We live in the mild temperate southern part of Australia, so you may think that we would not be troubled by avalanches, but you would be wrong. I’m not talking about snow. We don’t have much snow in my home state. I’m talking about everyday avalanches, neighbourhood avalanches or personal avalanches, small in scale but big in embarrassment.
It all started when I was walking down a local street, admiring the front gardens in the sunshine and enjoying the flowers. Then I saw it. It was a small leaf version of our “Running Postman” vine. The Running Postman has attractive red flowers and grows vigorously, sending out its tendrils to embrace other plants nearby. Perhaps it wants to wrap around its new found friends in a fond embrace, or maybe it’s planning a python death squeeze to kill a competitor. The miniature version is also attractive but not such a rampant grower. Maybe its nickname is The Strolling Postman, I don’t know. Many of these vines will grow from a cutting and there it was, hanging over the footpath. So I reached out to break off a small piece, and … the whole plant came away in my guilty hand, roots and all. What should I do now? Try to replant this previously thriving but now bare-rooted stolen plant? Suddenly I heard a shout from behind the fence. “Hey you! What are you doing you … plant poacher!” The owner of the garden and the Running Postman plant had emerged from behind a shrub. He’d been watering his other plants and he glared ferociously at me. He clicked the hose nozzle onto Dog Scare mode, like he was cocking a pistol. What could I do? Panicking, I took my cue from the name of the ripped out plant and ran down the street. I had forgotten to discard the plant, so the owner, with a bellow of rage, turned the garden hose on my fleeing figure. In a poorer part of our suburb, wet and ashamed, I quickly scooped out a hole in another front garden with my bare hands, shoved the roots of the contraband plant into it, pressed some dirt around it, and scraped over some fallen leaves to disguise the newcomer and moved on swiftly. At least I could not be accused of outright theft but only theft and redistribution, like Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Anyway, that’s my story until I can think of a better one. One tug at a plant had set off an avalanche of unfortunate circumstances.
Later that day the avalanche experience continued in the supermarket. They had a wonderful pyramid display of juicy dark red plums. I took a couple of plums from the top of the pile, trying to be ultra careful. I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe I was too close to the display counter and accidentally bumped it. Maybe I breathed on it too heavily through my COVID Mask. Maybe there was a small scale local earthquake, 0.1 on the Richter scale. Whatever it was, the plum pyramid began falling apart, with fruit rolling around into me, into other fruit displays, into my bag and onto the floor with a dull splat of ripe plums hitting the hard concrete. I was frozen and I wasn’t even in the frozen food section. I couldn’t move. If I edged away from the display then a dozen plums would fall, as they were wedged between me and the bench. I yelped in distress. A staff member appeared. “Problem sir?” he said, surveying the carnage. “I was just ….” I started my excuse. “Fruit avalanche” he said, cutting me off. “It happens all too often”. He pointed to a sign, which I had not noticed before. “You bruise it, you buy it”. He carefully picked up all the damaged fruit from here, there and everywhere, put it in a bag and frogmarched me to the checkout. “Fruit avalanche” he said to the customer service person. “Full price. Red plums $4.99 a kg plus a restocking fee of $20 and a $10 cleaning fee”. I paid up and shuffled out wiping squashed red plum juice off my hands and shirt. At least this time I had paid for my avalanche damage.
I started philosophising about it all, mentally trying to explain to others what had happened. “It’s all about the butterfly effect” I could say, “You know, Edward Lorenz’s theory that a small change causes large consequences. A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas”.* Somehow it sounded unconvincing.
Later that day, I was at our local bike shop, admiring their new mountain bikes, road racers and E-bikes all lined up like biscuits in a packet. A salesman rolled over as I ran my eyes over a new high tech mountain bike. After all, I had bought mine in 1992. It was getting a bit old, like me. “Take it out, have a look at it” encouraged the salesman. “It’s a beauty” he said. “The latest model”.
As suggested, I pulled the bike out of the row of bikes and … I don’t know how it happened. Something must have caught on another bike. “Avalanche!” yelled the salesman. An emergency alarm sounded. One bike toppled over and then the next and the next…. As I fled from the store I heard the sounds of crashing bikes and yelling staff. Some of the descriptions of me were, I thought, quite unnecessary and exaggerated.
The next day I drove past the bike store and noticed they had a sign saying “Scratch and Dent Sale – 30% off”. I still wanted a new bike. So I thought about disguising myself with my Groucho Marx fake moustache and glasses and a bright yellow lycra cycling suit, but I concluded that I was under-estimating the intelligence of the sales staff, who probably knew far more about Edward Lorenz and the Butterfly Effect than I did.
Avalanches- they’re out to get you.
© Geoff Milton 2021
* See Wikipedia “Butterfly Effect” and Geoff Boeing “Chaos theory and the logistic map”. Geoffboeing.com (another high flying Geoff). His ideas are also discussed in “How crazy is your city’s plan?” Fastcompany.com (2018). Personally, my answer is “very”.
