22 Nov 2006
Three Indians Walk Into A Car…….
28th July 2006.
I was walking to my car yesterday arvo after work, had just crossed the road to where I park my car, next to the Chan building, I was feeling pretty good – what with tomorrow being Friday and all. I was approached by 3 well dressed old Indian blokes (from India, not Cochese, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse) and they asked me for directions to the museum. I told ’em that the museum is not in town, it’s way down that direction, pointing. The leader says “Oh, I see – is that past Sky City?” . I said “Yeah, it’s a fair way though” (it’s about 5 kms). So he tells his homies that they can walk there. I said “It’s a fair way to walk………..look, I’m going that way – you wanna lift?” I wasn’t really going that way, but I do sometimes. So they said oh yeah and we walked towards my car. The chief says – this is beautiful weather here, is it always like this? I say “Yeah, it’s beautiful, but it gets pretty humid in the wet season, and rains a lot – and we have cyclones sometimes”
“Cyclones? Really? That’s very interesting”
A bit further on he says – “What is that building?”
I say “Ahh, that? That’s the old Town Hall ruins – yeah, it was knocked down by Tracy back in ’74. Um, a cyclone blew it down years ago”. They all looked on in astonishment.
I hop in the car – it’s filthy – where I park, the spazo council bloke keeps blasting the ground clean with a turbo-jet, back mounted leaf blower, which always covers my car in sh!t. They all climb in and off we go along Mitchell street. I tell ’em this is the main entertainment strip, with all the pubs. They snigger in the back and say “Yes – it’s very entertaining alright, hehehe”. I think they’ve been on the perv a bit earlier.
One says – “I think maybe only on the weekend they have things on?”
I assure them “Nah mate, every night. There’s heaps of European backpackers, English girls and such – they go out and get drunk every night, it doesn’t matter, there’s something on every night”.
They ask me what I do at work, so I tell ’em ” I.T. – Computer stuff”
He says ” You teach computer stuff?”
I say “No, I don’t teach it, I’m an Operations analyst – I work with mainframe computers”
We discuss that for a smidge. The chief, in the front says “What is this?” – he’s looking at the car. I tell him it’s a Landcruiser – Toyota Landcruiser.
“It’s vedy big. Vedy, vedy big.”
“Oh, yeah – I spose it is pretty big”
Raja in the backseat pipes up and asks me what them black, plastic pipes on the side of many of these big cars are. I tell him that “They’re snorkles mate – so you can go through deep water without sucking it all into your engine”. They all nod and agree – they seem convinced that this is a vedy good idea. Chief asks me, still looking round the car “What do you do in this – do you just drive into the outback and look around?”
I say “Nah, I generally pick up tourists and drive them to the museum”. Then I add “Yeah, I do do a bit of that, a bit of fishin and a bit o’shootin too”
“Shooting? What do you shoot”
“Pigs mainly”.
“Wild boar? What, with a bow an arrow?”
“Nah – with a rifle”
“Rifle? What kind of rifle”
“A 243”
“243?! That sounds like a ve-dy big rifle.”
“Oh yeah, I spose it is”
Then he asks if I eat the wild boar – I say “Nah, not many people eat ’em here. Though we do export a lot to Germany. Apparently the Germans love the gamey brutes”. He goes on to tell me about when he was in some small European state with a few colleagues, where they had barbequed pork, barbequed wild boar and barbequed bear on the menu. He said he was a pussy and went for the pork – reckons the boar and bear looked just the same.
Anyway I dropped ’em off at the door of the museum and had to shake hands with ’em all while they thanked me very much.I drove off and considered their relating the story when they get back to Mumbai.
………And we simply asked this large obese man for directions to the museum, he took us in his car, it was a ve-dy, vedy big car and ve-dy, vedy dirty. This man works with computers and he drives into the outback and he looks around and he shoots wild boar with a vedy, vedy big gun. He was a vedy friendly but strange fellow. He took us all the way to the museum and said good bye and that was the last we saw of this large fellow…..
I drove the rest of the way home laughing to myself – and really wondering why the hell I took ’em in the first place…….