Floody Hell

Flying back to Bangkok in the middle of the floods was probably not the best of ideas – from the sky, the airport looked like its own tiny island. I arrived at 10pm, conveniently 10 minutes after the last bus to Chiang Mai. Instead of risking ruining my 80p shoes by heading out to hunt for a guesthouse, I decided to join the other 50million people who were stranded in the airport and take advantage of a free night’s accommodation.

After searching for a space for an hour, I finally set up camp on a metal chair which rivalled a crocodile’s face when it comes to suitable places to sleep. Despite constantly throwing dramatic sighs and emphasised tuts his way, the man next to me was speaking so loud on his phone that he could only have feasibly been talking to someone that either had no ears or was dead. I managed to endure these intermittent phone calls until 4am when that last shred of sanity evaporated alongside the pool of dribble that had accumulated next to my face. I was simply incredulous that this man could have the audacity to be making these phone calls. I mean REALLY mister, yes your house may be flooded and you’ve probably been separated from your wife and children and your mother was last seen floating through the centre of Bangkok clinging onto a piece of bamboo, but can’t you see I’m SLEEPY??

I headed out of the airport and hailed a taxi to the bus station. This is where karma reared its nearly-as-weary-as-my-own head. The driver decided that 140kph was a suitable speed for the highway which was twice as difficult to drive as usual because of all the abandoned cars that he constantly had to swerve to avoid. Add this to the fact that he kept falling asleep at the wheel, only waking when I screamed in fear from the seatbeltless backseat and it made for one truly terrifying journey. Now you can rest assured that if you ever decide to speak unnecessarily loud on your phone whilst sitting next to me in a public place, not only will I refrain from pulling faces at you, but I will bring you coffee and wash your feet with the tears of my own remorse.

Abindoned houses and weely cheap food

After a couple of days rammed with shame in Byron Bay, I decided it was time to move on. Having given up on the prospect of getting a lift without ending up in tiny pieces stuffed into a bin bag and tossed to the side of the road for environmental fanatics to drive past in their earth-destroying campervans and tut at without actually doing anything about it, I booked a bus.

The next day I arrived in Brisbane and met up with a chap by the name of James to whom I had been introduced by a mutual pal three months before. James is simultaneously the nicest and most interesting human that ever there was. As if to prove this point, when I asked where he was staying, he took my bag and said ‘follow me!’ 45 minutes later we were stood outside an abandoned old house in the suburbs of Brisbane. It was an anarchist squat.

I spent the following three days living here, showering with rainwater and weeing in the garden. One of those instances of weeing in the garden went a little awry when mid-flow I spotted a spider the same size as the entire surface area of Greenland. My natural reaction was to scream and run, but as I was partway through a wee, what actually happened is that I screamed, fell over and weed all over my feet.

Another aspect of staying in the squat involved eating only food that we found in bins. It became clear that I was not made for this lifestyle when James was rummaging through the bins outside the supermarket while I was across the road digging through the rubbish from a cupcake shop. Alas, I was unsuccessful in my plight. All I managed to collect was a banana skin that had attached itself to my trousers and a selection of disapproving looks.
The evening resulted in a rather spectacular (and totally free) barbeque.

Australian parks are kitted out with barbeques – all you need to provide is the fuel and the food. While James foraged for firewood, I began shelling lentils that we’d plucked from a tree at the side of a road. Once the barbeque was going, the lentils went onto boil alongside the rest of the delights from the bin. We feasted on sweetcorn, garlic bread, lentil soup, and tomato, mushroom and onion kebabs (the skewers were made from bamboo we’d cut from the park). The meal was brought to a conclusion with two of the most delicious mangoes I have ever had the pleasure to ram into my face, and they were made even sweeter by the fact that they didn’t cost a thing.

After cleaning three days’ worth of bin juice from my arms and wee from my feet, I was bus bound once more to spend my final Australian days with Jacque, a rather marvellous Canadian girl living in Surfers’ Paradise who, despite my best teaching efforts, pronounces the word ‘banana’ like a horse playing a harmonica through its nose.

Being a lover of Thai food, she asked me if I could help her cook a Pad Thai one evening. ‘Why yes!’ I arrogantly replied, and off we gallivanted to the supermarket in search of supplies. Unfortunately, alongside the essentials, we also invested in two bottles of wine and as a result, we spent most of the evening singing into wooden spoons whilst prancing around the living room. Consequently, the Pad Thai resembled the kind of unidentifiable grey mush served in school canteens that in both taste and appearance could as easily be paper maché as it could rice pudding.

