by Jenny Lawson
“I dunno. I’ve never had human chlamydia,” she replied.
Laura can be a real braggart sometimes.
The more I considered it, the more I realized how much I have in common with these koalas. We’re both immunocompromised, lightly diseased, exhausted, and full of toxins. I’m totally a koala.
“I’m more of a kangaroo,” Laura replied after a moment of thought. “I’m laid-back until you push me a bit too far and then I’ll split your stomach open and walk away while you bleed to death.”
“And that’s why I keep on your good side,” I said. “I’m also a Hufflepuff because I’m lactose intolerant and I get distracted by birds.”
Laura didn’t respond, but in her defense, it was a lot to take in.
My hopes of smuggling a live koala out of the country were significantly dampened though when it took the koala wranglers two weeks just to approve my koala costume because they were afraid that the fleecy costume would terrify and startle the koalas. It finally got approved, but then when we got to the Sydney zoo we were told that we were not on the list and were certainly not going to be holding any of their koalas. Possibly the koala costume threw them off. I explained that we’d specifically been told we could come here to snuggle koalas and that my outfit had been approved weeks in advance and they looked at me in a way that made me think that they’d called security. (I am way too familiar with that look.) We pulled out our paperwork and they sighed in relief when they told us that we’d come to the wrong place and that we wanted the Wild Life Sydney Zoo, which is not the same thing as the Sydney zoo.
“Just how many zoos do you people need?” I asked.
“They only recently started calling themselves a zoo, so it’s confusing to people,” the clerk explained. “Catch the bus back and ask the driver to take you to the aquarium.”
“Awesome,” Laura said. “We’re going to hold a bunch of aquatic koalas. I didn’t even know those existed.”
“They don’t exist,” replied the clerk.
“Great,” I replied. “Then we get to hold a bunch of drowned koalas. This isn’t quite the day I expected.”
Thirty minutes later we made it to the right spot and found that the zoo was part of an aquarium and wax museum conglomerate and was nice but fairly tiny compared to the zoo we’d just been thrown out of. We found our way to a koala enclosement. (Spell-check says “koala enclosement” isn’t a real thing and it wants me to change it to “koala enslavement.” Clearly spell-check feels very strongly about koalas in captivity. Victor says “enclosement” is not a real word, but I just put it in a book so it’s a real word now, Victor.)
I told the people working there that I was there to hold a koala and they looked at me as if I’d said I was there to hack the limbs off tiny babies. Turns out it’s been illegal to hold a koala in that particular part of Australia for years, but I wasn’t giving up because they’d already approved my costume so they must’ve known we were there to nuzzle koalas. They called management and found that I was actually only approved to wear the koala costume while staring at the koalas.
I tried to politely argue my way into holding them but they told me that even David Hasselhoff had only been allowed to stand near them and that’s when I gave up, because if the Hoff can’t love on a koala I sure as hell wasn’t going to get to. And I suppose they had good reason to be protective of their koalas since clearly someone had given a great number of them chlamydia. But then again if they’re all rampant with chlamydia already it’s not like they’re going to get more chlamydia. If anything they should be concerned about their koalas giving me chlamydia, but I was willing to take that chance because I really wanted to say I’d held a koala and also because I was pretty sure there were shots to cure chlamydia now. Surprisingly, this argument only baffled the koala keepers but they were very sweet and apologetic for the disappointment and did agree to let me go into the enclosure to photobomb a koala.
Not quite as romantic as I was hoping for, but at least the koala wasn’t overly panicked when he saw me. He looks terrified, doesn’t he? Answer: No, he doesn’t. Because he’s fucking asleep. I suspected they were all high on quaaludes and I was a little jealous. I probably could have drawn a Sharpie mustache on him and he still would’ve stayed in whatever crazy fever dream koalas have.
I think the lesson here is that you shouldn’t get your hopes up about holding koalas, but technically they smell weird and tons of them have chlamydia so maybe this was the universe’s way of saving me from myself. Or from chlamydia.
