In the mid-2000s there was a brief fad in Australian government messaging where they went out of their way to insult the public as much as possible.
This fad eventually died out after the tourism board attempted the same style of messaging in the UK, causing a minor scandal which led to the head of Tourism Australia, Scott Morrison, getting the sack.
The first time we drove past the “don’t drive like a cock” sign, my mum looked at it was immediately SO confused - after all she’s a good semi-conservative Christian woman. My brother and I knew it right away but for the next half hour she guessed literally EVERY other word for cock (don’t drive like a rooster, chicken, hen, chick, bird, fowl, poultry) trying her goddamned hardest to make the sign make sense until my - at the time - eleven year old brother got fed up and yelled COCK at the top of his lungs from the back seat.
My mum was FURIOUS - we weren’t even allowed to say “heck” - until she realised he’d just been telling her what the sign was, and for the rest of the three hour trip our good semi-conservative Christian mother proceeded to amuse herself by muttering “cock” under her breath and giggling like a teenager every time she did.
We still bring it up every now and then. So that particular advertising campaign has been making my family laugh for over a decade.
This one was always my favourite, though:
Reblogging to make sure this excellent story is seen
also according to michael collins when the three of them were discussing what neil armstrong should say when he first stepped on the moon, collins suggested armstrong say “Oh, my God, what is that thing?” and then scream and cut out his mic.
Everyone forgets Michael Collins and it’s fucking tragic.
if you guys thought you had a weird middle school experience my whole grade was convinced I was an actual literal werewolf for 3 years to the point where people were afraid of me so come 8th grade the popular girl had a huge Halloween party on her farm that everyone went to that just happened to coincide with the full moon so I staged a whole elaborate ‘transformation’ at the end of the night and scared the shit out of all of them. I don’t think I’ll ever top that
the prisoner of azkaban had just come out. we were a bunch of bored idiot kids in the boonies. everyone thought they could identify a werewolf and I just happened to have illnesses that often took me out of school around the time of the full moon every month. it didn’t help that I had been the ‘wolf kid’ since elementary. and I’m not saying I didn’t play into it when I found out the rumor — teen wolf (1985) was one of my favorite movies so of course I wanted to pretend I was living it.
but this went on for years. I had kids showing up behind my house on the full moon hoping to catch me changing. people were afraid to invite me to sleepovers. so when I finally got invited to a party, on that full moon no less, I went all out. I waited for the moon to rise. I hid a costume werewolf head and clawed gloves in the woods, snuck out there mid-party while 30-something kids were gathered around a bonfire, changed, ripped my clothes and started howling from the trees. some brave souls started to investigate and that’s when I started to chase them. pandemonium broke out. and oh, did I have the time of my life, because I hated most of these kids. revenge of the nerds, and all that. they’d teased me for years for things I couldn’t help like being sickly or having too much hair on my body.
I made my getaway with a friend at the end, and left the rest to wonder. most of them realized the prank and later laughed it off with me. but there was one kid who, senior year of high school, admitted I intimidated him because he still believed I was a werewolf. I put my arm around his shoulder, told him, “Between you and me, I am,” and gave him a wink. even after graduation, that guy looked at me like I would eat him alive.
I gotta say, there are worse things to be than a teenage werewolf
my supervisor brought in his 2 ½ year old daughter the other day and I kept her distracted by drawing with marker on the windows with her for a while so my supervisor could talk science with a colleague. I drew her favourite animal (puppy), her favourite show (puffin rock), her favourite guy (elmo), etc , and later that day my supervisor sent me this
