55 Bent St, Moonee Ponds, VIC, Australia

The Bent St side.

This abandoned shop just doesn't make sense. Diagonally opposite it is Moonee Ponds Central School. You know, a place full of children who, every weekday at 3pm for most of the year, pour out of the grounds with pocket money and spare change stolen from their parents. They are eager to spend it on products to turn them into diabetic dugongs. Their fiscal knowledge is not very sharp, so they are happy to slap down whatever overpriced sum is asked; as long as they can come across the cash somehow, they will spend it. Hence most schools have dairies/milkbars/corner shops (pick your vernacular of choice!) opposite. Kids are total cash cows.

The Fanny St side.  Tee hee.

So how the hell is it that this place is not only closed, but totally derelict and crumbling? The ye olde timese ads and the yellowed newspaper clippings covering the door window indicate it has been this way for a long time. How has nobody struck upon the profits to be had here? How did somebody go out of business in the first place? The traditional suburban dairy may be a dying breed, except near schools. They've perished from outer suburbs where people now just hop in the car to get their weekly groceries, they've perished from small towns where people now drive ten minutes to the big smoke for their weekly groceries, and they've perished from inner suburbs where big supermarkets are within walking distance for most people. But outside schools?

Kids aren't thinking ahead to the supermarket ten minutes away (plus that's too far to walk for today's child), nor do they really care if the bag of chips they want costs 50% more at the dairy. They're done with their hard day's work of the 9 times table, not paying attention to how to use apostrophes, and harassing the kid who actually likes going to the library. They need some sugar to keep them going long enough to play the latest Nintendo/Playstation/Madasfuckconsole game and they need it NOW. 

What's going on here.

Rating: Condemnable

PS Feel free to also puzzle over the tea ad on the Bent St side.  Why does it use American spelling when it is trying to sell to Australians a drink the Americans generally cannot make?  Perhaps this is the biggest mystery here!