When we’re not frolicking on it like radioactive spring lambs, our beloved Paddock is actually a very full dinner plate for our woolly ovine friends who also call the Paddock home. Whatever we leave behind on their carpet/salad is something they might unwittingly ingest. A beer cap in a sheep’s stomach? That is definitely Matter Out Of Place (MOOP). None of us wants to be the cause of that.
There are no trash bins at Kiwiburn. Nobody is getting paid to pick up your rubbish. Your mother isn’t at Kiwiburn either. Well, she might be – is she the bodypainted one with the viking hat and the riding crop that hurts just right? Either way, you’re too cool and sexy and radically self-reliant to let anyone pick up after you anymore, right?
That’s why you pocket your MOOP on the go like a self-contained unit, so you can put that matter in its place later, leaving no trace. That’s hot. When I do it, it makes me wet – although that might be because that crushed beer can wasn’t quite empty. Did I just see you pocket some random MOOP even though you weren’t responsible for it being out of place? You little hottie. Just like that, baby, don’t stop. We’re in this together – it’s not somebody else‘s MOOP – it’s our MOOP, and we love it when you touch us there.
It is a (too) little known fact that after we depart the Paddock for the default world, a dedicated group of volunteer burners – the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) – perform the most tedious line dance ever. Like a chorus line of zombies, they shuffle across the paddock and pick up every last chunk of detritus they find. In structural burn areas, a magnetic roller is used to pick up the nails and screws so they don’t give any sheep a pierced tongue. All of this takes time. And most of us are already back to moaning about our jobs while they’re still picking up MOOP that surely was not caused by you. Surely not.
MPW do this not because they’re your mother, and not because they’re getting paid (they’re not), but because they’re dedicated to us leaving no trace. They do it because anything less could jeopardise the amazing privilege we’re given when we promise to leave the Paddock as if we had never been there. We get trusted with acres of paddock and forest and river in which to get our collective freak on – that’s an enormous amount of trust.
Did we leave no trace? Do we deserve this enormous privilege? Put away your toys, pick up your MOOP, brush your teeth and get ready for bed. Then we’ll talk about what you deserve. If you’ve been a tidy burner, that just might involve a viking hat and a riding crop.
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