Australia - In Transit - Hostage to Airlink and J.

In order to get to the airport in Sydney, you have to take a train. The transit here is both public and private. We opted for the public rail, assuming it would be cheaper. But no. The Airlink group owns the airport terminal stations, so regardless of whether you take their private train or the seedy public train, it will cost you $15.00 to go 3 stops over about 15 minutes. While there are ways to stick it to Airlink (see Darryl Kerrigan, The Castle), we didn't have time to kick up a fuss, so we had to fork it over.

We boarded our flight eagerly to Melbourne, ready for our next stop. Let the misadventures begin! Our seat neighbour, whom I shall refer to as J., was a friendly fourteen year old guy just returning from his first trip overseas. He was in Turkey for 2.5 weeks for a language competition. And boy, did he love our Canadian accents. The rest of this post will relive the stupefying conversation he continued with us for the entire flight.

"Do you think I'm a boy or a girl?" Honestly, was fairly sure he was a boy until he asked this, though he did have scraggly longer hair and generic clothing on.

"You look like my lesbian cousin's friend.", "You smell like purple.", "Your eyebrows freak me out.", etc. Thanks, kid. I appreciate your unsolicited comments on my person.

Number of times he smelled/touched Mehron's hair = 6
Number of times he pushed Mehron's head = 10 maybe more
Number of time he pushed our noses down on our faces = 3
Number of times he pried Mehron's eyelids apart with his fingers = 2
Number of lip massages offered to us = 2
Number of lip massages accepted by us = 0
Number of unwelcome group hugs = 2
Number of unwelcome kisses on cheek = 2
Number of times he drew on Mehron's hand = 2
Number of times he washed his hands before touching us = 0
Number of offensive not funny racist jokes = 7 (No, we get it. It's just not funny)
Number of times he referred to "proper Australians" or implied that I was the "real Canadian" over Mehron = 8 (even though we were born in the same city and attended the same schools...)
Number of inappropriate comments/passes made at us by said 14 yr old = 4
Number of times he belatedly wondered if his flirty ways would earn him a beating from our hulking brute Canadian hockey-playing boyfriends = 3
Number of times he repeated after me = 15
Number of times he overshared about family deaths and murdered ghosts = 3
Number of times he asked if I could see a resemblance between him and Mehron = 5
Number of times he called Mehron a retard and asked how I would go about killing her = 3
Number of times he contrasted the perfection of Mehr's eyebrows against the messed-upness of mine = 4
Number of times he compared my husky-man voice to Mehr's nasally timid voice = 2
Number of times he managed to insult BOTH of us in a comparison = 9
Number of times we wanted to slap him but restrained ourselves from beating a child = 78
Number of times we were willing to exchange correspondence information = 0

The plane couldn't land fast enough.