Australia: Still disappointing after all these years

The land Down Under sure is a drag...

(January 11th, 2008 / 4 comments)

My relationship with Australia began as disappointments often do - the purchase of a VHS tape. We didn't own many movies back then and our television only got one channel. So when my mom brought home Disney's Rescuers Down Under, we literally played it thin.

I was especially taken with the movie's glorious depiction of the Australian environment. I watched as the young, khaki-clad Cody scampered through red desserts and sweeping plains, hopped nimbly through lush rainforests, scrambled up awe-inspiringly sheer cliffs and water-skied fearlessly from the top of thundering waterfalls - all the while surrounded by a host of friendly, exotic creatures who understood and spoke English in delightfully charming accents. "Oh, yeah. I am so going there" I thought to myself.

And so a lifetime of crushed hopes had begun

The next trip to the local library found me on a mission to discover all there was to know about Australia. My first disappointment with the land Down Under came when I discovered via a world atlas that the many spectacular geographical fixtures featured in the movie were not nearly as close together as Disney would have its innocent viewers believe.

No, they were hundreds of miles from each other and unless little Cody was some kind of speed-snorting mutant time-traveller, I don't think he could have run from Mugwomp Flats to Ayers Rock and still made it "home for supper." I was beginning to doubt Disney's dedication to credibility, but no matter - I pressed on!

I read and researched and read some more, taking time out of my studies to watch the worn-out video tape at least twice a week. I became intimate with Captain James Cook's feathered hat and the Aborigine people's dangling scrotums. I wanted to know everything.

I'm going Down Under!

My frenzy culminated when my mom noticed a sweepstakes promotion on a box of Lipton tea bags. The grand prize was an all-expense-paid trip for two to Australia. To enter, all you had to do was send in an index card with your information. You could enter once a day. I peed myself.

Each night I would fill out an index card and set it aside. I would then lie awake all night trying to decide if I should take my mom or my dad with me and praying to God that he do the right thing and pick me. In the morning, I would read over my submission, making sure everything was legible and correctly spelled before stamping it and carrying it carefully to the mail box. This went on every day for weeks. I was guaranteed success, if only through the sheer number of submissions I was sending.

But Australia had other plans and the contest deadline came and went with no phone call or letter or congratulations notice.

The price of tea in Australia? My fragile, childlike soul

I don't remember the weeks immediately following those events. I can only assume that I've blocked them as a defense mechanism. What I do know is that my beliefs in God and man were shaken to their core and it took years for me to drink Lipton again.

The maps and posters on my wall mocked me relentlessly with their scenes of Outback tom-foolery until I tore them all down and dumped them into the trash. The "Aussie For Life" tattoo on my left buttock became infected and swollen when I tried to remove it with a pocket knife. I was gutted.

Still sucking, huh?

It's been almost twenty years since that contest, and despite all of the pain and suffering I went through, I've still managed to hold some bit of reverence in my heart for the land I had loved so much. That is until a week ago when I looked at photos from a friend's trip to Australia. What I saw was nothing short of a drag - boring cosmopolitan cities, quaint little towns, eight-lane highways and a stupid number of cows. No exotic wildlife. No breathtaking panoramas. What I saw was just another world depressingly similar to my own.

Lame, Australia. Really lame.

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