What is it that makes something silly stick in people's minds and leave a mark on contemporary culture? How is it that phrases like ‘Bis-serjeta?' take on a life of their own and somehow become part of everyone's vocabulary?
‘Bis-serjeta!' has caught on like wild fire. It is now used in so many contexts, in both English and Maltese, by so many different people from different walks of life. It tends to drive me up the wall when it is used to interrupt a heated argument, but as much as I hate it, sometimes I cannot for the life of me find a better expression to describe my frustration.
Earlier this year I (once again) found an anonymous note in my letter box. Unlike the last time, this scribbling did not warn me about the unforgiveable sin of having a double-barrelled-non-hyphenated surname on my letter box (see original letter here - http://www.alisonbezzina.com/catholic-coward-letter/). No! This time, another coward, ‘warned me' in very crude Maltese, to keep the noise down during the night ‘ghax l-istorbju li qed taghmlu tal-misthija!'
Since I'm hardly ever home in the first place, hadn't had friends over for ages, and was pretty sure that there were no soprano voices emanating from my bedroom, I was quite puzzled about the whole thing. I wondered what the issue was really all about and I even suspected that the note had been left in the wrong letter box. But since the coward did not sign the note, I did not know whom to ask for clarification.
Of course, I knew about ‘The Usual Suspect' from the block next door who had previously complained about the sound of an air-conditioning on MY roof (two storeys above his head), and the sound of my TV when all the windows were closed shut. But, as suspicious as I was of him, I could not be 100% sure.
As with most cowards however, bringing him out of his hiding-hole was easy enough. I bought a pair of earplugs (aka the cheese) and put them in his letter box (aka the trap). I did this without leaving a note or a name, so unless he was the one who left the note in my letter box, he would have had no idea what the earplugs meant (aka the trick).
Lo and behold, a day later I received a phone call from a very amused policewoman, asking me to go down to the police station ‘for a chat', (aka the rat had eaten the cheese, got caught in the trap, went running to the teacher to tell on me, and provided a whole police station with some authentic entertainment).
To cut a long story short, between suppressed laughter and tear-jerking effort, a policeman managed to inform me that a neighbour had made an official complaint about a washing machine that had been left on after 10pm (storbju tal-mistjiha), and subsequently about some anonymous earplugs that were left in his letter box!
Although they could not admit it, the police also saw the ridiculousness of this matter, but it seems that they are obliged to follow up on such silly stuff.
Seriously! I feel sorry for the whole police force. They have to deal with all these petty complaints when there are some serious crimes going on out there. Imagine, in 2009 alone, the police had to deal with 1078 complaints about anonymous callers, and 95 complaints about anonymous letters.
And they do all this whilst still taking care of what really matters, like those decadent skinny dippers, those corrupt French students who head butt our poor Maltese kids, and even those foul writers and artists who dare use vulgar words in their scripts.
With all this to handle, I'm surprised that our police men and women still find time to keep so fit and the fat around their stomachs at bay!
Seriously!