10 August 2007

Strewth! US airline's certainly not "fair dinkum" with Qbn traveller

| Ari
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An unfortunate Queanbeyan resident has been harrassed by a US airline simply for querying the lack of pretzels.

Her crime? To utter the exasperated words “fair dinkum” upon being denied the request.

But I ask … what’s Queanbeyan coming to? Aren’t beer nuts good enough?

Pretzels? What are they, cobber?

I blame Seinfeld.

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VYBerlinaV8 now_with_added grunt12:12 pm 13 Aug 07

I was in the US last year and made some interesting cultural discoveries, the most interesting of which is that many Americans find Aussies, in general, to very crude (even when we aren’t). I got horrified looks from a group I was with (mostly blokes) for using the term ‘silly bitch’ – I think I genuinely offended a number of them.

I strongly suspect than when the woman in question said “fair dinkum”, that they genuinely interpreted that as crude language, because they don’t know what it means – I found most people I dealt with over there to be incredibly ignorant of other cultures. Unfortunately they seem to be, in general, very fearful of anything they don’t understand or recognise.

For what it’s worth, I travelled on 6 internal US flights when I was there, and on EVERY OCCASION, had interesting conversations with fellow passengers (but I had learnt my lesson early on and was very careful about what I said).

“We witnessed aggressive behaviour throughout the flight.”

A lie. Guaranteed. A simple, outright, lead-plated lie. That’s the scary bit – not the innocent misunderstanding, but a mentality ready to frame a passenger for serious crimes just to cover their corporate arse.

I wouldn’t travel anywhere in the US at the moment for any reason. You could offer me a thousand an hour to sit around surfing the web – I wouldn’t take it if it involved being in the US.

Ingeegoodbee10:35 am 11 Aug 07

Ant, I know the ones you mean. You can get them from street vendors all over Manhattan. I found that the quality varied with some so bad they were tossed after one or two bites – but when you found a relaible source – absolute magic. I used to get a couple on my way home, along with a few cans of beer from the corner deli … but I digress.

Woody Mann-Caruso9:07 am 11 Aug 07

Sounds like what I tried to get away with when I was 7 years old.

“Clean your room.”
“*mutter*…you clean the f*ckin’ room…*mumble*”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
“Erm…I said…um…fair dinkum!”

As if the kind of Queanbeyanite who still says “fair dinkum” could afford an international flight anyway… 😉

“I blame Seinfeld.”

These riotact posts… are making me thirsty!

And they’re not even proper pretzls, those little hard things in packets. real pretzls are huge, bigger than your hand, and crunchy and soft. The best ones are got from street vendors in winter.

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