Furiously Happy (20 page)

VICTOR:
So you yawn because you're selfish. Got it.

ME:
Not just
me. Everyone
yawns because they're selfish. But I think we don't yawn when we see cats yawn because they have such little mouths that we don't feel threatened about them taking our air. And also—did you ever notice that cats don't make that sucking-in Hoover-y noise when they yawn?

VICTOR:
The what?

ME:
You know. When a normal person yawns you hear this loud intake of air, like a tire going flat but in reverse. But when cats yawn they don't make any noises at all. Why is that?

VICTOR:
You're asking me why cats don't yawn properly?

ME:
Is it because they aren't
actually
yawning and they're really just stretching their cheek muscles, or is it that they've learned how not to make the gaspy “I'm-stealing-all-the-good-air-and-leaving-you-with-carbon-dioxide” noise so that we won't gulp down all the air after they yawn?

VICTOR:
I don't even know where you're going with this.

ME:
I'm just saying, are cats
not
yawning audibly because they want all the air to themselves?

VICTOR:
Stop. Stop talking.

ME:
You can just tell me if you don't know. I DON'T KNOW EITHER, VICTOR. There's nothing to be ashamed of here.

VICTOR:
I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that.

Winner: Cats. Because they're getting a shit-ton of oxygen and no one is challenging them on it.

Hunter S. Thomcat devouring all of your lovely oxygen and totally not feeling bad about it at all.

 

Koalas Are Full of Chlamydia

“So apparently I'm
really
leaving for the Australian outback tomorrow,” I said to the storm trooper beside me. His look was one of surprise. Or horror. Honestly, it's hard to tell what a storm trooper is thinking even if you've been married to him for seventeen years. I blame the helmet.

“You can't even find your way around
the mall
without asking for help,” Victor responded with mild disbelief, unconsciously gripping his firearm made of PVC pipe. “This whole trip is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.”

“You bought a used movie-grade storm trooper costume so that you could join a troop of strangers who visit sick kids in hospitals.
You don't even like healthy kids.
I'm pretty sure you're not in any position to judge what's ridiculous.”

He shook his head, still baffled that I was going through with this. But he was right. I was fucked.

*   *   *

It was Halloween and I was spending what might be my last night alive in America chasing after a nine-year-old, sugar-riddled zombie Red Riding Hood while my storm trooper husband hopped through the neighborhood with us. At the last minute I'd surprised him by dressing up as Darth Vader so that when he was suited up I could jump out and scream, “Victor … I am your … boss!” He was not amused. I tried the death grip but he refused to lean backward in the invisible choke. It was probably because after I got Victor dressed in his
twenty-seven-piece outfit
he found that he was unable to sit, lean, bend over, or even put on his own shoes without help. It's really not that different from how most women feel after getting Spanxed up on date night, but as a man, he was utterly out of his element. He was like a knight, but wearing PVC and a unitard instead of a suit of armor. Honestly, if the rebels knew what
I
knew, they would have just pushed all the storm troopers over like dominoes, leaving them to awkwardly rock like turtles who've accidentally rolled over on their backs. I suspect the storm troopers' wives (who obviously had to help them completely dress and undress every day) went into their marriages knowing that they were likely going to be young widows. It's sad, but I'm betting the dark side had good life insurance plans. The dark side always seemed very organized and vaguely Republican.

This whole Australia-trip thing had started a month ago when my friend Laura asked if I'd come with her on a trip sponsored by the People Who Want You to Go to Australia. I said no because I'm the only person in the world who hates to travel, and because I knew that everything in Australia wants to kill you as violently and painfully as possible. Laura sighed and told me to keep an open mind, and in my defense, it's very hard to keep saying no to the person who once voluntarily chased off vultures with a shovel and helped you dig up a decomposing corpse in the scorching Texas heat of your backyard. I'd explain that last sentence but it's all in my first book. Go buy that and read it. It's probably on sale. I'll wait. Also, pick up some doughnuts. You look too thin. Eat something.

Done?
Excellent.
Back to the story.

The whole Australia thing was a “do stuff on your life list” event sponsored by Tourism Australia, so we'd get a free trip as long as we wrote about it later. I reminded Laura that the very first thing on my life list
is to never write a fucking life list
. She then reminded me that I was being cynical, again, and pointed out that it was basically a free ticket to do
anything that we wanted
as long as it was on our life list.

“Really?” I asked skeptically. “Can I box a kangaroo?”

Laura stared at me. “Do you
want
to box a kangaroo?”

“Well, no. Not really,” I admitted. “But I'd like to know that I have
the option
. Except I don't want any kangaroos to get hurt. So maybe … pudding wrestling with kangaroos? Is that a thing?”

“The problem is, I don't think kangaroos are naturally that fighty.”

“No,” I replied vehemently, “kangaroos are mean bastards who totally box each other in the wild. If anything, we're making it safer for everyone by putting mittens on their hands. They also smoke cigars while they're doing it, so they're polluting the environment too. Kangaroos don't give a shit about secondhand smoke.”

Laura raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously. I saw it on a cartoon from the fifties.”

She sighed deeply. “Everything you know about Australia you learned from cartoons. This is
exactly
why you need to go. Did you know there's a town in Australia full of ghosts and possibly lots of serial killers?”

I perked up. “We should go there.”

“Is it on your life list?”

