Page 46 of Plaidypus
Fairy bread took the next spot as a food I wanted to avoid, although according to Lucifer’s notes, I should give it a try, as it might surprise me. Having tried Vegemite on several occasions, I would go out of my way to stop in a store for some, and all TimTams to cross my path would be at high risk of ending up in my belly.
I took a few minutes to review the odd ways Australians named otherwise normal food before reviewing Lucifer’s list of slang and pranks Aussies enjoyed pulling on unsuspecting tourists.
I’d already been educated regarding the mythical drop bears. Budgie smugglers made another appearance along with thongs, which featured another complaint from the Devil regarding the population’s insistence they wore lingerie on their feet.
Their choice to sometimes call thongs sex pants amused me, and I pitied any Australian man who attempted to join me in bed. No matter what happened, there were sex pants in my future, and all future attempts at intimacy would be destined to end in hilarity. To give some Australians credit, they also called thongs g-strings, something I could readily accept, as the term saw plenty of use in the US and Canada as well. But sex pants?
Sex pants might be the reason I perished before enjoying an evening with a man, Australian or otherwise.
Other slang, including fart slicer and banga, might be the reason I never got laid again—or died from laughter.
One thing became a certainty: I would never be able to take a man seriously if he called my underwear a fart slicer, eliminating an entire population of men from my eligible pool of bachelors due to slang.
As it was, if a man attempted to show off his physique and prowess to me while wearing a budgie smuggler, I ran a high risk of expiration due to attempting to contain my laughter. No matter how the conversation panned out, it wouldn’t end well.
I wondered if the little budgies available in most pet stores in Canada were the same as Australian budgies and why anyone would smuggle the poor birds when they were readily available overseas and could be bred in captivity with ease.
Several hours later, armed with my list of things not to do, which included pet most of the local wildlife, I saddled and bridled Icy before leading her away from the beach in search of food. Maybe Australian slang would reduce me to tears of mirth in the bedroom, but I gave the locals credit where credit was due. With bars and restaurants aplenty, I ran no risk of going hungry, assuming the various packet of cards the Devil had left for me actually worked.
To save myself the humiliation if the cards didn’t work, I picked a takeout place dedicated to all things barbecue, relying on the pictures of rather normal fare with odd names to get me through my first culinary adventure in the country. As we had a variant of a meat pie in Canada, I ordered two along with a variety of sides, including a mouth-watering potato salad topped with green onion.
The dessert options confused me, but in the name of curiosity, I decided to get two small neenish tarts, one for me and Icy. Then, realizing I had no idea how much a carnivorous moose needed to eat, I ordered some chicken and fries to round out my act of gluttony.
Either Australians ate a lot or the guy at the register was used to tiny women eating enough for at least three, as he didn’t even blink before informing me of my total.
In my neck of the woods, mobile pay wasn’t used, but Australia had embraced contactless pay. To my relief, he didn’t blink an eye when I held out my card. He popped it into the machine, hit a few buttons on his end, and gave me the terminal to process the transaction.
I plugged in the pin the Devil told me would work on all cards, and after a moment, the machine beeped, informed me of the successful transaction, and instructed me to return the device to the cashier. Rather than dance in the restaurant like some fool, I waited the ten minutes for them to put together my order before fleeing back to Icy, who waited outside with eternal patience.
It amused me how people moved around her without paying her an iota of attention.
To reward her for good behavior, I took out her neenish tart and offered it to her on my palm. After a tentative sniff, she accepted the treat, which disappeared in record time. As she licked every crumb off my hand, I decided I would order myself another tart later and gave her mine.
There would be time enough for me to try one.
As the beach had picnic tables, I returned to where I’d started my adventure, sat down, and went to work feeding myself. I gave Australia full points for its potato salad game. While different from what I was accustomed to, I foresaw eating a lot of meat pies while in the country. The fries, which I had served with chicken salt, threw me for a delicious loop.
I had no idea what chicken salt was or how it was made, but I would be taking a jar home with along with a bag filled with all the chocolate Australia had to offer.
Once I ate my fill, I gave the rest to Icy, who accepted everything with all signs of general enjoyment. I retained ownership of all my fingers, and she licked my hands clean once I ran out of food. To keep her from trying to eat me, I gave her the pettings she was rightfully owed. Once convinced I was in my moose’s good graces, I dug through her saddlebags until I located a comb similar to what I’d seen used on a horse but with longer bristles. After stripping off her gear, I rewarded her with a brushing. At the same time, I checked for any evidence of the crash that had taken her life.
In the time since leaving Canada, Icy had fully healed. Did she remain a zombie? Could zombies heal? Hell, could zombies breed? As I wasn’t up for yet another close encounter with the Devil, I did my best to ignore the multitude of questions rattling around in my head, all of which he could answer.
Instead, I made use of my new phone and decided to check how far I’d have to travel if I wanted to throw the Geese of the Apocalypse at Mr. Turner, the ultimate form of revenge for daring to strike a deal with a devil to have me kidnapped and carted to a different country to become his mate. Or the mate of one of his goonies. As I had zero intention of mating with the Australian platypuses in need of some severe correction, I decided it didn’t matter. I would throw the Geese of the Apocalypse at them and delight in my act of true evil before spending the rest of my life trying to be good to make up for unleashing so many geese, formerly residents of hell, onto the world.
According to the map, I faced a 4,300 kilometer journey to Mr. Turner’s primary residence. I tapped to translate the distance into miles out of curiosity, determining 2,600 miles seemed more reasonable than 4,300 kilometers despite the numbers meaning the same thing.
The shortest route would take me through South Australia and New South Wales. Upon some experimentation, I determined the scenic route, which cut north through South Australia into the Northern Territory and Queensland, would extend my trip by over a thousand kilometers. If I wanted to take a southernly route along the coast before cutting northward, I would extend the trip an additional thousand kilometers.
Oof. I opted against over six thousand kilometers of travel, where I spent most of it riding a moose and doing my best to avoid contact with other humans.
Even with the Devil’s Guide to Australia, I wanted to avoid testing my luck.
“What do you think, Icy?” I showed her the sensible, shortest route to my destination. “Should I go for short, sweet, and to the point?” As the moose needed a chance to see the other option, I showed it to her, too. “This route’s longer, not so sweet, definitely not to the point, but could be fun.”
Icy regarded my phone with one ear flicked back, and when I flipped between the two so she could examine them, she finally pointed her nose at the longer route.
All righty, then. If Icy wanted the scenic route, we’d take the scenic route. “The scenic route it is.” I set the route in my phone. “If you change your mind, we have at least a thousand kilometers to ride before we hit where the routes split. Tonight, we’ll get a hotel somewhere. Don’t ask me how I’m going to sneak you into my hotel room, but I expect we’ll have to take the stairs or hope Australian elevators are as strong as their stomachs. To eat frogs in a pond, they’d have to have stomachs of steel as far as I’m concerned.”
