adventure time.

so, i was posed a question the other day. yeah, i’m posed questions. gasp you should.

"if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? would you take me? what would we do?"

the prospect of getting to discuss my dream trip is grounds for a five hour discussion filled with beer and loud shouts of joy, but one problem was delivered unto me right when i prepped to dive into the topic; three huge articles due at six a.m. the next day. current time when i got the questions; six thirty a.m. i had also been awake for sixteen hours at this time, so this answer has been crafted on insomnia, a big work deadline, and a few (too many) beers. enjoy.

 

I like to think I’ve traveled the world already. That’s probably because I’ve went through three cars and 250,000 miles in the last 9 years, but that’s part of a different question I’ll answer some day. (Why do you drive so fucking much? That’s the question.) But, there’s the list of places that I secretly keep locked away in the back of my mind, next to 1990’s Sports Movie Tidbits and Things I Would Do For A Klondike Bar. Everyone has the classic places; London, Paris, Tokyo; basically, anywhere huge and famous with lots of history and a lack of things like "Famine" or "War" or "Hyper AIDS" to deal with. But, I’ve always had exactly one place I wanted to go and visit before being artfully crafted into a Sexbot (patent pending) after I die, and that’s the holy grail of travel spots, the Australian Outback.

"But B, why the hell would you not just go to Sydney, or Melbourne, or…um…Sydney?"

Um, there are way more places than those two, and all of them have hilarious names. Wagga Wagga? Wollongong? Toowoomba? I think I’ve drunkenly referred to my penis as a Wollongong before. So, learn some awesome Australian city names and have fun pissing off your Outback Steakhouse waitress next time you go when you ask her if your beer is from Warrnambool. 

Ahem. Now then.

We’re assuming that I’ve got a good chunk of money and resources before I leave; I’m not looking to go to the Outback in Vans and a hoodie. But, I’m not going to need much to explore my dream land. I would pack up everything in a single engine plane flown by Heath Ledger (because I AM STILL IN DENIAL HE’S NOT DEAD HE JUST PULLED A WHITE TUPAC) and hop in. 

Yes, E, poser of questions, you’re in the plane and coming with me to the Outback. Funny story on how you ended up being invited; when talking to travel guides about traversing the Outback, they mentioned something about the Aboriginies and human sacrifices and BBQ Human Femur, and immediately thought to myself, "Hey, E isn’t doing shit this weekend…" Nah, seriously, I just know that’s like, a 14 hour plane ride, and Heath is too brooding to have many good conversations with.

13.7 hours of word games and idle threats because I win 41 straight matches of Boggle later, we arrive in the middle of the Outback. Airports and guides are for pussies; we’re leapin’ out the side of the plane with parachutes while Heath says something about coming back after he films The Dark Knight Rises (because I have another 498324793 words about Bane versus Joker) and flies off into the sunset. Or rise. Or something. Australia is backwards.

Unbeknownst to me during the Boggle trouncing, you had stuffed my parachute with around 2 pounds of lunch meat. Upon landing, while you landed next to a running stream, I had landed directly on a pack of wild dingoes who saw me covered in a bolognagasm. 12 minutes and some moderately painful flesh wounds later, I stomp over to you, angry as fuck and ready to get my Bloodsport Hatchet rage on.

You have two of the most adorable looking koalas ever perched on each shoulder, and one leaps off of your shoulder and onto mine.

Forgiveness is attained.

Koala guides in hand (this is a realistic scenario, so they can’t talk, just use their MOTHER FUCKING ADORABLE ASS PAWS to point in directions where cool shit awaits) we traverse the Outback, finding a Aboriginal Didgeridoo band (I never though I would get to write those sweet sweet words) playing what I assumed was Hoobastank. I offered them some Kit Kat bars and a few Foster’s, and we had a traveling band to accompany us. They didn’t take requests though. Bastards.

We arrived at the pinnacle of the trip; Ayers Rock. I had heard about the wallabies that were in the area, and wanted to take one home, to attempt to brainwash it into being Rocko from Rocko’s Modern Life. Unfortunately, every wallaby I approached just tried to bite me, and one peed on me from atop the rock. One of the Aboriginals said it brings you good luck to be pissed on by a wallaby. I think that’s what he said, it was actually just a fuckton of clicking and angry gesticulating of his Didgeridoo. That sounds like a sex move.

For some reason, I expected Ayers Rock to be a shitload more fascinating than it was. Granted, my obsession for the Outback started at 4, and I thought the actual rock shot out rainbows and lasers and there was a Tang dispenser somewhere on the rock. Zoobooks fucking lied to me. I got on the horn with phantom Ledger; he can’t be back til morning. We make camp. The dingoes are crooning, the emus are…emuing? And the Rufous Hare-Wallaby can go fuck itself because I have no clue what the hell they do.

But it is freaking beautiful out. And it’s the Outback. So, I attempt to pull a few moves and seductively whisk you into my tent. But you’re still pissed over Boggle and decide to shack up for the night with Click-Click-Beeeooooooooooowhoop-Click, the 7 foot behemoth with bones through his lips and a raging hate for male white things. I end up sleeping in a tent with both the Koalas. Bull. Shit.

Ledger arrives in the morning, and after clicking your way through a tearful goodbye, we set sail for home. Ledger actually knows Click-Click, and says he’s a really cool cat. I am unhappy, and lash out by telling Ledger that A Knight’s Tale sucked. Then, during the 13.7 hour flight home, I lose every single game of Boggle, two games of Scrabble, $405 playing poker (which I have to teach you before getting my shit kicked in) and my dignity. I chute out of the plane back in Bowling Green, after another tearful goodbye; not because I’m sad I’m leaving, but because I lost my rent money playing poker. I arrive back home, homeless but fulfilled on another epic adventure.

 

Epilogue:

 

We get a reality show. "White Devils and Click-Click Explore Outback" becomes an international sensation when, in a fit of lunacy, you eat a live dingo on national TV while shrieking "WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE CATS OUT HERE THIS IS BULLSHIT"