I blinked as I felt the transformation happen. It was something like a jerk felt internally, and for a short blip of time I saw the world with new eyes—sharp and crocodilian-like. The blip was overwhelming for that instant, but then it faded. I went back to tapping my fingernails against the steering wheel as the late afternoon traffic continued to pile up around me. It was nothing. Just feeling a little flushed, is all. I really ought to try to get more sleep.
The Mysterious Package
The light turned green and the traffic rolled onward. Some mundane minutes passed before I felt the shift happen again. But onward I drove, hushing the anxiety I felt rising. Everything is fine…everything is fine… Then I remembered something, which was sufficiently distracting for a moment.
“Dang it! We are going to the beach this evening and I forgot my togs!” I said loudly enough for the children to cock their heads at me from the back seat. As soon as the words exited my mouth, I too stopped to look oddly at my own face in the rear-view mirror. What the hell are "togs"?
After a moment of looking at me the children lost interest, and so did I. Just a strange slip of the tongue is all. I drove on to our first stop, my son’s karate class. Once situated in the hallway outside of class with the tot sleeping on my shoulder, I began the usual routine of idle conversation with the fellow moms.
“How about those federal election results?” I said, feeling outside of myself. I’m not one to make conversation about politics. Where did that voice come from?
“Federal election…you mean the one in 2016?” The woman looked oddly at me, and it looked something like the expression the kids had on their faces ten minutes prior. I mentally chastised myself.
What the hell is wrong with you? What federal election? For an instant a smeared image of the head-shots of lots of middle-aged men wearing ties rolled through my mind. They were politicians…only not American ones. I felt a cold sweat run down the back of my neck. What is happening to me?
A Hint
As soon as the class was over I rushed us out, having decided we needed to go straight home. I needed to figure out what was happening, and what to do about it. I felt that sense of anxiety growing at the idea of my identity dissolving before my eyes. We reached home and there was my husband stocking the fridge with cans.
“Oh good, you picked up a slab—I need some of that,” my voice said impulsively.
“A slab?” There was that look again, only set on my husband’s face. “Since when do you like beer?”
“Me? No, of course I don’t like beer. Horse pee is what it is—horse pee,” I said all too defensively, quickly turning away to rest my face against one hand. “It has been a long day. I don’t feel up to cooking, can you just throw some meat on the barbie?”
I glanced up to see the horrified look on the tot’s face as she swiftly picked up her Barbie doll and hugged it to her chest before exited the room.
“The barbie…right…” My husband walked away and there I stood, the panic rising ever more. What is happening? What is happening?!
Then my eyes settled on a small bottle on the counter next to me, and suddenly it all made sense. The Vegemite! @galenkp had sent me a jar of it the day before, and I had tentatively smeared some across a bit of toast while carefully following his instructions. Maybe a little too carefully, or maybe just as he had intended: an Australian world take-over, one jar of Vegemite at a time.
Alright, so none of that happened.
Except the part where @galenkp so kindly sent me a jar of Vegemite to broaden my American horizons. It arrived in an expertly taped package with that lovely “Air Mail” stamp on it—the stamp of foreign excitement.
Delicious Bit of Devil
It arrived with not only Vegemite, but lots of other nice little things. Tonight I ate kangaroo, Tasmanian devil, and platypus. They were all delicious. He also sent a couple packages of crackers which boast themselves to be Vegemite flavored, but don’t actually taste that much like it—very crafty technique of luring foreigners into a false sense of security.
The Australian version of Cheez-Its. No complaints.
So I cracked open the curious little jar that has been the subject of all this non-Australian speculation. I followed @galenkp’s directions—really, I did. Only maybe I didn’t quite understand what “a little” means. I spread it very thinly across the top of a beautiful piece of fresh sourdough toast.
That finger in the upper top? That is a little boy about to snatch the kangaroo.
You know that sort of toast that has those beautiful air hole spots in it—the sort of spots that become sludgy little Vegemite pools? I think all was going pretty well until my tongue impacted one of those little pools. My tongue was doing an awkward sort of twist in my mouth, something like dipping a toe into scalding water and then having second thoughts about that bath.
“It tastes like soy sauce. Soy sauce…on my toast,” I said to my husband. Of course, he had to give it a try too. “A combination of soy sauce and molasses,” he said, “I like it.”
My husband is clearly more Australian than I am. But I think it might be something that grows on a person. I am going to give it another shot—I refuse to give up my Australian aspirations.
Vegemite in all her glory.
Throughout these taste experiments the tot was sitting on the kitchen floor playing with the toy koalas and kangaroo that arrived in the package.
“Why did we get these, mama?” She looked up at me with her big blue eyes full of questions.
“A nice man sent them to us.”
“Why did he send them to us?”
“Because he is a nice man.”
A nice man, or staging an Australian take over—you decide.
