Sunrise’s Sam Armytage asks Australians to be a little more tolerant

Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage reveals how two recent run-ins with angry strangers - one over an incident involving dog poo - have prompted her to plead for a little more tolerance from everyone.

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I want to tell you about two experiences I had this week while navigating the city I live in. A trip across the Serengeti may have been safer.

Firstly, I was driving my sick parents to hospital for check-ups. It’s a thing my family does in plural at the moment, because on top of the general stress of COVID, I’ve had one parent go down with a stroke and the other with heart failure. So, the hospital and I have become best friends. But I digress.

We were driving along, minding our own business in the centre lane of traffic, when a bloke pulled out of a side street. Really fast. He swung dangerously into my lane, almost T-boning us.

“You don’t survive a career in TV and an all-girls boarding school and be faint of heart.” (Picture: Daniel Nadel)

I’m not ashamed to tell you, he gave me a fright. And he terrified my country-parent passengers. So, yes, I beeped him, and yes, he bloody deserved it.

Now, I can hold my own. You don’t survive a career in TV and an all-girls boarding school and be faint of heart. But the abuse this guy dished out to me at the traffic lights would have made a sheepdog blush.

There were some words in there even I hadn’t heard, and I pride myself on my potty mouth. And it was TOTALLY HIS FAULT. It was full-on, even by Sydney-traffic standards.

I dropped off my shaken parents and proceeded to drive on to a local park to take the dog for a walk. I won’t go into too much detail about Banjo’s bowel movements that day, but let’s just say we had a two-poo situation and I only had one bag.

So, at the point of the second turd, I stopped and waited patiently (as any good parent would) for another lovely, kind dog owner to walk past with a spare plastic bag. It’s called karma and I’m a big believer in it.

“We’re tired and stressed and chaotic. We’re fearful and angry and annoyed.” (Picture: Steven Chee)

Well, old mate from the traffic must have had a twin brother walking in the park. Because another abusive fellow walked past and started shouting some more four-letter words at me about picking up the poo. It was ridiculous, unnecessary and just plain dickery.

At this stage I considered picking up the poo in my bare hands and pegging it at that idiot. But this wasn’t the Serengeti, even though people were behaving like animals, so I ignored him.

I know this whole coronavirus thing has us feeling unpredictable and lawless. We’re sick of being locked-down and locked-up. And we’re annoyed we can’t hug each other or dance at a wedding. I know we’re all over-governed and under-paid. And we have way too many people in the cities and far too few lanes of traffic.

We’re over-stimulated. Our phones are constantly beeping and social media is making us all anxious. We’re tired and stressed and chaotic. We’re fearful and angry and annoyed.

Samantha Armytage features in this Sunday’s Stellar.

Particularly about dog poo. But I think it’s really important we don’t become dicks.

We’ve all been socially isolated for so long; it could just happen.

So be a bit tolerant. And just try really, really hard not to be a dick.

And to the lovely woman who walked past with her terrier and a spare poo bag about two minutes after the frothing fool at the dog park... thank you for not being a dick.

Samantha co-hosts Sunrise, 5.30am weekdays, on the Seven Network.