Itchy Feet and Easter Weekend

Happy Belated Easter greetings from the Adamses. We write you from our living room as we scratch away at the many bites on our feet and reminisce over our latest camping trip.

On a bright, beautiful Friday morning, we and three other couples headed off for South Stradbroke Island. This is one of the largest sand islands in the world, which means that every inch of its coastline is beach. We had fun from the start with a wallaby coming up to our camp to check us out from a discrete distance. Lots of lorikeets and kookaburras and who knows what other kinds of birds did their bird things in the trees. We even had some close brushes with a few goannas (a type of monitor lizard).

Almost all of the wildlife was nonintrusive and beautiful to behold. But there was one species that made the camping trip very uncomfortable. No, I’m not talking about all the mosquitoes nor do I refer to the pesky sand flies. They are heaven-sent compared to our encounter with the native Intoxicatus jackassium. It is a rather dirty nocturnal beast easily identified by its loud, raucous call and absolute disregard for the well being of campers. This is the only species beside the Rattus norvegicus and the Corvus spp. (rats and crows) that seems to thrive on human contact, expanding its range to coincide with the spread of the human population.

While it prefers cheap beer, the I. jackassium has been known to eat almost anything, many being found in the morning with its own foot in its mouth. Alternating between two and four legs, the I. jackassium expresses a humorous, unsteady gait as it shuffles about foraging for sustenance, approbation and a warm female body. Despite the hilarity of its locomotion, Intoxicatus species are very successful at intimidating neighboring campers. Their intimidation comes not because of a cunning intellect, but rather because of their absolute unpredictability. One moment they could be laughing hysterically and the next fuming in a mindless rage before breaking down in pathetic tears. In fact extensive fieldwork supports that belief that the I. jackassium doesn’t even know itself what it will do next.

This species is a true natural anomaly that runs counter to all proposed theories of natural selection: it persists despite having a very high mortality rate and great difficulty attracting a mate. While much is known about this curious beast, much remains a mystery. How does the species perpetuate itself? Do they reproduce asexually or are they examples of a developmental stage of an apparently unrelated species like caterpillars and butterflies? Are they, as some have hypothesized, the poor victims of a poisonous mold that grows only on the rim of longneck bottles? Or is there a flying insect that carries within its saliva a stupid virus that slowly eats away at the brain centers controlling coordination and propriety?

As you can see from the photos, Célia seemed to enjoy herself immensely camping. So much so that she had a tough adjustment returning to sleep in a crib, because she wants to be sleeping in a tent.