The Saga of Ostrich Joe

                                                                                               April 19th, in the year of our LORD 2014


The testimony of which I am about to give starting here and continuing in future Ostrich Joe posts are based compleately on a true story.

Ostrich Joe and myself first met in 1998 while attending a Shania Twain concert. This was an especially hot summer, so hot, in fact, that the price for fresh water had doubled in price over the summer months. We can hardly blame the salesmen for the price increase. You could only imagine what would happen if they lowered the prices by half, in that heat, we would have used it all up in the first week!

Joe and I had both found employment wrangling kangaroos in the Australian Outback. It was not a glamorous profession, though it was sold to us as one. A guy should have known by the incredible lack of any negativity in the propaganda. It is like any instance of overselling. In comparison to help the feeble minded understand, you may have had to suffer the agonizing sound of two people trashing upon another with all manner of insults while the subject of the dumping is not present, when lo and behold, the person surprises everyone and walks into the room. Immediately the people who had no kind words to say to the fellow have nothing but the highest praise and most wonderful compliments to pay; an over compensation to make sure the person will not suspect that the two would ever speak or hold an ill opinion of the other in their minds.

That is what this job was sold to me as. We would get the girl, ride our majestic ostriches down the 'roo trail all the while battling the aboriginals outnumbered ten to one, but somehow coming out unscathed. I suppose I have no one to blame but myself for believing such a ruse. What woman just hangs out in the middle of the Outback? Anyhow, that is a story for another day, as it appears that some of you may need an explanation as to why we would get about on an ostrich rather than a horse.

 Well, for those unfamiliar to Australia, you should know that the majestic ostrich is a far superiour creature for getting about on than the horse, or any other animal for that matter. We would not have used horses even if they were native to the land, for the Aussie is an industrious creature, and will always find the finer method to compleate any task. Some of the ways in which the ostrich is superiour to other methods of travel include:

a) The ostrich eats much less than the horse, the cow, or even the common llama, so not only do you save time on the trail when it comes to meal breaks, you also save money on stable fees.

b) The ostrich carries a hearty meal: it's giant egg which it lays every morning. Unless you want bacon or some other unnecessary food to go with the egg, you do not need to hunt or carry food rations, meaning a lighter load, and once again, saved time. Some claim that a cow would be useful for it's milk, but they are wrong. Not only do cows lack the necessary speed, they also create to great a temptation to kill for steaks. Many a good men have doomed themselves in such a manner.

c)You can train an ostrich to fight, with it's razor sharp raptor claws. This will come in handy when battling aboriginals, crocodiles, or wallabies.

So there you have it. There should no longer be any question as to the superiority of the ostrich. Tune in next time when I will tell you how Ostrich Joe and I got involved in the illegal koala meat business, landing us in jail in the States.