Crazy Crazes

So last night I left the farm amidst cries of 'what's for dinner?' 'where are you going?' and 'He hit me!!'.
I kissed the apprehensive looking husband goodbye and headed into town, music up full volume. I managed to get approximately 800 metres from the driveway before narrowly avoiding killing a neighbor on his motorbike whilst speeding and swerving a Kangaroo who then ran infront of him, thankfully he was fine and skippy will live another day. Ok re adjust self, turn the music down to a tad more age appropriate levels and back on my way, somewhat more cautiously this time.

I made it into town without fur on my bumper and proceeded to a restaurant - that nice kind where you are NOT supplied with coloured pens to beautify the table cloth and nothing on the menu started with a 'Mc'. I met up with the staff from the retail outlet I work for. The staff consist of The two owners (in their 50s) two 17year olds the birthday girl (21) and me.

So over the best Chinese I have ever eaten the girls started talking flash mobs and after a quick you tube explanation and example of what that is to the bosses and I, they moved onto discussing this new craze of "planking" that they and "everyone"are getting into, I had never heard of it before so they then proceed to show me photos of people doing plank of wood impressions on a number of bizarre surfaces like on one of those parking meter ticket boxes or this plank on a rock example:

Image from here

Back in my day we got our kicks riding shopping trollies down hills, with those wonky wheels who knew which hospital you would end up in?

So thanks to the wonders of the interweb, this impersonate a piece of wood 'craze' has spread around the globe with lightening speed and has recently turned deadly when a bloke 'planking' actually died falling from a 7 story building. Jackass eat your heart out.



image from here



We left the restaurant after the mandatory richest mud cake ever and pointed out things to potentially plank upon on the way to the cars, including walls, signs, milk creates and police cars. One of the bosses got into the spirit and even performed a 'vertical plank' for us ie standing upright.

It makes me wonder what the 'in' thing to do will be when my kids are teenagers. As people we seem to be constantly on the lookout for a thrill and something different to do to 'express ourselves'. So is 'planking' a form of arty self expression or just another way people are trying to 'get noticed'? Have you 'planked' or become caught up in one of these "internet crazes"? How do you think people will draw the line between craze and crazy?

In the meantime:



image from here