This is Kieren and Symantha.
Isn't this a terrible picture? Look at it and imagine the sort of people it suggests.
Kieren and Symantha have matching pyjamas. They watch wholesome family entertainment on Channel 10, and think Rove McManus is the bee's knees. They use pet names for each other in public. Symantha still has her childhood teddy bear collection, which graces the single bed in their pastel spare room. They want to have several children "when they're ready". They drive a Prius. Slowly. It has a fish on it.
They like fondue, and have matching tiger feet slippers. They drink hot chocolate from matching mugs – only hers has a pink marshmallow in it and his has white. They love kitten pictures but are baffled by lolcats. Their Prius has those annoying flower transfers on the back window, and they drive it with the windows open singing ‘california dreaming’ on their way to church socials on Wednesday evening. They live in Cherrybrook, in a house they bought off the plan. Once a month they splash out and get delivery pizza, but usually they eat pre-prepared meals together on the sofa with a blanket over their knees.
They like beige.
They both love Big Brother, and Symantha thinks kiwi fruit is excitingly exotic. They’re thinking of getting a timeshare holiday home in Cabarita beach. They think John Howard is doing a great job. They have shutters by Modern. Kieren volunteers at the local aged care center, and secretly loved Brokeback Mountain. They like shopping for soft furnishings. They make their parents proud, and maintain their meticulously pruned Christmas card list in an excel file which Kieren keeps backed up on a floppy disk in his desk drawer. He wants to have a shed in the garden where he can hang sports memorabilia he doesn't own yet and drink an occasional solitary light beer on special occasions with one of his 'friends' from the office. Symantha disapproves of this idea, as it would ruin her ‘garden’. They took their parents with them on their honeymoon. Symantha's mum still insists on spelling her name without the 'y', and this makes Symantha cross, but she'd never show it.
They wake up at 6am so they don’t miss ‘the best part of the day’
The back of their door has a framed copy of 'footprints' on it. They use personalised stationery, and have a Christmas album which they play once a year, after lunch, after which it goes back into the Ikea display shelf for another 12 months. Symantha says ‘poot’ when she drops things, and Kieren just smiles and calls her ‘clumsy clogs’. On a Sunday, before church, Kieren washes the Prius, and gives the bonnet a little pat when he’s finished.
They have NEVER, EVER seen an electric guitar played live.
They are the image of everything that’s wrong with humanity. I’m sure I could sum them up in a word. If only I could think what that word is.
* yes, I know they are real-life couple, Kieren and Symantha Perkins. They are probably nothing like this in real life. But maybe they are, and that is enough.
posted @ Friday, August 17, 2007 5:14 PM