What Part of Australia Are You From?

I had a fairly relaxing day today. Hung out with an awesome person. And watched Proud Father, a ridiculous/fun little 3 ep series I did with my friends with said awesome person.
God, I hate episode one.

All in all a quiet day. And because of that, I think a story from my past is in order. So sit back and get a gander at this ol' blast of ear candy. Its titled:

"What Part of Australia Are You From?"

Back in 2004, I was working at Disneyland as a Server. It was a good job, and I felt pretty comfortable. I knew a lot of the people working there, and got along with just about everybody I worked with. And every now and then, I'd run into someone that worked in Disney that I had known from High School. Well, one day, I was in the cafeteria, for lack of a better term, when I again ran into someone I knew from my Magnolia days.

His name was Curtis, and we had went to Theater class together, and had even been in the same plays. He was always a bit of an oddball, but hey, all theater geeks are pretty strange, so I never thought too much about it. I was sitting at a table as I looked up and saw him.

"Hey Curtis!" I said, "Wow, man, I haven't seen you since Mr. Nap's Theater class! How have you been?"
"Oh, eye've been great, Nate!" he said, in an Australian accent.
"...uh.... Okay," I replied hesitantly, "That's, uh... how long have you been working at Disney?"
"Oh, for 'bout a few months, is all," he replied, "I'm a photographa. I take all the pictures for peepul when they want a nice picture in front of the diffrent landmarks."
"Great, man," I said, "Why-? Um, my break's over, I'll see you later?"
"Cheers, mate!" he actually said this to me.

After meeting up with Curtis, I felt really confused. There was one main reason for this.

He never had an Australian accent in High School.

I actually felt awful for a second, "Oh my god, did he speak with an Australian accent the entire two years that I knew him? Am I that much of a bastard to not have noticed that?" That, of course, was ridiculous. I knew for a fact that he had been born and raised in California, with American parents. So that left the fact that Curtis had actually gone out of his way to speak to me with a fake Australian accent. Not once did he break out of character. Not once did he let on that he was messing around. Even though he knew that I knew that the accent was fake.

Looking back, I guess Curtis was just that kind of an oddball.

Two weeks later, I ran into Curtis at the cafeteria, this time the rolls reversed, with him sitting down finishing his food, and my having just gotten my meal.

"What's up, Curtis?" I asked.
"Nothing much," he said quietly, with no accent.

Well, isn't that interesting?

"Huh," I replied, "Well, you seem kind of down."
"Yeah," he said, "I, well... I got in trouble last week."
"Really?" I answered, "What for?"
"Do you remember that I spoke with an Australian accent?" he asked.
"Yeah, uh huh," I replied, trying my hardest not to bust up laughing.
"Well..." he began, "Last week I took a picture of a couple. And we were talking and having fun. And the guy seemed to really like me. Well, the couple were from Australia..."
"Oh," I said. (Holy crap, my chest hurt from not laughing).
"Yeah," he continued, "But it didn't seem like they could tell that I, uh, it didn't seem like they were doubting my... accent."
"Go on," I said. (I was having trouble keeping my face straight).
"We were talking and laughing and everything was going pretty well, until the guy asked me if I was from Australia."
"Yep," was all I could say, cuz my lungs were bursting from contained laughter.
"So I said yes."
"What?" I asked with barely contained joy.
"Yeah," said Curtis sadly, "He said 'Oh, that's great! What part of Australia are you from?' I said Malbourne. He said 'No, you're not. I'M from Malbourne.' And then he wanted to speak to my manager. So my manager says I can't speak with fake accents anymore."
I pretty much lost it at that point. Curtis laughed a little, but looked really dejected. I don't think I was able to finish my lunch.

-THE END-