It wasn’t on poi-porse

I exited my tepee just in time to join in with a hula-hooping lesson.  It took me under a minute to discover that I’m far more successful at eating a delicious baked hula hoop snack than I am at wiggling in a manner productive enough to keep a piece of plastic from hitting the floor.  You’d think that with the amount of spare tyres I’m currently lugging around with me that I’d be able to wedge the hoop in between two of them and keep it off the floor for hours.  In reality I looked more like an epileptic tortoise standing on two legs staring at a strobe light in a club where everyone else is looking at him with a sense of pity but doesn’t really want to say anything because he’s the special kid.  I soon gave up on the hula hooping – everyone around had that look of half confusion, half smile where they wanted to laugh because I was so hilarious, yet didn’t want to laugh in case that was my genuine attempt at hula hooping.  It was.

After crossing off hula hooping on my long list of ‘what am I good at?’ I joined in a lesson of poi.  Poi is essentially two tennis balls inside two knee high socks that you swing about your person in a speedy and elaborate manner.  When you get really good you can turn your skills to fire poi.  During my 30 minute lesson I hit myself in the face approximately 84 times.  I crossed poi off the list too.  I think if I were ever to take a shot at fire poi it would be at the expense of losing all my hair.

As my ‘what am I good at?’ list had depleted by two possibilities in the course of one hour, I decided to stop researching for the remainder of the day.  If I were to continue at that rate I’d soon discover that my skills were precisely nil and would soon have to resort to moving to the Scottish Borders whereby my only option to survive would be to dye sheep wool which I would then export to Japan.  This is really not something that I want to do, so instead I went to lounge by the pool.

I was sat listening to my ipod whilst watching four generic and indistinguishable surfer dudes play with a ball in the water when the ball began rolling my way.  In a fit of panic I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped that they wouldn’t notice me.  Alas, it was not to be.
The surfers’ shouts managed to break through the soothing lull of Metallica that was gently trickling into my ears, and such a feat cannot be ignored.  I removed my earphones, gulped and took a step towards the ball.  It was me vs. this tiny piece of rubber which weighed precisely the same amount as Taylor Swift’s personality.  I felt my stomach churn as I remembered school days where I would have actively chosen to have had my eyes chewed out by the starved rats that lived in the drama cupboard rather than live through a single moment of the embarrassment that undertaking any form of sports afforded me.  Though it is important to note here that hockey was not included in these hated sports, give me a wooden stick and a field full of girls I hate and I’ll be happy for hours – or at least until two of the teachers drag me away and tell me to sit out and ‘cool down’ (yeah good one, we’re outside in England in winter wearing shorts – what other option do I have?)

Anyway, back to the ball at the pool – I took a deep breath and confronted my fears head on whilst simultaneously trying to like totally impress the gnarly surfers man.  I did the whole routine (don’t pretend you’ve never done it).  I sucked in my belly, flicked my hair out of my face and flashed them my best smile.  I picked up the ball and growled a word of warning to it that should it show me up I would introduce it to my friend Mrs Safety Pin.  I was now ready for that defining moment when you’re judged entirely on the power of your throw and the accuracy of your aim.

NAILED IT.  WAHOOOOOO.  NO EMBARRASMENT FOR ME…

That is until I realised that I’d been focusing so hard on throwing the ball right that a boob had come out to say hello.  Oopsie.

Australi yeah?

It dawned on me after spending 12 days in Australia that it was a rather massive place and I had already spent over half my time there in Sydney.  What with everything in the country being so expensive that my bum cheeks would inadvertently clench every time I saw a price list, I was very reluctant to pay for a bus ticket out of Sydney.  As an alternative, I put an advert up on Gumtree asking if anyone was driving to Byron Bay from Sydney in the next few days.  The replies I got varied drastically from people who should probably be in prison to people who have probably only just got out.  One of the replies went as follows:

Hi there,
I am very interested in your offer of accompanying me on a drive to Byron Bay.  I currently have no plans to go, but if you give me a date and a time I will be happy to drive you.  Where are you going to stay in Byron Bay? How long will you be there?  Please tell me about yourself and send me a photograph.

