Melbourne, Australia: Part 2 — Emasculation
Posted by SurlyZ on February 3rd, 2010
When the city has cows in trees, it's time to go to the country.
After a few days of getting settled and converting my human dollars to Australian dollars, I decided, “Fuck this. I’m outta here.” I needed to get out of the city. After all, I’m nothing if not a farm boy at heart. I grew up drinking cow milk, eating chicken nuggets, using lambskin prophylactics — as water balloons — and I have a farmer’s tan from years of staying fully clothed in tanning beds.
That’s how on my fourth day in Australia I ended up in a car, speeding to the edge of town and beyond with three lovely ladies. On any other day, this might have been a recipe for a Penthouse letter. But, alas, the women in the car were aroused neither by my repeated references to Penthouse nor the collection of back issues I brought along for the ride.
Four for the road
The cast of characters on this road trip included Aly the American, Miranda the Aussie driver and another chick who may be Aussie, may be Kiwi and is definitely not named Queenie. But I forgot her real name, so Queenie it is.
A TomTom GPS guided us into wine country, which I forgot to mention was the purpose of the excursion. The TomTom seemed to be working just fine when Miranda threw it out the window and backed over it again and again until it was returned to the Earth from whence it came. She then sped us down the scariest of narrow, curvy roads at breakneck speed, but at least we wouldn’t have time to scream before the inevitable head-on collision. Moments like that, plus sharks and a fear of flying, are why I taught my dog how to make funeral arrangements.
Me without a wine
Gelflings or Olsen twins
But we eventually made it to a winery. You know the movie The Dark Crystal with the evil, wrinkled Skeksis who wanted to drink the Gelflings’ life essence to regain their youth? No? Well, I was going to say that’s what I felt like when I took my first sip of wine after a harrowing car ride — my gray, wrinkled skin tightening and glowing with life — but now I don’t know how to convey my point to you.
Then it was on to the next winery. Except not really. Miranda stopped about 50 yards past the kangaroo roadkill (the only kangaroo I saw on my vacation, besides the one I ate) and informed us that she had a flat tire. Besides sharks, planes and women drivers, my next biggest fear is changing a tire. Not because I’m afraid I’ll get hurt (pain is an aphrodisiac — that’s why I only have seven toes, one kidney and god knows how many STDs), but because mechanical incompetence equals emasculation. And there was a stuck lug nut chuckling darkly, waiting to confiscate my manhood.
Why SurlyZ is not ManlyZ
We rolled another 10 kilometers or so and made it to the equivalent of an American town in the South where the sheriff pulls you over and busts your taillight so he can teach you a lesson about out-of-towners. As I rolled up my sleeves to reveal the rippling biceps common on a blog writer, I asked the ladies to go inside that there yonder convenience store and get me a bottle of water. It was the perfect ruse to give me a few minutes of audience-free work so they wouldn’t see the car fall off the jack or how my face came to look like a cartoon character who looked down the barrel of a loaded shotgun.
But they didn’t take the bait. “There’s water in the car,” they said in unison. So I cursed their resourcefulness and returned to the task at hand. And I was doing great… until… I got to that scheming, scamming lug nut. It wouldn’t budge. But at least I wore down its corners so the lug wrench couldn’t get a grip. In a flash of temper, I busted out the windshield of that car and every car in the parking lot — in my mind. Then a true-blue auto mechanic appeared, and I didn’t even care that his heroics were probably going to impress the ladies and earn him that orgy I couldn’t seem to organize (orgynize?).
HOWEVER!!!! The Australian Cooter confirmed that the sinister lug nut was on too tight in the first place. I glanced at the women and saw them changing their minds about me. “We’re not changing our minds about you,” said Aly. Miranda and “Queenie” concurred all too quickly.
Starring Ben Jones as Cooter
Cooter said he’d probably have to saw off the bolt in order to remove the wheel. Thinking that we might be stranded overnight, I was about to give my speech about the best way to keep warm on a cold night when, eureka and hooray, the lug nut came loose on Cooter’s final attempt, reducing me to a eunuch in the eyes of all women within sexing distance.
Moving on… I finished changing the tire, and we got back on the road. I assumed that, with no more spare tires to, um, spare and one bullet dodged, we would be cutting our losses and heading home. But the girls thought we had one or two more wineries in us. Those wineries right over there. On the other side of that field littered with nails, broken glass, rusted cars and the sun-bleached bones of American tourists.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Just the thousand-cat attack. And the Great Wine Theft of 2010. Oh, and the car chase (as promised in Part 1). And an orgy… of memories.
Lesson learned
Q. What does any of this have to do with the economy?
A. Shut up.
Coming soon: Part 3 — Cuisine and Slang
Tags: Australia, Cooter, Dukes of Hazzard, flat tire, Gelflings, sexless, sissy, Skeksis, The Dark Crystal, TomTom, wine, winery
In looking back, my ghost writer didn’t mention the car chase in Part 1. And now I can’t reach him. If you’re reading this, pick up the phone, Salinger!
BUT WHERE ARE THE SHRIMPS?!? AND THE BARBIES?!?!
I quit playing with Barbies when I was 28.
“Dark Crystal” references are the marks of a truly gifted writer. Cheers to you sir.
[...] Australia, and immediately was asked to surrender his logic and money. Shortly after that, in a Pulitzer-worthy tale, he was robbed at gunpoint of his dignity, manhood and Dukes of Hazzard [...]