In the winter of 1998, I flew to Australia to write and announce a water-ski show for an amusement park named “Wonderland.” The theme park was wrought with roving packs of Scooby-Doo’s and an appropriately lazy sloth of Yogi Bears that delighted children and the mentally ill alike. Either they had some affiliation with Hanna-Barbara or legally benefited from the anonymity of the park’s hemorrhoidal position on the Earth. I didn’t care. It was a job and they paid me in, what I could only assume was, some sort of cash. I really didn’t know. Their money is blue, pink, and a shade of green that doesn’t appear in nature. Aside from pictures of British royalty gleefully swimming in shark infested waters, it was also plastic. I found this to be ingenious because it didn’t rip and would only annoy those insensitive few who garishly light cigars with $100 bills. I’m looking at you Monopoly Man!
I arrived a few weeks after the park happily celebrated its 13th birthday. Triskaidekaphobia aside, the date was dubious for other reasons. This joyous occasion, a girl innocently mentioned, was “a very festive day here- December 7th!” I instinctively recoiled from her. However, it’s difficult for a 22 year-old bloke to recoil that much from a flaxen-haired, tan-skinned, harebrained Sheila who didn’t mean any harm. While her blunder hung in the air, she just batted her eyelashes innocently like a puppy who just laid a giant turd on your carpet. But, I’d probably never see this puppy again and I knew it’d never lick me if I slapped it with a rolled up newspaper. So, ashamed, I let it slide and made my quiet apologies to the men of the battleship Arizona.
Now, besides the upside down field of stars, Orion looked like he was doing a headspin in a break dancing competition, there were other differences I dazzled myself with. First, being a savvy man of the world, I knew the toilets all spun counter-clockwise. On my first day, I was more excited than usual after my morning bowel movement because of this fact. After I pressed the lever, like a game show contestant might spin a wheel listing fabulous prizes, a great woosh washed my dreams and my breakfast straight down the commode. “What the hell,” I managed in my disappointment. After the toilet filled, I pressed the lever again the way a distraught sports fan might replay a close play that went against him. “Maybe, it’ll be different this time?” But no. The water didn’t spin. It was sucked down like an airplane toilet. I’ve ridden on airplanes! I was more disappointed than I wanted to admit. So, I hunted out the other differences with that much more gusto.
Next, there was the enormous time difference. Apparently, it’s still the 19th century in Australia. How else could you explain that in a city of 4 million people, you couldn’t get a pizza delivered past ten on a Saturday? And the hourly difference was spectacular as well. Eating lunch on January 7th, I remembered I had missed my brother Christopher’s birthday the previous day. Realizing that my birthday was in a scant few months, I frantically called him. Coincidentally, the family was sitting down for his birthday dinner on the other side of the international dateline. The conversation was cut short, however, when I noticed a four foot red-bellied black snake in a planter by my hand. I had read they’re “not generally fatal,” but you’d be surprised how little comfort that gives you when it recoils in the striking position. Regardless, my brother is still both impressed I remembered and oblivious to the fact I was a day late.
That was actually my second most memorable lunch at Wonderland. My first, was the time a friend of mine named Bree decided to grab a hamburger with me at one of the park stands. I handed over the pink, plastic visage of Queen Elizabeth boxing a kangaroo and the kid handed me a beautiful burger. I had to admit, the thing looked great. Bree was asked if she wanted onions and she replied in the standard Aussie three-syllable “Ynooooooyuw.” I’ve tried often to reproduce this but to no avail. I’m convinced scientific studies would show this to be the most adorable way for a girl to say “No.” I still insist that it must be at least a small comfort to hear this charming growl after a girl turns down even the most desperate of requests. “Will you marry me or, at the very least, remove your Buick Regal from my right foot? No? That’s okay, then.” That’s how nice these people are!
While she collected her onion free burger, a lazy Yogi was refused a soda. I wondered what he would do with it had they gave it to him, and I took an American-sized bite into my burger. Now, I should have known something was up when it made the squish sound- like a sponge being squeezed over a sink after the dishes were done. But I blindly started to chew. Somewhere in the maelstrom of meat and ketchup, my mouth began to sense something amiss. My eyebrows furrowed and my face took the serious expression of a gazelle’s when a lion is near. Squish, again?! It was a beet and I spit it onto my plate like an eight year old.
Now, this maybe no big deal for you or countless Ukrainians. But ever since I mistook one for a sugary slice of jellied cranberry sauce as a child at Thanksgiving, I have had a basic and instinctual hatred of beets. Since that fateful day in Australia, I have eaten beets only once and just enough to politely get through a small dinner party. In distinct contrast, I had no problem with two whole octopi inexplicably served at a barbecue restaurant. And this wasn’t like calamari, or a steak, or some other thing that you’d need a butcher and a biology degree to know where it came from on the animal. Plopped on my plate, they looked as though a couple of well-placed breaths and compressions may revive them fully. No. Big. Deal… I. Hate. Beets.
After I threw out the burger entirely, I ate my fries and most of Bree’s as some sort of punitive action. I got back to our area and immediately brushed my teeth like a germaphobe might wash after sitting on Charlie Sheen’s cloth sofa. And as I came slowly down from my bad beet trip, I noticed the sink filling up with water and I recognized this as my opportunity. Only one day from leaving Australia, I turned the water on full blast and the pressure was too much for the tiny drain to match. When the water, still foamy from enough toothpaste to brush the teeth of a fully grown crocodile- which Wonderland also had- reached the top, I abruptly turned off the faucet. At first, the water belched quietly under the surface. But I knew it was going down from the “legs” the slurry on its surface made against the edges. Then, it happened. The water began to spin counter-clockwise and a great wave of peace and satisfaction washed over me. So much so, I left the sink a bubbly mess for the next confused user.
A couple of years after I left, another American disaster would signal the end of Wonderland. As tourism dropped sharply after the 9/11 attacks, the park became completely insolvent. They managed to keep the doors open for a few more years, but in 2004, the world would witness the largest single lay-off of Yogi Bear costume characters to date. Lackadaisically mismanaged and ridiculously strewn with beets as it was, it was a pretty good time. Sure, there would be the occasional red-bellied black snake, but remember they’re not generally fatal. Besides, they had plenty of rides, a live crocodile, and the best damn water-ski announcer I’ve ever seen.