“Well it is
now
,” I muttered, somewhat accusingly. “Can we go hold koalas while dressed in full koala costumes? And would you be more likely to say yes if I tell you I already have the costumes?”

Laura stared at me. “You have
two
koala costumes?”

“Well, yes. You need a backup in case one's dirty.”

Laura: “Huh.”

“
I'm kidding
,” I said. “But I do have one koala costume and one panda costume. And they're both sort of bears, so that should count.” Laura didn't respond, but that was probably because she was thinking that koalas aren't actually bears. Technically pandas seem more like giant raccoons than bears, so I suspect she decided not to bring it up because she's good at picking her battles.

Laura suggested that we take a sleeper train through Australia since I hated to fly, and I grudgingly admitted that I
had
always wanted to go on the Orient Express, but that I'd sort of consider it a wasted opportunity if a murder didn't happen. It's not that I'm particularly bloodthirsty, it's just that I have standards and it seems like it's not the full sleeper-train experience if there isn't a murder provided. I considered that if I wrote it down on my life list then Australia would be forced to provide a murder for me, but then I worried that they'd be all about “enabling and supporting” and would instead make
me
responsible for planning the murder, and I can't even organize my sock drawer, much less a murder. Laura seemed concerned that I was putting too much thought into this possible murder, but I think that's just because she's a professional event planner and this stuff is second nature to her. Laura needs to realize that not
everyone
is born with the natural organizational skills she has. If they were then there would be festive murders happening all the time. Ones with hors d'oeuvres, and charitable donations, and chocolate fountains, and mason jars with paper straws, and souvenir bags with human ears in them. Laura looked at me oddly when I said that but I think it's just because she can't take compliments well. Or maybe because human-ear party bags are “so 2011.” I don't really know. I am
terrible
at keeping up with trends.

I said no to Australia about eight billion times until Laura finally said, “You are
always
going on about forcing yourself to be FURIOUSLY HAPPY and pushing past your comfort level to really live life.
Well, this is one of those times, sister, so buckle up, buttercup, and get your work visa.
” She raised her voice, screaming victoriously (and slightly intimidatingly): “WE'RE GONNA SEE THE WILD SIDE, BITCHES.”

And so I said yes. And Australia said yes. And my therapist said I'd need extra therapy sessions. And the woman scheduling our itinerary said, “I'll set everything up and tell you what you're going to be doing less than twelve hours before you actually leave the States.” And she did.

The trip was to be based on life goals we wanted to tick off our bucket list and so Laura and I started putting together goals that we actually wanted to accomplish but that we'd probably never do if we were paying for it on our own. Mostly because we're cheap bastards and terrible at booking hotels.

My original list read as follows:

1. Lick David Tennant's face.

2. Ride a golden unicorn.

3. Wish for more wishes.

Laura pointed out that life lists weren't the same as genie wishes and made me start again.

I revised it to “Ride on camels,” and “Watch giant-cockroach races,” and “See where
The Hobbit
was filmed,” but then Australia was like, “That's New Zealand.
Again
, New Zealand is not in Australia so please stop asking.” So then I just added “Put New Zealand inside Australia so I can see hobbits” to my life list.

“I think they kind of have to do it now,” I explained to Laura. “It's like I'm Alan Rickman in
Die Hard
and Australia is the baffled hostage negotiator. I think I could probably ask them to bring me a dump truck filled with live slow lorises and a young Sean Connery and they'd have to do it. I AM DRUNK WITH POWER.” Laura suspected I was also drunk with wine slushees. Technically we were both right.

I considered that it was entirely possible that this whole setup was a trick and that I would get there and be forced to spend a week trapped at some sort of terrible time-share meeting. Or maybe that it was a sting to arrest me for unpaid parking tickets. But it was also possible I'd be riding camels in Middle Earth and that seemed worth the risk. After all, it's NewStralia
. Anything could happen.

(“NewStralia” is the name I made up for when they come to their senses and drop New Zealand onto Australia. You're welcome, Australian tourism board. I'm giving you that one for free.)

People warned us that everything in Australia wants to kill you, but I think they're overreacting. Australia doesn't want to kill you. It's more like an exclusive club for people who care very little about being alive. Australia is really a lot like Texas if Texas were mad at you and drunk and maybe had a knife. Like, in Australia they have dangerous funnel(-web) spiders. In Texas we have funnel cakes. I don't know what funnel spiders are but they sound significantly less delicious than fried cake. They're probably equally bad for you though.

People warned us of “drop bears”—mythical bears that fall out of the trees and eat you and you're supposed to put forks in your hair to scare them away from your head. I'm not sure why Australia feels the need to make up deadly creatures when they're already crawling with them. It's probably to identify the tourists by all the forks in their hair. We do that in Texas with snipe hunts, but you usually end up finding something to shoot anyway so no one's really mad when they find out that snipes are made up. Then again, watching for trees and putting forks in your hair is probably a good thing as it keeps out the flying foxes. Those are real, by the way. Enormous mega-bats with five-foot wingspans, which live in the park and are better named “enormous rats with wings that can envelop you.”

We actually saw some flying foxes around Darling Harbour, which seems an unfortunate name. I don't like a place that randomly gives itself a compliment. A helpful Australian tried to tell me it was named after a guy whose last name was Darling but I wasn't having it. “I don't love it,” I explained. “
It insists on itself.
” The man nodded noncommittally, deciding it was better not to argue with a strange foreigner dressed in a full-body koala costume because it was cold and she didn't bring a coat.