I’ve been pacing this week, hands behind my back like an old man, occasionally reaching with my index finger to scratch my balding head.
But I’m disturbed. So bothered by a particular television advertisement that I’m refraining from turning it on.
ABC news it is until I can unravel how to deal with this commercial calamity.
Seriously, it’s got me more wound up than the child a few doors down that screams for self-engrandisement from its poor mother until she caves and releases the sea of sugar she’s got stashed under the manhole in her walk-in closet.
How do I know this, you ask? Because the screaming has words attached to it, and it’s loud enough for me to sit on my back deck, piecing together the pieces of the mystery.
Then, I think again of this television commercial and I realise that the front man is a version of this child. Spoilt. Entitled. In a helmet.
Before I launch any harder at this guy, I don’t need to hear from Formula 1 fans from all over the world, telling me how grueling it is to remain fit enough to race at the pinnacle of your sport.
Like the time I reviewed the Rolling Stones and spent half the article talking about how Mick Jagger’s lips had made him a fortune.
I met the world’s elite rock ‘n roll fraternity that day. All of them, I think.
I get it. Daniel Ricciardo has twice been rated the third best driver in the world, or maybe the guy guiding the third best car.
Either way, I grant you he’s good at what he does.
However, in this commercial he says something which irks me to the core, right through to the marrow in my bones.
“It wasn’t a normal thing for a kid to do,” he says of jumping in a go-kart, racing around a track on a Saturday afternoon.
Okay, he doesn’t go into detail, but to me that’s a perfectly normal think for a kid to WANT to do. If they can afford to. Just ask all those who flock to the local go-kart track here in Logan.
They’re not arriving at the front door under lock and key. They love it. And I bet our Australian hero loved it too.
He continues: “Spending hours at the track. It was pretty lonely.”
Later in the commercial he says he wasn’t going to let “that” stop him. What? The loneliness? Or the enjoyment?
Optus must have looked far and wide – with deep pockets – to find people who defied adversity to achieve what they did.
The indigenous violinist was a great one, overcoming numerous roadblocks to perform in front of mass audiences.
Ash Barty was another Optus win, fighting through bouts of anxiety and depression to become best in the world. Yes, Ash, yes.
But the best our friend Daniel could come up with was loneliness, while doing something a stack of little boys and girls can only dream of – spending hours on track.
If that’s his gripe in life, I’ve no doubt why three teams have so far given him the flick.
He’s now a reserve driver, making more than most of us could dream of. But he was only ever world number 3.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s good. But he’s no Lewis Hamilton, if you know what I mean. I bet even Lewis, with that massive rock star chip on his shoulder, could at least appreciate the privilege he was given as a child to drive go-karts for hours on end.
His parents probably built him a go-kart. Out of wood. Then maybe bought him one with a motor. Until they helped him get a sponsor, at which point he worked himself to the bone doing what he loved – with a passion to be the best there is.
Go you good thing, Lewis.
But lonely? Please.
Hey Wanda, where’s my heartburn pills?
