Inconvenience Stores

Practically every corner in downtown Sydney features a convenience store. Some of them are 7-11's (and I have to say that it's a disconcerting feeling to spend 29 consecutive hours traveling only to step out of a taxi half-way around the world in front of a 7-11), some of them are tiny airless tombs (with the proprietor sealed behind industrial glass) which look as though they belong in the South Bronx rather than cheerful sunny Sydney, and some of them are just "City Convenience Store"s, whose incredibly generic logo looks like a cross between movie set dressing and... the 7-11 logo, suspiciously. The latter are the most common, almost reaching the density of Duane Reade's in Manhattan (although not quite). On one corner we came to, there were actually two of them, diagonally across from each other, in the grand Starbucks marketing tradition. L. went into them both, as part of his ongoing personal quest to find a Dr. Pepper in this strange, yet familiar land. The first "City Convenience Store": nothing. The second (diagonally across the street): the only Dr. Pepper to be found in the entire country of Australia.

While he was jousting at prune-juice-flavored windmills, I made a few observations of my own:

#1 - Australian commercial contests are not quite as challenging as American ones, apparently.



Wow, Rock Paper Scissors! That's a tough one. What are the odds against me, 200,000 to one? Say, what do I win if I can crush you with paper twice in a row? Take that, giant-with-hands-of-rock. Nobody expects the paper ninja!


#2 - Australia is approximately 60 years behind the American South with respect to racial stereotypes.



Um, is that... are those... chocolate candies... shaped like... little black babies? Holy crap, they are. And are they really... they can't seriously be... named... "Chicos"? Can they? Oh dear lord. They are and they can. Obviously this isn't considered horribly racist here because... because why not, now, exactly? Because they don't have any hispanic people to speak of? Oh right, sure, because the name is the worst part of this, obviously. Okay, deep breaths. I just need to see something familiar to make me feel better, I need something comforting to snap me out of this knee-jerk liberal panic, where is it....

Aaaaah, there we go. Same great (chicken) taste, but better (chicken) for you! That's better. I feel much more at home now. These people are just like you and me after all!