Lollypop

I must be in high dudgeon this morning (could be the result of some fruitless negotiating of the labyrinthine corridors of two government departments). The moment I saw today’s daily prompt “lollypop” I thought of those enormous “all day suckers” of my childhood. The double entendre does not escape me, nor does it with Stevie Wonder when he sings:

I’m an all day sucker
Coming to give something to get nothin’
I’m an all day sucker
Coming to give something but to get none of your love…

(Singalong if you are so inclined!)

Such melancholy thoughts are normally foreign to me. I love my work. I love my engagement with others. I love the healthy interchange of giving and receiving that is a constant part of my daily experience. I generally have an optimistic outlook.

I think I am reacting to an overarching idealistic zeitgeist to which western democracy seems to have succumbed. My recent encounters with the way public policy is being enacted at the coal-face have me in sympathy with those who claim the government is simply “playing us for suckers!”