Hawking menace? What in sweet holy hell could this possibly mean, they asked themselves, and, later, me. There are sometimes raptor birds in the neighborhood, so perhaps they had been attacking the children? Pooping in the schoolyard? Bullying the kids for their milk money?
And then a day or two later we all walked by the school together and on a different gate was a different sign that proclaimed "HAWKING WILL DESTROY OUR LIVES." Excuse me to please?? Further speculation ensued. Were they possibly talking about Stephen Hawking? Had there been some sort of mutant astrophysicist rampage that escaped our notice, buried in the New York Times among the Britney Spears meltdown coverage?
WHAT WAS THIS HAWKING AND IN WHAT WAY WOULD IT DESTROY THE SCHOOL CHILDREN'S LIVES?????
The next day Dan consulted Google and figured out they were almost certainly referring to street hawkers. (And yet still...DESTROY OUR LIVES?)
The article at the above link mentions that street hawking in Mumbai has been illegal since 1985. To put this in perspective, this is like claiming that fog has been illegal in San Francisco since 1985, or that killer whales have been illegal at Sea World since 1985, or that bad hair has been illegal at the Trump Tower since 1985. IT MAKES NO SENSE, PEOPLE.
1 comment:
One day when I was living by myself at the apartment there someone actually came by and rang the door. Out of boredom or for some other strange reason I actually answered it and it was some guy trying to get me to sign an anti-Hawking petition. If I had known it was actually about Stephen Hawking I would have signed it.
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