Because I am such a fine, long (I prefer tall.) specimen of cavy-hood, and because I don't come equipped with reversing mirrors, and thus can't see what's going on behind me I occasionally back into my water bowl. At other times I'll take a short cut through the afore-mentioned water bowl to get to a particularly succulent looking morsel which my staff have just place in my food dish. Of course the result of this is wet bum fur - and lets face it, none of us like that do we? It's not so bad in summer, in fact it can be pleasantly cooling, plus it gives my staff something to think about when they pick me up. But in winter, it's not so good. You try walking around all day with a cold, wet arse. Anyway I dry my rear end by wiggling it in my straw bedding, this action often clears a little space so that I can see the newspaper lining underneath. This happened just yesterday and I found a news article concerning a massive drop in overseas tourist numbers visiting Australia. This was attributed to the current high value of the Australian dollar, making it a rather expensive destination and to the floods and storms of last summer which as usual the media has blown out out of all proportion. To hear some of the nonsense they come out with you'd think that Noah was the only bloke left afloat in the entire country.
I, in my piggy wisdom have another theory. Australians love to tell foreigners how dangerous Australia is and I think this fear campaign is starting to bite and deter visitors. You can't eavesdrop on any conversation between an Aussie and someone from overseas without hearing the Aussie gloat about how it's almost impossible to come to Australia without being bitten, stung or eaten. All Aussies do this. Even the ones that have never left the chewing gum dotted streets of Melbourne - in fact they're the worst.
Firstly there are the redback spiders which use the sneaky, underhand tactic of hiding under toilet seats to bite your nether regions resulting in a painful anti-venom jab and a few days in a nice public hospital. I bet George Dubya even checked under his toilet seat when he stayed at the Sydney Four Seasons Hotel a few years ago. Next is the Sydney funnel web spider who's bite is so deadly that you don't even have time to say "OW! What was that?" before you crumple to the floor and start thrashing around in your agonising death throes.
Then there are the snakes. If the foreigner listens to his Aussie friend he will learn about the enormous pythons big enough to swallow a small car and taipans so fast and aggressive that they'll chase you into a high rise building, beat you to the twenty third floor and bite you as you get out of the lift, meaning that you have less than twenty seconds to get to a hospital before the bitten appendage shrivels and drops off. Australia also has crocodiles the size of the USS Nimitz. Not only are these reptiles gigantic, but are so intelligent that they'll snatch your newspaper from your hand as your sit on a bench near the water, complete the cryptic crossword and the sudoku before dragging you into the water and wedging you under a rock for a few days to soften up a bit. Even those nice cuddly koalas will kill you, especially if one falls out of it's tree and lands on your head.
Of course you can't retreat to the ocean for safety because not only will you find crocodiles there too, but a whole host of other critters just waiting to put you in your cold, dark grave. There are sharks of course. Monsters that make that rubber thing in Jaws look like a sprat. Then there's the irukandji jelly fish that are too small to see but will kill you just as easily as a bite from white pointer. Stingrays are nasty too - just ask Steve Irwin........Oh. Of course you can't can you? Now that I've succeeded in scaring the living bush chocolate out of myself I think I'll move to England where the worst you can expect is to tread on a hedgehog, which can, I'm told by my male staff, be mildly uncomfortable, particularly for the hedgehog.
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