There’s Nowt as Queer as Folk

 

I love that expression: “There’s nowt as queer as folk”, which means simply “there’s nothing as strange as people”.

I saw a man on the street the other day that I could only describe to my sweetheart later as “an albino cowboy”.  (The albino label is self-explanatory, the cowboy part because he was severely bow-legged.) It wasn’t his appearance that was the most remarkable, however, but what he was doing: attacking a public bin. He kicked and shouted and although I couldn’t hear what he was saying from the relative safety of my car, from his expression I’d wager there was a substantial amount of swearing going on.

This brings to mind the Great Rubbish Bin Mystery that my friend Marsha is still tracking from the window of her flat. It makes me wonder if there’s something about public bins that neither she nor I, as North American transplants to this country, have figured out yet.

As a writer, when I see these wonderfully queer people, I like to speculate about their background, motives, friends and where they live.  The “cowboy” might have been disabled, disturbed, or simply angry with the world. Or, on the other hand, maybe the rubbish bin had wronged him in some way. It’s difficult for me to imagine what the sins of the bin might have been, but no doubt the iron-caged receptacle had it coming.