Part 6: Accounts of the Life of Edmund Callipeaux

Contributor:
Edmund Callipeaux – 13 February 2009, 11:45am

LeTigre and I are planning a trip to Australia this upcoming summer! We’re very excited! We were down there a little over a year ago and we had the time of our lives. We’ve been looking forward to a return trip since arriving home through the Minneapolis airport. This next visit, we’ll be staying with LeTigre’s family in Canberra, spending a few days in Sydney, and staying a week at the GBR (Great Barrier Reef) in a house formerly owned by 18th Century PIRATES!

We're very excited. But, I feel that I must confide in you that there is one thing that’s kind of freaking me out about the trip. That is to say that we may rent a car while in Sydney. Last time, when we were down there, riding in a car was sort of terrifying for me. Australians drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel of their cars is on the right side rather than the left. So, if you’re riding in the “passenger” seat, you’re sitting where the steering wheel should be! Put that on top of the fact that you’re cruising down on the wrong side of the road and you’ve got the recipe for panic. I was constantly bracing for collisions while grasping the air for the wheel and pumping my feet looking for the missing break pedal. One of the most heart-stopping modes of travel I’ve ever been party to. Luckily, Australians are always saying “no worries, mate.” So, being constantly told not to worry kind of cancelled out the anxiety of car travel.

So, like I said, I’ve been a bit concerned about having to drive down there. (And by down there, I mean that it’s wild to realize that in order to indicate the direction of home, I’d point at the ground.) Until recently, I’ve been struggling to determine how I’m going to master the necessary motor skills while driving through busy Sydney traffic. But then my skills as a mathematician saved me! Follow this: driving on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, upside down, and on the opposite side of the World…it’s the same as driving down the streets of Minneapolis! It’s a quadruple-negative. And four negatives make a positive – they effectively cancel each other out! So watch out citizens of Australia! I’ll be yelling “no worries” out the wrong window of my upside down, down under Subaru at Aussies driving the wrong way to wherever they’re going. – EC

Australian car on an Australian road, Canberra, AU