The Etsy Down Under Satire

In response to this and this, I present you with my version of what an 'Etsy goes to Australia' Storque article would probably look like:


"Coming into Sydney airport our landing was delayed while they rounded up all the kangaroos and shooed them off the runway, but not to worry because we got some excellent views of Ayers Rock as we were circling. As we stepped off the plane into the dusty dry desert some locals came over and explained to us in the native dialect that as a special treat they'd rounded up some emus for us to ride to the terminal. It was a bit bumpy, but we got there.

Once out of the airport and in our clapped out rusty old Holden ute that the bloke at the hire desk had assured us was the latest model they had we had the pleasure of driving along a bumpy windy dirt road underneath the gum trees. Yes folks, we truly had found ourselves on a whole new planet. Suddenly it occurred to us that there might be bush rangers out here in these wild parts. Thankfully the only other folks we saw that afternoon was a jolly old swagman and a man in khaki who shouted 'Crikey! Get a load of them Yanks!' as we drove past.

Our hotel, really just a multi-storey corrugated iron shed, afforded us a fantastic view of Sydney Harbour, including that great big coat hanger thing they call a bridge and that white building that looks like it's going to sail away (the woman down at reception told us what it was called, but we couldn't understand her Australian drawl... we think she said it was an opera house, but we didn't think that they had opera in Australia... Maybe it's a really big sheep shearing shed).

The next morning dawned bright and hot. The dust swirled a bit in the faint breeze. It was time to drive 'out back' as the natives so quaintly call it to visit our feature artist. Before we left we bought some of those big round hats with the little dangly corks that Australians wear so we'd fit in. The man in the shop overheard us talking and suggested that if we really wanted to fit in we should invest in some flip flops (quaintly called 'thongs' in Australia, apparently. But then, who knows what passes for lingerie here?), some short blue work shorts that the he called 'stubbies' and a singlet. We declined his generous offer to help outfit us in the national costume as we didn't really have the right kinds of tans to pull it off.

Bumping along the dirt roads once more we went in search of our feature crafter, Didgeridoo Dan's, place. Modern luxuries such as street signs and house numbers seemed to not have yet made it to Australia's 'out back' yet, so we had to pull over and ask scraggly looking sheep for directions. Eventually we found Dan's shack and he invited us in for a lovely lunch of kangaroo and witchetty grub stew. He then gave us the grand tour of his hovel and a demonstration of his musical talents. To be honest neither of us could really understand how the strange noises he managed to elicit from that wooden tube really count as 'music' ... but I guess it's an Australian thing. Then Dan gave us an in depth explanation of how he hollows his didgeridoos out of wood from trees that he chops down. Or at least that's what we think he was talking about, still not having had gotten the hang of the local dialect we really weren't able to understand very much of what he said. Thankfully we recorded the whole thing, hoping that once we were back at the Etsy Labs in civilisation someone would be able to decipher it."