Jasper Schultz

As a young thing growing up in Queensland, I never had to explain anything Queenslanderish, because we were all Queenslanders. We all said the word “pool” with about three ‘o’s too many, we all referred to scho(ooo)ol bags as “ports” which we placed in “portracks” outside our classrooms, and none of us had any concept of winter (“it was so co(ooo)ol this morning! 19 degrees! I had to put a jumper on”).

These days, none of my friends are from Queensland, and so every now and then I have to explain some fundamental differences between life up there and life down here. Now is one of those times. Get comfy, kids, Uncle Banana Bender has some wisdom to impart.

This weekend I accompanied Mr Sparkle on a trip to his home town of Co(ooo)oma, to see the Co(ooo)oma Little Theatre production of Blackadder, in which his aunt played the pivotal role of Queenie*. It was my first time ever in Co(ooo)oma, and during the 115 kilometre drive to our destination, Mr Sparkle was flustered and fidgety about what I was about to experience. He kept warning me that Co(ooo)oma isn’t very big, that there wouldn’t be much to do, that the theatre was only very small, and so on. 

Having myself lived in a stunning array of small-to-medium towns in Queensland growing up (Murgon, Proston, Crows Nest, Moranbah, Tin Can Bay**, Gin Gin, Edmonton, Bamaga, To(ooo)owo(ooo)omba, Rockhampton and Mount Isa, for example), I figured we had had similar experiences growing up. Remembering what my experiences had actually been like, I gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter and prepared for the worst.

We drove into Co(ooo)oma at 4:09pm. At 4:11pm I started the first of many angry tirades about the fundamental difference between Queensland small towns and everywhere else small towns, based on one simple premise:

Fast fo(ooo)od joints.

Co(oookay, this joke is old now)oma is lousy with them! They’re every ten feet!

The first thing we came across was a McDonalds. Not just any McDonalds, but a recently refurbished McDonalds. Now, when I lived in Tin Can Bay, we had to drive thirty minutes to Gympie to get KFC or Big Rooster; and if we wanted McDonalds, we had to drive the extra twenty-five minutes to Maryborough.  And yet, here is a tiny town of 8000 or so, flaunting its McDonalds right next to its KFC and its Subway.

That’s just showing off.

And it gets worse – not two minutes down the road is Cooma’s brand new noodle house. The town of Cooma has a takeaway restaurant that deals exclusively in the trade of Asian cuisine in a box. I didn’t realise this even really existed when I was a kid – I thought it was something that was only on American television, like “555” phone numbers or Judith Light’s hair. And yet kids growing up in Cooma get to sample the delights of a Char Kuay Teow or Nasi Goreng in its own cardboard cube, not ten feet from the local Coles.

That’s right, Coles. Not 4 Square. Not IGA. Not 7-2-7. Not Spar. A full-grown, civilization sized Coles supermarket. There is also a Woolworths. There is also an ALDI.

An ALDI.

Are you kidding me?

By this stage I was so blinded by disbelief I felt like I was going to have a conniption fit. What I really needed was some kind of cool, dark room in which I could calm down and gather my bearings.

Luckily Cooma has two such rooms, in the form of TWIN FREAKING CINEMAS.

I give up.

Let’s break this down:

From this point on, anyone who tells me they grew up in “country” New South Wales and expects sympathy will instead get kicked in the shins and called a do(ooo)uchebag. Go get a Happy Meal, you crybaby.

*She totally nailed it, for the record.
**If anyone asks I’ll deny it (because it totally undermines my convictions), but Tin Can Bay is actually kind of awesome, despite it having more soldier crabs than people within its town limits. All the streets are named after fish! It’s hard to not fall in love with a town when your address is 4 Marlin Way. That’s just classy.

Filed under:
things I don't get, things that are from my childhood by Jasper