* * *
(Note: I have several friends who went to the parts of Australia where you can still hold a koala and they all said that it was sweet but that the koalas are very heavy and a bit stinkier than you’d expect. They suggested that if you really want to hold a koala but can’t, just get a furry pillowcase and fill it with lightly used cat litter. Or tie a bunch of sedated raccoons together. Or maybe hold a dead koala. I probably should have asked, “Do you have any koalas that are already dead from the shock of being cuddled? Because we’re fine with that. We’re not picky. Unlike these fucking koalas.” I’m sure that would’ve gone over well. Now that I think about it, it’s possible that the sleeping koalas at the enclosure weren’t even sleeping. They were probably taxidermied and they just hot-glued them to a branch. That’s probably why you can’t even pet them. Because hot glue melts in Australia because it’s broiling so often. And that’s why you can’t jostle dead koalas on trees. They’ll just fall right off the trees and then the jig is up.)
Goal Number 2: See the World’s Biggest Something
Australia has a love for big things, like the Big Prawn (thirty feet) or the Big Slurpee (thirty-six feet). I wanted to see the Big Banana (forty-three feet). Laura didn’t even know that there was such a thing but once she heard about it she wanted to go too. Unfortunately, we were in the wrong part of Australia for most of the Big Things, but we heard rumors on the Internet of a Big Potato, which would only take us a day to find. And so we rented a car so we could drive many, many hours so that we could see Australia’s Big Potato. Except it isn’t actually a potato. It’s a cement sculpture in the shape of a potato. It’s right by a gas station and when we asked locals where to find it they all said, “What? You mean the big turd?”
Apparently it’s lovingly(?) referred to as a big turd. A big turd potato.
A poturdo.
It was awesome. I’m not even being sarcastic about this. Just look at it.
(Courtesy of Laura Mayes)
It took the two of us working in tandem just to drive to the Poturdo because Australia is filled with roundabouts and everyone drives on the wrong side of the road. In the end we decided to split up the work and I feverishly watched the GPS and yelled, “Left! Right! ROUNDABOUT!” while Laura white-knuckledly followed my instructions and glared at people daring to easily drive on the wrong side of the road. Roundabouts presented the most difficulties. Instead of red lights and yield signs, everyone just drives in a circle until they find the place where they want out. I’m sure there have got to be some sort of rules to this but we didn’t know them and so we’d just drive in with our windows down, pointing and screaming, “WE’RE GOING THAT WAY SO PLEASE DON’T HIT US,” to the people in nearby cars. A pile of dogs could have driven better than us.
We never used our blinker properly because in Australia the knob you think is going to be your blinker is the knob that turns on the windshield wiper. So we had almost no driving skills and a windshield wiper that was constantly on for no reason at all. I bet rental places in Australia can probably tell when Americans have rented their cars because their windshield wipers always need to be replaced.
Additionally, everything is measured in klicks and meters and liters and neither Laura nor I knew how to convert metric to imperial so when the GPS would show that we needed to turn in two kilometers I’d say, “Be prepared to turn in two minutes or two hours. I don’t know which.” Laura looked at me with frustration but she never l
earned it either so she couldn’t say much.
“There’s too much math on this vacation,” I complained like a whiny American. “I’ve gone thirty-nine years without learning the metric system and I’m not gonna pussy out now. If I did it’d be like admitting to Ms. Johnson that I would have to use this one day.”
Laura nodded in agreement.
“Fuck it,” I said. “From now on I’m just going to measure everything in babies. Lengthwise. Everyone knows how long a baby is so it’s totally universal. The math people will probably be mad about having to convert everything though. This is probably how God felt when people stopped measuring arks in cubits.”
“Or measuring arks at all,” Laura replied.
We eventually drove into the bush, where we were expected to camp for the night. “This place is very bushy,” I said, using words to describe things.
“Super bushy,” Laura replied. “The bushiest.”
I felt sure Australia would be grateful they’d sent such wordsmiths on this trip.
When we arrived at the campsite we realized it was less “camping” and more “glamping,” or glamorous camping. The tent was already set up for us and there was an outdoor bathtub and mosquito nets. There was also a lodge nearby that offered fancy food, booze, hot tea, and plugs to recharge our stuff. We met up with Ben (whose name might actually be Ben—or it might be something else), whose family owned and operated the campground. He had dinner with us. It was avocado ice cream with popcorn and Tabasco-sauce soup. (“There’s a lotta weird shit happening all at once here.”—Laura on Australian cuisine. “What’s in my mouth?”—Me on the same thing.)
