A shopping incident on Monday.

So I'm in Coles on Monday, standing near one of the stalls in the bakery, and unbeknownst to me, another customer (who I didn't even hear or see) notices me put something in one of my pockets and that alerts their suspicion. Then about five minutes later I've moved on to one of the aisles and the manager suddenly appears. I think he's just there to ask me if I need help finding something but I get a completely different line of questioning, about what's in my pockets. I tell him "Just my phone, wallet and car and house keys." That's when I learn this other customer reported me to him. He quickly seems to believe that I hadn't even tried to steal anything (the item I was seen putting in my pocket was my phone, after I'd pulled it out to check it) and to sense just how anxious I am now and so he apologises to me and lets me go, which I thank him for with great sincerity and relief. I then stay in the store for about ten minutes before I quietly leave.

Firstly, I should emphasise I was not, and am not, angry at all with the manager (who presumably had a lot on his plate already); he was just doing his job. Nor am I saying the customer was wrong to consult him about this. I just really resented them not first approaching me personally about it, and here's why. I can understand they might've been afraid of the consequences or overstepping their place as they had no authority there, but when I'm confronted secondhand about something, it makes me feel like I'm some unapproachable psycho. Had I been the witness, I would've slowly approached them and enquired, as impartially as possible, what they'd just put in my pocket, then apologised for prying and, whatever their answer was, then told an employee about it.

I'm really trying to empathise with them but I just can't quite shake how judged and exposed I subsequently felt; I was also angry and very confused. Now, I don't know if the other customer was suspicious of my actions because I'm 6'4 and autistic (because my condition can also affect my body language and posture), although if that was the case I guess I can and should give them the benefit of the doubt. And perhaps I should've been more careful with my phone. But despite being exonerated and very much appreciating that outcome, this incident made a supermarket visit unusually troubling for me.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #313: Frog Dreaming (1986).

 

Henry Thomas (yes, the one who befriended E.T.) is Cody, an orphaned American boy living in the Australian Outback with his carer Gaza (Tony Barry). When he's not riding his railbike left, right and centre, the inventive Cody builds things in his garage. One day he learns of a local Aboriginal myth called "frog's dreaming" which is believed to be behind several strange occurrences at the fictional Devil's Knob national park where he lives. That's when Cody recruits his friends, primarily the girl he fancies, Wendy (Rachel Friend) to go on a trek to investigate everything.

Yes, sir. It's The Goonies but in the Outback with a (mostly) local cast. Everything about Frog Dreaming is painfully dated and stagnant even down to the visual effects. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith, who replaced Russell Hagg, brings no zest or humour to his interpretation of Everett De Roche's shamelessly derivative screenplay (although, in fairness, it may have given Trenchard-Smith no room to do so), which tops its genre conventions off with a portrayal of the indigenous Kurdaitcha Man archetype that thankfully would never be considered appropriate today, and has Cody frequently riding his bicycle just like Elliott much more famously did.

Thomas has virtually nothing new to do in a very thin role, Friend is wasted and almost immediately relegated to the token love interest status, and all the adult cast members look totally bored and indifferent (much like I increasingly was while watching it, funnily enough). And then come the deeply hokey effects when we learn what's behind the local disturbances. It's ironic, and unintentionally apt, how Frog Dreaming contains the word "dreaming" in its title, because it almost put in the state of dreaming. 4/10.