ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Two long-suffering but ultimately self-serving Gen X parents who bought a Betoota Heights house and land package in 2005 have been left clueless as to why their single child spends all his time playing computer games in his room.
Playing computer games instead of running wild through the suburbs like parents Pogo and Julia Stick did in the French Quarter back in the early 1980s.
Their son, Browne (13), spends most of his time in his room playing games like Minecraft and other games designed to entertain spacey, socially-awkward kids and keep jocks safe from violent retribution in high school.
Pogo wanted to make it clear that Browne doesn’t play these games alone, he plays them with other kids he knows from school and the wider gaming community so it’s not as strange as it seems.
“We moved out to the suburbs so our kids could have a more free range childhood,” said Pogo.
“Away from the smackheads, perverts and students in the French Quarter. Although now, it’s turning into some sort of yuppie hellhole now. Most of the heroin addicts have been pushed out as far as Birdsville these days. It’s a shame in a way,”
“We bought the corner block on Julian O’Neill Circuit in Betoota Heights then saved to start building a year later. It wasn’t all free this and free that for Gen X, I’ll tell you that for free. We did it tough but we’re stoics. Anyway, it was much cheaper than the land on Arthur Beetson Way for obvious reasons. What kind of Queenslander would want to live on Julian O’Neill Circuit? One that doesn’t have Arthur Beetson money, that’s who,”
“But all that Browne does all day is play computer games. I just wish he’d play outside with his mates instead of doing shit online. I did everything John Howard asked of me and this is what I get in return.”
Despite their being no parks, no real public infrastructure, no footpaths and no shops, Pogo said he still expects Browne to make his own fun, like he did in a vibrant inner city suburb.
“I’d take anything at this point,” he said.
“Making homemade spike strips then ordering a Dominos Pizza delivered. Watch the delivery man drive over the spike strips from the bushes and just laugh and laugh and laugh with your mates as you run for your lives through the park,”
“Sure, I’d be angry and annoyed. At least I’d be feeling something.”
More to come.
