The Cattledog
Kevin Rudd called Julia Gillard into his office
one day and said, 'Julia, I have a great idea! You and I are
going to go all out to win the country voters.'
'Good idea Leader, how will we go about it?'
said Julia.
'Well,' said Rudd, 'we'll get ourselves one
of those Driza Bone coats, some RM Williams boots, a stick
and an Akubra hat. Oh, and a blue cattle dog. Then we'll look
the part. We'll go to a typical old outback country pub, and
show them we really enjoy the bush.'
'Right.' said Julia.
Days later, all kitted out and with the requisite
blue heeler, they set off from Canberra (Australia's National
Capital) in a westerly direction.
Eventually they arrived at just the place
they were looking for and found a typical outback pub.
They walked in with the dog and up to the
bar.
'G'day mate,' said Rudd to the bartender,
'two middies of your best beer.'
'Good afternoon Leader,' said the bartender,
'two middies of our best coming up.'
Gillard and Rudd stood leaning on the bar
drinking their beer and chatting, nodding now and again to
whoever came into the bar for a drink. The dog lay quietly
at their feet.
All of a sudden the door from the adjacent bar opened and
in came a grizzled old stockman, complete with stockwhip.
He walked up to the cattle dog, lifted its tail with the whip
and looked underneath, shrugged his shoulders and walked back
to the other bar.
A few moments later, in came another old stockman
with his whip. He also walked up to the dog and lifted its
tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and went back
to the other bar. Over the course of the next hour or so another
four or five stockmen came in and lifted the dog's tail and
went away looking puzzled.
Eventually, Rudd and Gillard could stand it no longer and
called the barman over.
'Tell me,' said Rudd, 'why did all those old
stockmen come in and look under the dog's tail like that?
Is it an old outback custom?'
''Strewth no!' said the barman. 'Someone told
'em there was a cattle dog in the bar with two arseholes!'
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