Ben told us about a costume party he’d been to last week where he’d dressed up as a vagina and the guy who was with him dressed up as tweezers to go with the vagina. It was then that I started to suspect that Ben didn’t know how vaginas work. Then he exclaimed, “No, wait, not a tweezer. That other thing. Um … a … a SPECULUM!” Then the other diners jumped a bit and stared at us. With jealousy I suspect.
Ben assured us that our fear of sleeping in the bush was unfounded. His exact words were “No worries, mates. She’ll be apples,” which is apparently Australian for “Calm your ass down.” I asked if there were any rhinos nearby and explained that everything I knew about the bush I learned from watching The Gods Must Be Crazy when I was in second grade. Then Ben pointed out that that movie was about the bush of Botswana, so basically everything I know about Australia is Botswana.
We explained that our fear of the bush was primarily of possums because they like to make wigs out of Laura’s hair. Ben hesitantly admitted that it might not all be apples because we were assigned to sleep in something named “Possum Tent,” but he did assure us that Australia’s possums were adorable and not the angry, giant-teethed, hissing menaces that we had in Texas.
Just in case you think I’m overreacting, this is an American possum on his best behavior. (Courtesy of Andrew Kantor)
“One caution though,” he said. “Absolutely no food in your tent because that will attract wild animals.”
“Yes.” I paused. “But Laura and I are made of meat.”
Ben assured us that we’d be fine and sweetly added, “Please don’t murder our possums. Ours are well behaved and won’t eat your face off.” Ben gave us what he called “a torch” but what we called a tiny keychain flashlight that seemed to have a short in it because it kept turning off as Laura and I walked through the dense bush, alone and shivering. Then we turned directly onto a path with A GIANT POSSUM IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. Laura was so scared she screamed out, “AMANDA!” which was weird because who the hell is Amanda? Later she said she just screamed out a nonsensical phrase made from pure fear and too many vowels but I suspect she has unresolved issues with this Amanda person. Either way, that’s when the flashlight went out and we were stuck in complete darkness with the sound of an animal scurrying either toward us or away from us. “PROTECT YOUR HAIR,” I yelled, and I considered covering her hair with my hands but I was afraid she might think my hands were possums and knife me. Laura’s awesome, but she’s a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to hair possums. But then the flashlight came back on and the possum was gone. I considered telling Laura it was probably just a ghost possum but I worried that might make her more freaked out.
We finally got to our tent, and we put on the kangaroo and koala costumes I’d packed because it was unexpectedly freezing and also because we thought if wild animals got in during the night they’d think we were one of them and wouldn’t eat us. I’m not ashamed to say that at one point we made Blair Witch–esque videos saying good-bye to our families in case we didn’t make it. I am ashamed to say that I tried to distract Laura with tales I’d heard the day before during a dolphin-watching trip. Sadly, all I’d really learned is that dolphins are super rapey. True story. I don’t know why anyone wants to swim with them. Spell-check is trying to cover it up by saying “rapey” isn’t a word, but it is. Male dolphins can go into murderous rages out of sexual frustration and will even gang-rape female dolphins at times. Laura looked at me like I’d gone insane and I realized I’d just been talking about scary Australian animals again, but I pointed out that it’s not as if a land dolphin was likely to come accost us in our tent. At least not this far inland. Probably.
“Please stop talking about rapey dolphins,” Laura said.
“Got it,” I replied, changing the subject to something lighter. “The dolphin tour also pointed out a private island that no one is allowed on because there are penguins there who need to be protected, according to scientists. Seems sort of suspect though … penguins in Australia that no one is allowed to see? I think the scientists are lying and just want their own private island. That’s probably how the Cullens got theirs.”
“Or, maybe just stop talking in general,” Laura suggested.
And so I did.
The next morning I chased a family of wild kangaroos toward Laura while she was taking a bath outside of our tent. I did this out of friendship. Sometimes you have to explain these things. Apparently.