I’d only got halfway through reading this message before I was handing over an obscene amount of cash in exchange for a bus ticket.  However, as a matter of courtesy I replied to Mr Crazy and explained that I’d already bought a bus ticket before I got his message (considering the apparent psychopathic tendencies of this individual I felt that such a lie was justified).  He replied in under a minute asking what time my bus was leaving and where it was going from so that he could be sure to get a ticket for the same bus.  I didn’t reply.

The following evening I plonked my bottom on the bus seat, keeping my head low out of fear that Mr Crazy may be lurking somewhere nearby and may have some 6^th sense that gives him the ability to seek out Alicias the world over.  Thankfully it was not to be (maybe he got the 6^th sense short straw and can only find Alishas) and I arrived in Byron Bay the following morning.  After alighting the bus (what a stupid phrase – I would undoubtedly forgive some chavvy 6 year old with a gold stud in his ear and shapes shaved into his hair if after getting arrested for setting a bus on fire at a bus stop he pointed out that the sign says alighting only [though perhaps my forgiveness would derive from being so impressed that such a creature could read]) it took me a full 10 minutes to realise that I was not being followed by a decomposing possum who had spent the previous year surviving only on fermenting enchiladas and self hatred, but that the smell was actually me.  I dumped my belongings in my tepee (ooooh look at me, I’m so alternative) and showered.

Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin

I arrived in Sydney to be greeted by Vivan, a meat-loving, dreaded-hair kinda girl who I met in Chiang Mai.  I spent two weeks in this fine city with this fine lady, but alas it seemed to pass in somewhat of a blur and I don’t have (remember) a great deal to relate of my time here.  A lot of time was spent planking.  In case this is a term new to you, please allow me to elaborate.  Planking is a form of idiocy whereby the planker lies face down, rigidly straight.  The objective is to plank in the most unusual of places so that other plankers will hold you in high regard while those ignorant to the esteemed sport will look on with a tut and a judgmental confusion whilst skirting around you with the same tenacity that James Blunt uses to avoid producing songs that have any form of musical worth.   My proudest planking achievements include on the reception desk of the hostel and on the top of a toilet cubicle.

However I do remember the majority of one evening where we attended a burlesque event where I was witness to a multitude of boobies as well as whole host of beards.  There was a band playing called ‘The Beards’, the members of which are all proud owners of some rather spectacular chin growths.  Their songs are all about this favoured form of facial hair and song titles include: ‘If your dad doesn’t have a beard you’ve got two mums’ and ‘You should consider having sex with a bearded man’.  After drinking many heinously overpriced drinks, the evening proceeded with Vivan and I joining The Beards sitting on a quiet suburban street drinking copious amounts of vodka until the sun came up.  Although things began to get a tad blurry around this point, my new camera* has a time stamp, and from it I can deduce that at 8am I was planking on the top of a takeaway counter and that at 8.20am I was asleep in a suitcase.

Alas, despite spending so much quality time with these hairily endowed chaps, my chin is still as bald as Bruce Willis’s shiny, shiny scalp.

*That’s right folks, I bought a new camera – my fabulous blue one (the fact that it was blue was the only fabulous thing about it) kept on dying a little bit more every day.  As a result I opened up the battery compartment, filled it with the stuff that makes sparklers sparkle, and set fire to it.  Heed that oh new camera of mine – mess with me and this will be your fate also.

Karaoke and carrot cake

Today I sat on a beanbag in Auckland library reading Permaculture Magazine.  This library is my favourite ever library for a number of reasons.  Firstly, it has beanbags; secondly, it has Permaculture Magazine; thirdly it plays awesome music.  Imagine my delight when I’d been sitting for half an hour listening to the library’s ok-but-not-very-exciting music when the Beastie Boys came on the stereo.  Well obviously I sang along, but fear not – the music was loud enough to mask my voice as I rapped the words I knew and did that awkward mumble-whilst-simultaneously-moving-my-lips-as-fast-as-possible-and-nodding-at-the-people-around-me move to give the impression that I knew all the words.  As more and more people began to turn around and look at me, it gradually dawned on me that it’s rather unusual for a library to play music.  A few seconds later I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and I very slowly glanced down at my ipod sat on the floor next to me.  As I hit the pause button, my face crumpled up akin to how Ann Robinson looked when there was someone audacious enough to share the same planet as her (obviously this refers to the era before she pumped her face full botox and whatever else it is that stick thin witches require to survive).  The Beastie Boys instantly stopped and I was surrounded by that kind of silence that is common to libraries, and the kind of imploring looks that are usually reserved for the people who sit on the bus and talk to their own reflections.

