"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb..."

Remember that iconic scene from the feature film version of the 1960s "Batman" TV series? Yeah, the same film that had the unforgettable exploding rubber shark, four arch villains teaming up as the United Underworld, and those poor ol' dehydrated world leaders?

At a crucial stage of the film, Batman ends up with a huge, cartoony, spherical bomb, its wick fizzing noisily - and everywhere our stoic superhero runs to attempt to dispose of it, he comes across a crowded pub, a young couple necking, a marching band, a group of nuns, a mother duck paddling with her young...

Well, I felt like that today (er, * looks at the time *, yesterday). I took a parcel into work, to be sent via the internal mail/courier to State Office. I thought I was being really clever by recycling the padded envelope, and by peeling off the label to reveal the original address underneath. As I suspected, the addressee I needed was already mentioned on the envelope, since she had already recycled the envelope to me in the first place!

I had no packing tape handy, but the school's clerical assistant organised for her offsider to tape it up for me, then it was ready for the mail bag. Or so we both assumed. A few minutes later, the parcel was back in my classroom, albeit beautifully taped up.

Now, the package didn't have boomerangs in it, just children's picture books I'd been reviewing, but I had a strange sense of deja vu. I raced the package back to the mail bag, worried it had been collected by the courier during the parcel's unanticipated return sojourn in my room. (Actually, I'd already missed the mail bag collection before I'd arrived at work.)

But, Murphy's Law and all that, needless to say that when I went into the staffroom at morning tea break, and attempted to check my pigeon hole for incoming mail, the parcel was there, too! Now the boss had delivered it to me. The pigeon hole was crammed full... of that damned parcel!

Sure, my name was on the back of the package, but as the sender. This parcel seemed determined to plague me. That'll learn me, as Foghorn Leghorn (or someone) used to say, for not finishing the final draft of my reviews before the official deadline. As Batman (Adam West) once said, "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb..." I'm actually terrified to go to my pigeon hole before the weekend rolls around. I just know that parcel's not giving up yet.


The above Battalion Australia photograph (from 1990) features Brett Harrison as Batman, Ian McLean as Robin, Steve Simpson as The Riddler, Christopher Sequeira as The Joker (soon to be recast by Heath Ledger if the Hollywood rumour mill is running true) and Jonathan Sequeira as Two-Face. Photo by the very talented Andrew Rankin, wherever he is these days.