxes, two young men came walking towards me.  They were strangers in town.

I know a LOT of people in my little town and it's easy to recognise a local, by their relaxed air of confidence and the sense of ownership that they emanate.  We are a small, close community and everybody smiles and says hello to each other in the street.  It's one of the many quirky little gifts that our town has to offer.

We are in Queensland, in a small coastal beach town, and it goes without saying that it is hot and humid at this time of the year.  The usual attire is shorts,  singlet tops and thongs.  Even at 8am, I sit by the river with a hand held fan, trying to blow the beads of perspiration on my head and neck dry.

So these two strangers, who I would guess to be in their late teens, were walking towards the bakery. One of them was wearing board shorts, a black suit jacket and a very large sombrero.  The other was wearing a black suit, no shirt, no shoes, no hat.  Stand out much?!

I said to Adoring Husband, who had suddenly appeared beside me, after his golf game got rained out,  "Far out!  They must be hot in those clothes!"

Off I went to spend the morning with my boys at the boat ramp and then later to the local hall to play Indoor Bowls which I do every week.

As I pedalled towards the car park, I noticed someone sitting in the bus shelter and when I glanced across, it was the young man in the sombrero.  He looked up, smiled and said hello as I breezed past him and I wondered where his friend had disappeared to.

I got through the car park and was parking my trike, when the other young man came out of the men's toilets doing up his fly.  He didn't make eye contact and he seemed to be having trouble getting that zipper up!

I walked up the stairs towards the door of the hall, when 3 ladies walked out and in quite a panicked tone, asked if we had seen these two strange young men who had been 'acting suspiciously' around the hall.  I told them that two young men were sitting at the bus shelter.

The ladies were incredibly relieved.  One of them rushed to make sure her car was locked and another made concerned chatter about whether our bicycles would be safe outside.

I asked "How were they acting suspiciously?" and the reply that I got was "They were sitting in the covered area between the toilets and the hall, watching the women arrive and walk into the hall."

I then asked myself (in my head) "How is that 'acting suspiciously'?"

Just because these boys were obviously not locals, young, and dressed in something other than shorts, singlet and thongs we immediately believe that their every move, no matter how innocent, deems them to be 'acting suspiciously'!

This was one of those rare occasions when my lovely town made me feel embarrassed.  When I looked at these elderly women and saw unreasonable fear in their eyes because they stereotyped these young men and made assumptions about their honesty and integrity without even speaking a word to them.

With hindsight, I should have walked to the bus shelter and invited the boys back to the hall to meet the ladies.  I wonder how that would have panned out??

Anyway, I hope that these young men are having a lovely time in our little town.  I hope that the locals don't scare them off too soon and I hope that they can find some cooler clothes to wear, because it's WAY TOO HOT to be wearing a black suit!