After this little episode I wandered down the street to a cafe just far enough away to ensure that no one would recognise me, and hooray and hoorah – here I was no longer the biggest moron in the room.  The woman on the table next to me had ordered a slice of carrot cake, but when it arrived she scraped off the icing.  Come on woman, EVERYONE knows that the whole point of carrot cake is the icing – you only eat the rest of it so that no one judges you.  Well needless to say that as soon as she left I scooped up her plate and rectified her mistake.  Shut up – don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same.

That evening I went to an event at Auckland Museum about Drag Artists.  The place was full of arty types – you know the kind – the ones that enjoy performing expressive dances and hold heated debates over which kind of mushrooms are better for the creation of fairy circles.  Over the trilbys and goat skin waistcoats I made eye contact with a fellow outsider who was surveying the crowd with equal amounts of incredulity.  We got drunk together as Drag Queens danced us around us and people discussed the prospect of using beard trimmings to patch up the holes in the Ozone.

My evening, and my time in New Zealand drew to a close later that evening when back at the hostel I shared a three minute embrace with a total stranger.  In the toilets.

40 meters of fear (and faeces)

Today I did one of the stupidest things I have ever done, and that’s quite a feat.  Today people, I did a bungy jump and it. was. horrific.  It was a spontaneous decision that I made after taking a bus tour around the city.  The tour guide was more excitable and annoying than the combined efforts of every single X-factor contestant ever, and I’m pretty sure that the idea of flinging myself off a bridge was a direct result of having spent four hours in this man’s company.

The deplorable event began with me having to climb across Auckland Harbour Bridge while the wind whispered in my ear how much of an idiot I was.  I got to the centre of the bridge and watched four people before me fling themselves towards the ocean, returning twenty seconds later with massive grins plastered to their faces, shouting about how awesome it was.  Looking back, these people were obviously mental patients who had been paid to bungy jump before every prospective customer to ensure that they give up their money.  Well they were pretty good actors and their skills lured me into a false sense of security, so I wasn’t too nervous when it was my turn to sit down and get the cuffs fastened to my feet.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?  Only criminals get cuffs attached to their feet.  IDIOT.

When one professional had finished attaching a giant piece of elastic to my feet, another helped me shuffle to the brink (of despair).  He then counted to three and I flung myself off the edge of the bridge.  Unlike all the photos you see of bungy jumpers with big toothy grins and their arms out to their sides, I refused to let go of the harness and my face was contorted into some kind of mix between a bulldog snarling and a chimpanzee with a banister up its behind.  I was screaming with such vigour that I wasn’t sure if it was a result of fear or a way of keeping my throat preoccupied so that it wasn’t able to provide a route of escape for the copious amounts of vomit that was trying to flee from my body.

When I had been pulled back up I was shaking so much that I couldn’t stand.  I wholeheartedly attribute this to the horrendous ordeal that I had just endured, and not to the fact that it would (and did) result in the two burly instructors having to hold me up.  At this point I had a flashback to my Year two psychotic bitch teacher wrinkling her nose at me and saying ‘and would you copy him if he jumped off a bridge Alicia? Hmmm? Would you?  WOULD YOU?’  Well Mrs Hitler-Haircut Bumface, it turns out I would.  Actually.  Maybe it would have been more effective to ask if I would have regretted it if I’d copied him if he jumped off a bridge.  If that had been the case then I would accept your condescending questioning as I now know that yes, I would regret it.  But as that isn’t what you asked, you can suck it you mean faced old witch.  And P.S. no, I still can’t colour inside the lines, but I can deal with that as I’m safe in the knowledge that I’m not a 45 year old child hating wreck who survives on the flesh of orphaned puppies.  SO THERE.

Island strolls and boozy afternoons

In Auckland I was pretty much as far away from England as I could possibly get.  On my fist night I bumped into a guy in the same hostel who was from the village next to the one I grew up in.  Honestly, what do I have to do to escape you people?  ARRRRGH.

