Turkey Moist Fowl

Jeez, S. Gregory, lighten up! That last post was really depressing. Of course, you already know that, S. Gregory, because you wrote it and just reread it again and you are me and so I can say to myself right now, “Boy-o-boy, am I glad I’m over that depressing spell!” (A special thank-you to Darkneuro for her comforting comment, by the way – you’re probably right, D.N., that I’d have walked off thinking foul things but they wouldn’t have been aimed at you.)

Fortunately, dear reader, Shantoozy and I have sorted out, or are clearly on the way to sorting out, those circumstances inspirational of my state of upset and it basically comes down, we agree, to a combination of my stress and nervous tension, her difficulties in explaining herself accurately on the spur of the moment, and my liver condition. So, what the fuck DID I know, after all? Things are good between us now. They rarely get out of hand like they did then, which is a blessing of good fortune from the spirits or eternal, infinite energies or (with all due respect) whatever, that I genuinely appreciate. Yes, I am now feeling much more hopeful than at the time of my last post.

Now, and no relation to walking off thinking ‘fowl’ things (insert vomit here, anti-punsters), what are all these sayings involving turkeys that I’d never heard before? Seriously. Let me explain the deeply pertinent situation.

See, I’d become a little upset at some rude jerk on eBay who had stupidly failed to understand Shantoozy’s clear and concise payment instructions.

“Don’t let the turkeys get you down,” advised Shantoozy.

“Huh?” I replied with all the swift wit of a stale croissant.

“You know, it means something like, don’t let the arseholes get you down,” she explained.

Are these verbal Australiana? I was born here but I’ve never felt at home in this country. (And she is a citizen of U.S.A. as well as of here!) One reason is that, to my observation, Australians have the poorest sense of humour in the western world – and I love to laugh, so it is a BIG reason.

Yesterday, I was introduced to the game, ‘Two-Up’, for the first time – a supposedly Australian game (but I suspect it was pilfered from the Germans). I think I’d heard of it in passing but certainly couldn’t have told you it involved the complex strategic skill of being able to toss two coins in the air from off a wooden paddle and the trenchant intellectual eurhythmy to be able to watch them plummet to the ground. There’s betting involved, too – that admirable art of guessing whether or not you stand to lose everything you own for the most uninteresting and flippant reason possible. I’d have thought that 'Two-Up' was a game involving one hand’s foremost two fingers being held up to the face of John Howard, and that would seem to me to actually have been a more worthwhile game for an Aussie, or at least slightly non-boring.

Yep, I’ll be leaving Australia for good as soon as I am reasonably able. Somewhere snowy, perhaps. I’m dreamin’ of a Xmas that is the shade of Snow White's milky breasts. Which reminds me, the thought of Xmas does, of … the turkeys.

Well, my Mum, who is quite an ocker (I was adopted, semi-incidentally), although really, truly lovely and only a turkey herself in the sense of being too silly or worrisome sometimes, said a few years ago, “Grr! One day that dog’s gonna send me flying head over turkey!” Now, I’d laughed heartily at what I’d deemed to be a mis-warble because Mum does have a number of large turkeys roaming her property and they tend to cluster around one’s feet when they’re hungry, but in time I discovered that this is an actual saying. To declare that one went ‘flying arse over tit’ I can comprehend because the human has an arse and a tit (a breast; a chest region) but this ‘head over turkey’ business makes me confused. We don’t have an appended turkey. Well, maybe a naked man suffering from brewer’s droop may look as though…

Hmmm. This saying, eh? Many a turkey loses its head at Xmas time; I suppose this could possibly have something to do with the saying’s inception, implying that during the wonderfully gluttonous ‘silly season’ we may end up by substituting our heads for the roast turkey’s if we lose too much control of ourselves.

Hey! That season is now upon us! I am no pagan - well, maybe a little bit - but I am no christian or Santa-suited coca-cola addict or other big-business advocate or any otherwise religious personage but I like twinkling lights and present-giving and -receiving and eating yummy tummy-scrum’s and such and so Merry Xmas, all! (Except the arseholy people – youse can get stuffed, turkeys!)