72) They Walk Among Us

Australia, like many other countries I suppose, has a problem with graffiti. I am sure that the authorities have tried many schemes to combat it but it still persists. One of the schemes they have tried is to make it illegal for anyone to sell spray paint to anyone under eighteen. Of course once they did this the young offenders just turned to stealing the cans so that they could continue to paint their signatures in the most inaccessible places they can find. You see their “art” high up on buildings, on bridges and overpasses and I am very puzzled about how they managed it. Oh yes, quite easy if you have a team of helpers, a crane or a cherry picker, scaffolding or a very long ladder. But how do they do it quickly and unobtrusively without the police catching them red handed. (Or blue handed, or yellow handed, or green handed or which ever colour his signature may be)

Last week I went into a hardware store to buy a can of spray paint for my husband. As I walked in the gentleman behind the counter immediately asked if he could help me. I asked for a can of black epoxy spray paint and he walked towards the corner where all the paint was stored (without even asking me for proof that I was over eighteen). He reached to the top shelf and asked, “Did you want Gloss Black, Satin Black or Flat Black?” And I had thought that black was black, how silly of me. I replied that I did not know and said I would phone my husband and check. While I was on the phone to Jonathan he attended to another customer and so when I knew which Black I required I tried to get it off the shelf but it was too high for me. I went over to him and apologised to him saying that I just couldn’t reach the top shelf. He said he understood as he had to stretch to reach that shelf and he was considerably taller than my 4’10” ins. I asked him why the spray paint was not under lock and key as it is supposed to be by law so that young graffiti artist could not steel it and he told me that the graffiti artist did not use this kind of paint. He pointed out the cheaper paint safely behind a metal grid with a large padlock on it. He said “They just use that sort of paint, this stuff is too expensive for them”. I looked at him hard to see if he was trying to be funny but it was pretty obvious that he was deadly serious and so I asked him what on earth did the price matter if one was going to steel it. And he just blustered “Oh I just do what the paint company tells me to do, it’s not my decision” Yes, they walk among us.