(WHNWC) Strange days indeed

Strange days indeed.

I'm writing this down in the hope that if i'm not around anymore there may be someone left to make sense of it all.
It all really started for me that day down the beach at Elliot Heads, i'd only just paddled out and had been waiting on my board, watching further out to sea for a decent wave. The swell had only just picked up and i saw my chance, no one else had grabbed the wave so i took off paddling like a mad man when a bloody cow dropped in on my wave and nearly wiped me out. I nearly crapped myself, and i reckon i might have if i hadn't just bought my wetsuit a week ago, i wasn't going to ruin it, it cost a bloody fortune.
What a crock i hear you say, well i guess i'd find it pretty hard to believe too. My old man actually knows the farmer who owned the cow, old Neville Atkinson. There was even a guy on the radio, some professor of animal studies or some such thing talking about it.
I managed to ride the wave in the rest of the way to the beach only to see the damn cow reach the shore before me, turn right around and swim back out about three hundred yards or so. Safer to stay out of the water for the time being i figured so i just hung around for a bit to watch the show as a bit of a crowd had started to show up. A mate, Jimmy, rocked up about ten minutes later with a six pack of beer and a couple of deck chairs. News travels pretty fast around here.
"Hey Davo" he said as he set up his chairs and cracked the top off a stubbie, "grab a beer mate".
"Dont mind if i do Jimmy, that blasted cow nearly wiped me out you know". I still couldnt believe it.
"Dammdest thing, the boys from Neville's farm have been looking for her all morning".
"Anything gonna bring a shark in it's got to be a bloody surfing cow mate, i ain't going back in today that's for sure".
"Yeh, bloody strange stuff going down lately Davo, i saw old Pete from the pub chasin' Alby's dog down the main street last night, it had his missus wooden leg in it's mouth and was givin' it a fearful chew as it bolted past".
I just shook my head in amazement and watched as the cow picked up another nice swell and rode it in, legs windmilling crazily as it tried to keep abreast of the wave.
I knocked off the rest of my beer and said goodbye to Jimmy and headed back up to my van, no point hanging around anymore, once you've seen a cow body surf in on a good size wave a couple of times it sort of lose's it's appeal.

Once i'd stowed my board i decided to head down to Bundaberg and see what some of the other boy's might be up to, it was bloody good drinking weather after all and the damned cow had already ruined my morning surf.
I hadn't driven more than a couple of kilometres when i saw a nice lookin' bird standing by the side of the road with the hood up on her commodore, being the chivalrous sort of bloke i am i decided to pull over and see if she needed a lift.
"Whats up love, need a hand". She didnt answer for a second or two and had this odd look on her face.
"Ah, yeh sure that would be good, strangest thing just happened" she said " a bloody roo just jumped straight out in front of me and smashed in the front of my car, then bounced up again and took off into the bush".
"Not that strange love we've got plenty of roo's around here".
"Yeh, well how many of those roo's are wearing floral bathrobes and have barbie dolls in their pouches".
Now i didn't know what to say, and that's even stranger than everything else that had happened today, it's well known that i could talk under water with a mouth full of marbles if something needed saying.
"Well i've just seen a cow body surfing down at Elliot's Head and my mate Jimmy saw a dog running down the street with a wooden leg in it's mouth last night, so i guess a roo in a bathrobe shouldn't really surprise me that much".
"Don't forget the barbie doll".
"Hell no, i wouldn't think of forgetting the barbie doll," I said some what peevishly, she didn't seem to think that my cow story warranted much attention, bloody typical. Things just started getting stranger and stranger by the minute.
"Well do you want a lift into town", i added reluctantly, even though she was a looker i was annoyed at her lack of interest.
"Yeh that would be great, do you think my insurance will cover accidents with kangaroo's in bathrobes".
"Well i wouldn't mention the bathrobe if i were you" i said as we climbed into my van", they might think you'd had a few too many".
"What about the barbie doll".
I didn't bother answering her question, why are the good looking ones always so irritating. I decided that i'd drop her off first chance i got.
She asked me if i'd let her out down near the Bundy distillery as she had a friend that worked there, so i did. Not a word of thanks as she got out of the car just this blank rubbery look on her face. Big deal, so she'd seen a roo in a bathrobe, oh and by the way don't forget the bloody barbie doll, as if i could.
I watched her wander off, pity really, she sure did look good from behind.