Goal Number 3: Investigate If Australian Toilets Really Do Flush Backward
I totally tried this but all of the toilets in Australia are low flow so basically the water just disappears and then comes back. Sorry if you’re disappointed. I assure you, you are not alone. But in a way, that’s good because if toilets really flushed backward you’d get shot in the face with toilet water every time you flushed, like a violently angry bidet. Also, apparently Australia thought this goal was too ludicrous to take seriously and instead decided to send us to the outback to see more interesting things.
We were to be in the outback for several days, which seemed very wild and exciting until I actually read about the outback on the plane ride there and realized that it was basically just rocks and desert. It looks a lot like West Texas if West Texas went on for a billion miles and you took out all the beer barns and people and replaced them with deadly snakes that want to murder you.
The only real difference between West Texas and the outback is the pride Australians have in their rocks. And they should be proud. There are enormous rocks in Australia and we were on our way to see the second-largest one in the world, Uluru. I saw it as we flew over it toward the airport (which was built specifically to let people fly in and look at a big rock). I turned to Laura. “Hey … There’s that big rock.” I nodded toward the plane window.
Laura leaned over to see it. “Huh. That is a big rock.” She nodded somewhat impressedly, the same way you would if you saw a monkey do the Macarena on YouTube, and then she flipped desperately through our guidebook to see if there were any bars in the outback. “So now what do we do for the rest of our three days here?”
I shouldn’t have doubted Australia though, because when we looked closer at our itinerary we found that we’d be doing a lot in the outback. Like looking at other, almost-as-big-but-not-quite-as-big-as-Uluru rocks. Or eating while listening to the rocks. And walking around the ro
cks. And taking a sunrise tour of the rocks, and a separate sunset tour of the rocks. And buying pictures of the rocks.
We did not have high hopes for this leg of the journey.
I suspected we were being unfair though, because the guidebooks all said that Uluru was astounding and that the subtle light changes on the rock turned it into a whole new rock each time the sun moved. I assumed the people writing those guidebooks were on LSD, because I once said the exact same thing about biscuits when I was really high.
Turns out that the guidebooks were right. Uluru was pretty amazing. It’s the second-largest monolith in the world and I didn’t ask what a monolith is but my guess is that it’s Latin for “big-ass rock.” Our hiking guide drove us to Uluru from the resort, which was a small cluster of low-end-to-high-end hotels you could choose to stay in if you didn’t want to sleep outside and be gnawed on by dingoes. The dingo gnawing wasn’t specifically in the hotel brochures but I think it was implied. “No dingo nibbling here, probably. Running tap water on demand.” Something like that. The small airport, the resort, and some tents we never saw were about the only things for hours so there was no escape, but we found out that our medium-priced hotel was quite lovely and offered a full bar so we were fine. Also, the room we were in had an interesting carpet that was supposed to remind us of ancient red-bottomed creeks but instead the blood-colored stain running through the brown carpet looked a lot like a murder victim had been dragged across the room and thrown off the balcony. But in a pretty way.
Our guide was a very sweet and knowledgeable woman who was eager to share the cultural magic of Uluru, which is now owned by the Aboriginal people who originally owned it back before white people showed up and said, “You have no concept of ownership? Lovely! We own all of this now. But never mind that. How are you? Can we escort you somewhere else and treat you like shit for a while?” It’s a very long and sordid history that is only now beginning to be rectified (including giving Uluru back and paying the local indigenous people to let tours take place) but it basically boils down to the same principle around the world, which is that white people suck and should not be allowed to discover anything that’s already been discovered by the people who’ve lived there since the world began. On behalf of white people I’d like to offer an extremely late but completely sincere “I’m so very sorry for our being assholes. We’re learning. Also, I’ve heard a few stories about some of you guys eating some of us in Tasmania, but I can assure you there are no hard feelings. We’d probably eat us too if there was enough money in it.” I don’t have any pictures of the lovely Aboriginal people I met because they think it traps their spirit, and if they’re correct then Facebook is basically creating a living hell. Which is really not that surprising, now that I say it out loud.