As if to make up for this unfortunate meeting, I also met a German chappy in my hostel who was travelling New Zealand in a method as close to the story of ‘Into the Wild’ as I’ll probably ever come across.  The guy had pretty much nothing other than a tent and a thumb for hitching (he did have his other thumb and all the rest of his fingers too, but mentioning that would have taken away from the from the awe inspiring description I was going for…).  We spent a day wandering through the countryside of one of the islands off the mainland.  We trekked across the island for seven hours, stopping every now and then to have a tree climbing race (he didn’t get it when I told him that I was pretty sure trees couldn’t climb, but I KNOW it was hilarious so heartily enough for the both of us).  We took part in some wine tasting while we were on the island.  This was essentially a very cheap way of getting drunk.  And no, of course I didn’t spit out the wine – that would have been an irresponsible waste that I would have regretted for the rest of my life.

When we were back on the mainland, this fellow told me he’d never eaten Mexican food before.  Obviously I was horrified, so a Mexican restaurant is where we headed.  Imagine trying to hold an intellectual conversation with one of the most interesting people you’re ever going to meet while salsa drips down your chin.  Now imagine me trying to hold an intellectual conversation (wait, I haven’t finished the sentence yet) while salsa drips down my chin, guacamole rests on my white t-shirt and sour cream sits lovingly in my unbrushed hair.  I’m pretty certain I’ll never be seeing this man again, though I’m going to attribute this to the fact that he had no phone or email address as opposed to the fact that I was seemingly unable to eat a taco without simultaneously feeding my clothes.  Though in hindsight, maybe he was only telling me he didn’t have a phone or email address for that very same reason…

The following day I headed to Auckland’s art gallery where I spent four hours wandering amongst people who were sporting expertly trimmed moustaches and brand new jeans that some designer had obviously spent hours hacking at to make them look well worn.  The art gallery seemed to consist predominantly of items that looked like what may occur if Mr Blobby were to eat the entire contents of a Toys R Us store, vomit onto a canvas and then ram his face through it.  Good job the entry was free…

Gramm-argh

When we arrived back on the mainland it was time for James to catch his flight home.  I stood at the airport with the rest of the country and waved off the white man.  It was strange to see him go – that had been the most we’d seen of each other since he left home 10 years ago, and unlike back then, there was not a single punch thrown in the whole two months we were together.  I didn’t even stick one of his chips up my nose when he wasn’t looking and then put it back on his plate (James, if you’re reading this, hahahahahahahaha, bet that’s the first you knew about that!  But if it makes you feel any better I burned my nose.  Every time).

While I was stood at the side of the runway, two young girls came up to me
“Can we ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“You must be our friend.”
Talk about awkward.  I mean imagine trying to explain the difference between a question and a statement in 35 degree heat over the roar of a plane’s engines.  Safe to say that due to their glaringly obvious inability to become as intimidatingly incredible at grammar as me, there was no chance that we could have ever had a lasting friendship.  If you’re getting annoyed by how arrogant I am, please take note that I’m not really arrogant.  I’m just really great at everything.  And if that still doesn’t satisfy you, then enjoy the fact that when I got back to my room I discovered that I’d spent the whole day walking around in leggings that had a massive hole right across my bottom.  But at least it was an awesome bottom…

I had another week in Kiribati, but as I had no money and the sun had decided to take a week off, it was a pretty slow week in which I did something in the region of absolutely nothing.  Most of my time was spent searching the internet.  I’m not sure what I was searching for.  All I know is that I still haven’t found it.  The internet in that country is so slow that I imagined it being powered by a three legged hamster running round a wheel the shape of Bill Clinton’s head.  It was so frustratingly slow that while I was waiting for each page to load I was imagining new and inventive ways I could remove each one of the hamster’s remaining legs.  Grating it onto Cheryl Cole’s imaginary dinner and telling her it’s ‘clever dust’ was one of my favourites.

The week passed rather slowly and I smiled to myself as I walked through ‘security’ and saw my bag being thrown onto the runway after I’d checked in for my flight to Fiji.  I was meant to be spending a week in Fiji before catching a plane to Sydney with a seven hour stop off in Auckland.  Now this might make me sound absolutely insane (and I’m sure this isn’t the only thing that will give you that impression), but I couldn’t face a week of doing nothing but lying on a beach.  It’s just SO boring.  Top that with the fact that it was raining when I arrived in Fiji and my decision was made.

