Ode to the Spanner Girl

I saw her every day. We had a thing going on. For the past couple of months. We tried to keep it secret. In the end, that didn't even matter.

Every morning coming home from work, there she was - in that hodge-podge of billboards at the corner of Wortley and Stanley Street. She stood out from all the other outdoor advertisements. All it said beneath her was 'Spanner.' I didn't know what Spanner even was. Was it a store? What were they selling? Clothes, hair-products, make-up? Nope. All they were selling was Attitude.

And the Spanner Girl had it in spades. With that haughty expression on her face and those sad but intelligent eyes, you could tell that she was a 'Don't-give-a-shit' kind of girl. The kind that makes you want her all the more.

I'd get home, park the car and tell Mavis that I was taking the dog for a walk. And I did. But we always ended up at the same place. Standing in one spot and staring up at the Spanner Girl in all her Earthwear Fall-Girl splendour.

My problem, of course, was that she wasn't real. She was a billboard. It's not like we could bump into each other on a dog walk and then go for coffee. She was mounted on a pedestal 15 feet off the ground on a slab of plywood 40-feet by 18-feet. I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Size apparently does matter. It's not like she was a page in 'Vogue' that I could tear out and take into the bathroom.

So I had to worship her from afar. From on the ground. I even wrote a poem to her.

'Ode to the Spanner Girl,' I call it.

And it goes a little something like this -

"O Spanner Girl,
Up there on your billboard throne.
You look so serious.
Or are you sad? Are you glum?
Or are you down as you look down at us mere mortals from your Mount Olympus perch?

Are you in prison up there?
Is it awful? Is it like Rapunzel awful?
If only you could let down your hair,
I could be a passing brave knight, climb your tresses
And save you.
But how would we get down?
Anyway, I can't. Not with your hair cut into that fashionable bob.

O Spanner Girl,
Just say the word
And I shall spring like a trout from a stream and rescue you.
I will if you want me to.
But where would we go for lunch?"


I never got to recite it to her.

She never heard my declaration of love.

Last Saturday morning on our early morning dog walk, Jane and I found her. On the ground. Broken. Lifeless. Bloodless.

Some Halloween hooligans or downtown neer'do'wells or teenagers letting off steam destroyed her. Ripped her down from her lofty perch and tore her to pieces.

Look. Look for yourself. It's all documented in the photos at the top of this post. See?! See what they have done to my Spanner Girl - left her in the dirt and leaves on a cold fall morning all ripped up and scattered about.

... You know, I don't care if a person doesn't agree with what the Spanner Girl represents. Maybe they're just jealous. Maybe they can't afford nice fall earthwear clothing. But regardless, if you don't agree with someone's ideas or philosophy, you criticize those ideals. This is a democracy after all. But - YOU DO NOT ATTACK THE PERSON. We are supposed to be living in a civilized society, people.

It's one thing to disagree with the Spanner Girl and her 'life-style.' You may not agree with it. Fine.

But to attack an innocent billboard image, one which has never done a bit of harm to anyone - and in fact has only brought joy to myself - and probably many others, is ... well, let's just call it a sad commentary on today's 'modern' world.

Goodbye O Spanner Girl. May we meet again in another place, another time. Or in one of the new Spanner's Christmas billboards.