When news broke that a giant, three-storey mango had gone missing, I’ll admit I feared the worst. Not since someone blew the backside off the Giant Pheasant outside Gumbuya Park had our nation faced so dark a day. Presumably when something of this magnitude occurs, the authorities activate some top-secret emergency plan and other national icons are immediately placed into high-security lockdown. For its own safety, Lang Lang’s Giant Earthworm would be cordoned off from the public. South Australia’s The Big Lobster would be ushered into its own underground reinforced concrete bunker. Adaminaby’s Big Trout would be placed into the witness protection program and forced to change its name to ‘Dennis’. Not that everything needs such high level security. Such measures are largely unnecessary for Tasmania’s The Big Potato. Nobody’s going to steal that thing. Nobody.
When news broke that a giant, three-storey mango had gone missing, I’ll admit I feared the worst. Not since someone blew the backside off the Giant Pheasant outside Gumbuya Park had our nation faced so dark a day. Presumably when something of this magnitude occurs, the authorities activate some top-secret emergency plan and other national icons are immediately placed into high-security lockdown. For its own safety, Lang Lang’s Giant Earthworm would be cordoned off from the public. South Australia’s The Big Lobster would be ushered into its own underground reinforced concrete bunker. Adaminaby’s Big Trout would be placed into the witness protection program and forced to change its name to ‘Dennis’. Not that everything needs such high level security. Such measures are largely unnecessary for Tasmania’s The Big Potato. Nobody’s going to steal that thing. Nobody.
When a humungous piece of fruit goes missing, it’s natural to speculate whether it’s the first part of a broader campaign of terror. My fear was that we were obviously dealing with some kind of evil genius super-villain hell-bent on making a gigantic fruit salad and that the Big Pineapple and Big Banana might be next. But who would do such a thing? It’s obvious. I don’t want to point the finger but, personally, I’d be on the lookout for a mutant forty-foot Wiggle. He shouldn’t be hard to spot. Granted, he’ll probably be wearing a black skivvy rather than the customary red, yellow, blue or purple, but it’s difficult to hide your getaway vehicle when it’s a Big Red Car, no matter how hard you try. A fruit salad may well be ‘yummy, yummy’, but there’s just no excuse for this kind of anarchic malarkey.
For a few anxious days, there was little to do other than wait for the ransom demands. They never arrived. Turns out, it was merely a publicity stunt. What, precisely, they were seeking to publicise remains a mystery. Which, when it comes to publicity stunts, suggests failure on an epic scale. If these people want to perform a stunt, next time they should try jumping a motorcycle over thirty burning busses whilst blindfolded and, for all our sake’s, leave the oversized fruit alone. On the plus side, I guess this means The Wiggles are now free to go. But whilst pretending to abduct a giant mango might sound like a bit of harmless fun, it speaks to a diminished respect for our national treasures. Suffice to say, for someone to load America’s Lincoln Memorial onto the back of a Ute for a bit of laugh would be utterly unthinkable. Sadly, the Westernport region has not been immune to this tidal wave of disrespect.
On Frankston Flinders Road in Somerville stands a fibreglass Tyrannosaurus Rex. Well, not ‘on the road’ as such – that would startle the drivers and hamper the flow of traffic. But right alongside it. Some may question why there’s four and half metre dinosaur by the side of the road. To those who ask ‘why?’ I can only say that when you’re a T-Rex, you don’t need to explain yourself to anyone. You stand wherever you want. But, clearly, somebody has a problem with it. Sadly, it appears that someone has it in for our prehistoric friend and has gone and knocked it over for the second time in a fortnight. How senseless. How puerile. How dumb. No wonder the poor things are extinct. Forget comets or the sudden on-set of the Ice Age; the world’s prehistoric creatures were wiped out by idiots who decided to tip them over for a joke.
Or perhaps there’s a more sinister motivation at work? Maybe the perpetrator was forced to sit through multiple screenings of ‘Jurassic Park’ as a youngster and, as a result, has been trained to loathe dinosaurs and everything they stand for. They have then devoted their lives to plotting against dinosaurs in some kind of ‘Jurassic jihad’. Or maybe Dorothy the Dinosaur was jealous. Or, then again, perhaps trying to ascribe a motive to something so stupid is simply futile.
When something like this happens, the authorities fear the obvious: reprisal attacks. If I were a T-Rex, even a replica one, I wouldn’t take that kind of nonsense lying down. Granted, I’d be lying down for a while, but only because some fool pushed me over and it’s hard to right yourself when you’re made of steel and fibreglass. But wouldn’t it be glorious? The culprit will be sitting at home when there’s a polite but insistent knock. He opens the front door to find a four and half metre T-Rex standing out the front with a baseball bat. Maybe he’s brought a few buddies along with him. Two paces behind the dinosaur, Goulburn’s The Big Merino stands menacingly with a pair of num-chucks whilst beside him, Ballina’s The Big Prawn is nursing a piece of timber with some nails sticking out. Suddenly, picking on a fibreglass dinosaur doesn’t seem so funny.
If only. In real life, things don’t always turn out quite so neatly. These objects can’t defend themselves, so it’s up to the rest of us. These monuments shouldn’t be abducted, blown up or pushed over. They ought to be cherished. I, for one, love that there are people among us who are willing to take a chance and build these objects. They don’t always make a lot of sense but that’s precisely what’s so great about them. Big objects help bring a little wonder and surprise into our lives and, if for no other reason, they deserve our love and respect. So if it’s been a while between dinosaurs, maybe it’s time for you to head over to Somerville and pay your respects. I’ll see you there.