Without even leaving the airport I went straight to the Air New Zealand desk, rubbing my eyes en route to give them that little red tinge that so effectively evokes compassion from strangers.  Once at the desk I told the lovely middle aged man that I’d been travelling with my brother who had gone home that morning (lie number one).  I explained that I had a flight to Sydney via Auckland in a week, told him that I wasn’t a very confident traveller (lie number two), informed him that I had family living in Auckland (lie number three) and that I’d feel much safer spending a week with them than alone in Fiji.  Sod morals – I walked away from the desk with an upgraded ticket to Auckland leaving in three hours.  Win.

Please Sir, can I have some boar?

We followed Patrick back to his place where he showed us to our room.  He lived with his wife, two of his five children and four elderly people whose relationship to him I couldn’t work out.  You couldn’t accuse it of being a house so much as a homestead.  It was a patch of gravel about half the size of a football pitch with five wooden structures set up in between coconut trees.  One of the buildings was a hut where the elderly couples slept.  Another was a hut made of woven pandanus leaves with a squatter toilet and a floor space for a bucket shower.  The other buildings were wooden poles with woven pandanus for the roofs – one was the kitchen, one was the room where the family slept and the other was to be mine and James’s bedroom for the following three days.

Those three days were some of the most surreal of my life.  The island had no electricity or running water, so we had to drink coconut milk from freshly picked coconuts.  The elderly women would prepare all the meals and some of the concoctions were bizarre, for example we had cold corned beef and spaghetti hoops for breakfast every day.  However, the rest of the food was incredible.  One morning after our delightful breakfast we were encouraged to go for a nap, when two hours later we were woken up to a pig being killed in our honour.  Half an hour later we were tucking into this delicious fresh pig which we were informed was our ‘early lunch’.  When we’d finished pigging out (ha), we were whisked away to the next village where the elders had invited James and me for a ‘later lunch’ because we were visitors to the island.  We were given head garlands and sat on the floor in a circle with the men of the village when we were presented with another platter of pork which had been freshly slaughtered for our enjoyment.  Not having realised that we would be eating here as well, we were very English and politely nibbled tiny portions of everything and then insisted that we were stuffed while the men sung to us and plied us with coconuts.

The following day Patrick taught me an easier way of climbing coconut trees which involves cutting foot holes in the trunk and just climbing it like a ladder.  It felt like cheating.  I was ok with that.

That evening we had been invited to have dinner at a different village.  When we arrived we were given more head garlands, and this time we sat on the floor with the entirety of the village.  A group of women were dressed in grass skirts with flowers tied to their hair and all down their arms and danced for us to music generated by a small group of men with guitars and banjos.  Once the dancing was finished, two bowls of food were placed in front of us.  When I say bowls I don’t mean dinner bowls, but plastic dishes the size of washing up bowls.  When the lids were removed we were faced with offensive amounts of rice, noodles, breadfruit, fish, chicken and pork.  Over the top of the bowls, James and I shared a look of glee.

After everyone had finished eating, the music started up again and a couple of girls took to the floor.  They did a bit of wiggling then shimmied up to someone, throwing their arms in the general direction of the person they wanted to dance with who was then obliged to accept the offer.  It took a few dances to overcome our English reserve, especially considering alcohol is illegal on the island, but the evening eventually concluded with me having a dance off with the village chief.  And yes, I did break out the funky chicken.

Our time with Patrick passed in a blur of pig bingeing and mosquito bites.  James and I were sharing a mattress underneath a holey mosquito net which trapped in approximately eight billion mosquitoes.  In an attempt to cope with these buzzing bastards we discovered a fabulous new method of mass genocide.  Duct tape.  Simply wrap a strip of duct tape around your fingers, sticky side out, then flail wildly as though as though you’re being chatted up by a guy who’s just eaten a plate of sushi wrapped in raw garlic.  Honestly is there no situation that duct tape can’t solve?  Someone once told me that duct tape was like the force: it has a light side and a dark side and holds the universe together.  Having never seen Star Wars (and not even knowing that this is what he was referring to) I assumed that this was meant to be funny and was met with an uncomfortable look when I grabbed my stomach and roared with laughter.  I still don’t get it.