Fifteen minutes later and i was down by the foreshore out the front of the caravan park, the boy's would usually be hanging around down here with a slab of beer and a couple of fishing rods in the water but the place was deserted apart from the odd tourist.
I was just about to take off again when i noticed a bloody big ginger tom cat walking down the footpath towards me. So what you say, well it had a seagull sitting on it's back with the cats collar in it's beak, steering the bloody thing. It must have noticed something off to the right so this gull leans that way with the collar between it's beak and the cat peels off in that direction. Now when it gets to where the gull wanted to go it lets go of the collar and pecks the cat in the back of the head, the cat stops without so much as a snarl, the seagull jumps off waddles over to this rubbish bin and picks up what looks like a chip then saunters back over to the cat, jumps up on his back, pecks him in the back of the head again and off they go.
I must have sat there for about five minutes, it felt like my brain was melting. Was i imagining all this crap, will i wake up at any moment at home in bed, or even worse in the bloody nut house.
"Right thats it", i say to myself as i chuck the car into gear and drop the clutch, smokin' up the street and heading straight for home. I'm normally a pretty easy going sort of bloke but this weirdness was really starting to get to me now, i always get bloody grumpy when i haven't been able to have a decent surf.

Once i got out of town i put my foot down and sped up the rode towards our property. Twenty minutes later and i'm just about to turn onto the gravel road that takes me up to the homestead when this bloody great roo jumps out from the side of the road and starts pelting along beside me. I must admit it looked a sight, floral robe billowing out behind it, barbie doll nodding nonchantly in it's pouch each time it bounded up and down as it kept pace with me. I indicated to turn off into the side road and the roo gives me this look of dissapointment, i kid you not it's like she wanted to keep racing me down the road. Anyway's i start to turn off and the roo turns as well and bounds off into the fields of sugar cane that line the drive up to our place. What the hell is going on.

Soon as i get home i race inside to tell the old man about all this weird crap that had been happening and bugger me if our dog isn't sitting up on the lounge watching telly with the remote control in it's mouth and a bowl of peanuts on the armrest. He looks at me and barks once before turning back to the t.v. I hear the channel change as i run through to the kitchen to find my dad lying down on the floor with a tennis ball in his mouth. Now i'm just standing there stunned as he gets up on all fours and crawls over to me and drops the bloody tennis ball at my feet and starts wagging his bum at me.
I guess that's when i realised that something bloody strange really was going on with all these animals. I took the old man out the back yard and chucked the ball to him for awhile, for old times sake i guess more than anything. I left a heap of food and water out for him and packed my swag, time to head for the hills i reckon and hope that things settle down and the world starts behaving normally again. I wanted to take Dad with me but he wouldnt get into the car and besides i didnt know whether this thing with the animals was contagious or not. I left hoping he'd be allright, he didn't seem to mind because as i looked back in the rear vision mirror he'd wandered over to the old oak by the house and lay down in the shade, with the tennis ball still in his mouth.

Well its been about two weeks since that day and i've been hiding out up in the hills at an old shack that we used to stay at when we went shooting.
Up until a couple of days ago the radio had been covering all sorts of weird stuff that had been going on all around the country with animals doing strange things, behaving more like humans than animals. The animal behaviourist guy from the University of Queensland was on the radio again going on about some study they'd been doing with this new computer and radio waves to study animal personalities.
It seems that the antenna that they had been using had been struck by lightning during one of the recent storms and for a short period of time had amplified the program they'd been using. They weren't sure exactly what had happened but they believed that somehow these personalities stored on their database had been broadcast out and been picked up by other receivers all around the country. Mobile phone and radio towers, t.v antenna's and the like.
If a person and an animal were near each other during this event somehow the personalities were swapped over. I must admit it sounds pretty far fetched and i didn't really understand a lot of what they were saying but for lack of a better explanation i was willing to believe them after what i'd seen. They seemed to think that it would only be temporary but that's not much help to whoever might be wandering around a paddock chewing grass and mooing, or the woman who owned the bath robe who was probably out grazing in the bush, not to mention my old man who was probably at this moment licking away at his crotch.

Then i turned the radio on this morning and there's a parrot on air squawking on about crackers and being a pretty boy. I guess it's not as localised or as temporary as they were saying.
I don't know how long i'll be able to hold out up here and i guess it doesn't really matter anymore, not if i'm the only one left.
Well time to go, i've got this bloody irritating itch behind my ear and i cant seem to get my foot up high enough to scratch it, not to mention this insane urge to chase my tail.
Tail, what bloody tail. Ohhh crap!