This is where we live: Channel 5

Me and the Bush Man were in Oz. Well, that's what they call it. Seems to me that if they were to shorten it and slang it up, and they do shorten and slang up everything, it would be Aus. Me? I just called it Australia.

We had pulled into Wollongong. I'm not sure how you even find a Wollongong, but there we were. Decided that this would be as good a time as any to rent, or as is the local term, hire a car. So we hopped in a taxi and had him drive us to rent a car. Thus we ended up at Hertz. Our goal: To head inland from the coast, stopping in all of the small towns and getting a feel for the "real" Australia.

Well right off the bat our plan has flaws. For starters, as we were to find out, the Australians, real, unreal or otherwise, all live on the coast. 15 minutes inland from the coast of what turns out to be one honking big island, you are communing with a whole bunch o' nothing. Trees and brush. And birds who all fly at windshield level. (A sample conversation from a later trip that also included a hired car: "Dang! Have you ever noticed just how big the Aussie sky is, Genevieve?" "Yes, Ed. It's quite huge." "So... how come your birds only use the bottom 5 feet of it?")

While this is yet another story for yet another time, the day before this story takes place I had a) run my car into a vetenarian's office building, and b) had a freakishly large bird fly into my window, scaring the beejeesus out of me and leaving quite the conversation starting mark.

We had driven long and far, finding precious few people or towns and nothing of particular noteworthiness. And we hadn't seen any kangaroos. They were supposed to be everywhere and we had not seen any. We drove and we drove and then, there in the middle of nowhere, was a sign announcing that we were approaching Canberra, the sister city of some city in Japan that we had never heard of. And right after we stopped, and for some reason photographed the sign, we saw our first 'roo. Now, this particular kangaroo was of the species roadus killus, but still it was a real kangaroo.

We are nothing, me and Bushie, if not brainiacs. So we looked at the dead kangaroo. Then we looked at each other. And then we smiled.

We pulled the car slowly off the road and towards the kanga-carcass, positioning it to where the part of the front end of the car that took the brunt of the vetenarian building kiss off was positioned right at the dead animal. Then I had Bush hop out with the camera. I pulled myself up and half out of the driver's window, afixed a look of faux horror on my face, and we took a photo that appeared to be me reacting in horror to kersplatting an innocent marsupial. Then me and Bush Man traded places and he got his picture taken, too. We later showed it around the ship and told a story that became more embelllished with time. (Screw 'em. If they want their own good stories they can venture out of the bars every once in a while.)

What we noticed at the time was the local drivers giving us unapproving looks. Not sure if it was because of the dead kangaroo or our victory photographs. Or, for that matter, that they were just unapproving people. I don't know. What we noticed after developing the photographs was the buildng we had pulled in front of. We hadn't noticed it before, our focus being on the road kill before us at the time. But we were in front of the Channel 5 building. And in each of our pictures, as if for captioning, was their sign stating: THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE.

Anyway, we got home to Yokosuka a few months later and were showing the Bush Man's girlfriend Junko (the one who taught him to talk like a schoolgirl) the pictures. We came to the one where we had apparently put the smack down on the kangaroo and proceeded to traumatize her with it. Not just from seeing it, although she did let out a small gasp. But from what happened next.

Junko: What is this? How this happen?
Ramblin' Ed: We did it for you.
J: For me? What do you mean?
R'E: You told Bush that you wanted a picture of a kangaroo, right?
J: Yes.
R'E: Well, we tried and we tried but they would not be still. So we finally ran one down to get a good picture for you. Yes, this one died for your picture. But look, it's a good picture. Look how cute he is... um, was.
J: Arrrgggh! OH NO! I DID NOT MEAN TO DO THAT!! NO! (You need to realize that on the whole, the Japanese pretty much take everything you say at face value, hence her horrified reaction.)

Final note. The first three kangaroos we saw were all road kill. It seemed to take forever to see a live one. But we still couldn't really get any pictures of them because they very quickly ran very far away. All of our pictures of live kangaroos in the wild appear as dots on the horizon.

I see, said the blind man, out
Ramblin' Ed