'Rainforest Adventurer'

In the midst of inanely stumbling around another internet job search (performed on 'job sites'), I found this job, standing out loud and proud, like a beacon of joy eminating from the gargling grey mass of words that maul the senses; words like 'industrial assistant', 'trainee accountant' or 'liaison officer' (though that one's quite good, sounds a bit racy). There it was - 'Rainforest Adventurer'. 'Rainforest Adventurer'. 'RAINFOREST ADVENTURER'.

Initially, I spluttered out a sound which resembled "tee-hee... hee", a disturbing laugh that would be made by the young, the wee and the meek. After this, my mind considered the possibilities - Rainforest Adventurer. I could be like a shite N.I. version of Tarzan, finding new and ever more ingenious ways of swinging and sloping from one tree to the next. Or I could be Sir David Attenborough, all crouched and whispering, recanting facts pertaining to how there were 5,767,586 varieties of cockatoo in my rainforest and how no-one else had seen 'em all, EXCEPT me, cos I'm class. Or I could be like Indiana Jones, in the fourth one where he is indeed at one point rainforest adventuring, but probably also wondering why things just aren't as good as they were in the Eighties. And he'd be right. A more innocent and simpler time, with Thundercats, Salmonella and Ford Capri's.

Then, much to my chagrin, I found out that this mythical, mystical and mesmerising position was ... drum roll ... showing kids how to correctly handle and lift animals. Seriously. Or, as the blurb blurted, "To present and perform animal handling workshops to primary age children". Ooh la la, 'The dream is over'.

How many others, I wondered, were taken in by the alluring bright neon lights of the job title RAINFOREST ADVENTURER, only to have their dreams so brutally crushed, shattered and trampled on, to find out that the job its describing is nothing like the job you imagined it to be? Perhaps I was being deliberately naieve, hoping beyond hope that such a job would actually be available in 'our humble wee province'.

The quest to validate existence goes on, the hunt futile, the effort to find gainful employment minimal - but I hope there's at least one other person that saw RAINFOREST ADVENTURER and meekly emmitted a 'tee-hee' of appreciation, and enjoyed laughing in the face of modern expectations.



---FIN---

Poem

Poem


One, two, three, four,
Out of life I want to get more,
Five, six, seven, eight,
Conventional achievement a faux debate;
Lining thread with coin,
Another kick in the groin,
Lining mind with vaudevillian hedonism,
Dystopian dream achieved;
That's not for you they say,
You should really know better,
Synapse collapse,
Education bypass,
Live the life that makes you alive.




---FIN---