January 26th: Australia Day

Ello mates! Why am I talking like this? It's Australia Day, you silly dingo! :D This week I have semester exams so I didn't do anything cool and Australia-y today :/ BUT I did get a story abou Australia from my Dad's book! :) Here it is:

"When I was 10 years old I lived in Australia. I had a friend named Richard who apparently was allowed to smoke-or so he told me. There was something status-boosting about smoking cigarettes at age ten. I was jealous that Richard could smoke and I couldn't; I felt so young in comparison, so immature. So one cold winter morning I decided to try to recover my lost status by somehow making Richard believe I could smoke too. I didn't want to really smoke, though, so I rolled a small pile of pepper, which seemed to me very much like tobacco, into a tube of paper. I figured since it was cold enough to see my breath, Richard would assume I was smoking if I were puffing on my pepper-filled tube.
I had the status-boost all worked out in my head. We had a veranda on our second floor; I would stroll out as Richard padded up to our house on his way to school. He'd say, "Hey mate, come on down, let's go to school," and I would casually take a drag off my "cigarette" and say, "Just a sec, mate, whilst I finish up this cig." And I'd blow a mean cloud of smoke from the side of my mouth. Of course, my plan didn't work very well because I kept drawing in burning mouthfuls of pepper each time I took a drag"

I love my dad. :) It goes on talking about pride and a moral to the story and blah blah blah. But anyway, that's what Australian kids do. Smoke paper rolls full of pepper. I guess you learn something new every day.