Yeah, so here I am helping my ex move out of her house and I notice my boomerang haning over the kitchen sink (Well, where do you keep yours then?). I make my move and she’s all like, “Oh, you’re taking the boomerang.” Ever the quick wit I shoot back a scathing, “Well, duh!” and lovingly take it off it’s hook. “There, you should take that hook out the wall and spackle it. I would but, you know, not my house.” and out the door I goes with my prize boomerang.
It’s Aboriginal Made, you know. In Tazmania. Where they have neither rhinoceroses nor weasels, but still, one could muse for some time over Tazmania. And Aboriginal for that matter. But probably not in this thread. For long. Anyway. This is a very special boomerang because I can throw it so that it doesn’t curve, nay, but sets itself upon a stable vector until the atmosphere leeches it of momentum and delivers it gently to the earth…sometimes as much as 100 yards away! My friend Brian tells me that such a boomerang is commonly called a “stick.” Dope. What’s he know about it? Aboriginies don’t make sticks, they make boomerangs! He can be such a hick. I once attemted to demonstrate my non-returning boomerang only to have it curve for the first and last time in its existence as a boomerang and strike the windshield of a large SUV wielded by an even larger knuckle-dragging hominid with an apparently irrational hatred of things Aboriginal…are the Abbos in Tazmania significantly different from those on the mainisland? Such that they evolved the necessary technology of bee-line boomerangs?
Bee-line! Oh, the yellowjacket! Sure. Well, there I was, there I was, there I was: In The Congo! No…I was in Lakewood CO, far, far away from The Congo. Carrying my bangless boomerang to my 1983 Toyota Corolla Coupe (that’s right ladies, the sporty 2-door model–hey now, don’t crowd! There’s plenty of Inigo to go around!) Ok, then there’s this hornet, a yellowjacket in the vernacular. And it decided to buzz me. So I swatted at it with my boomerang and knocked it out of the air. Knocked its head off. Killt it dead with my boomerang. Today.
Inigo, you are missing the point of the boomerang. The Tasmanians throw it at the yellowjacket, killing it and bringing it back to the hunter, who can then skin it and divide up the meat (yes; Monty Python: I know!). They don’t walk up to their prey and smack it with the boomerang. I mean, suppose you had only wounded it, what then? They are known to charge when they are wounded, you know.
I have a friend who killed a yellowjacket with a gun. That’s right–a real gun with bullets.
DH got it on video–after a fashion. He’s filming the woods where he and his friend have been hunting when you hear the shot. The camera jerks (it startled the hell out of my husband) and pans to his buddy, who’s laughing so hard he can barely stand up. He then proceeds to describe how he drew a bead on the thing and BOOM! no more yellowjacket.
I have no idea why he did this, but I gotta admit, it made me laugh, too!
And neither is genocide. :eek: Tasmanian Aborigines are a little hard to find these days.
I know the “stick” thing is a joke, so I’m not being wooshed here, but most boomerangs were traditionally made not to come back to the thrower. Not much point when you’re trying to take down an animal. The hunting 'rangs are heavy things with lesser lift assist - kinda half-airfoil and half ballistic.
Returning boomerangs, on the other hand, are traditionally designed for teaching children how to throw, and for killing birds (throw it slightly away from a flock of birds, and they will fly away in fright only to meet the boomerang coming back).
Full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigines are notably absent. There are parts of our state’s history I’m hideously appalled by. But there are lots of people of aboriginal heritage left and I always felt it was kind of awful the way we were taught in school that the Aborigines were “all gone” when they’re still struggling for rights and recognition. But I didn’t want to be too much of a bummer in an obviously light-hearted thread and this is a topic of much conflict and sorrow.
I think we can all agree that wasps and wasp like critters are nasty and deserve whacking.
I once struck a yellow jacket that was hovering too close to the corn syrupy goodness of my Coca Cola. Not with a boomerang though. Just my hand.
Sadly, it swatted it right into my Coke. Well mostly. It’s body went into the Coke, it’s head laid to rest next to the pull tab.
The big game hunter in me knew exactly what to do. So I got a teensy tiny piece of wood and a little polyeurathane, and mounted the head. It now proudly graces my basement wall. If you know where to look.
Imagine my embarassment. No offence intended. I guess one can expect this sort of faux pas when one’s only sources of Down-Under cultures are Steve Irwin and Kevin Bloody Wilson. :rolleyes: I need to get out more.
and I was SO hoping for a “…and when I caught the boomerang, I noticed the lifeless body fo a yellow-jacket stuck hopelessly to the inside foil” story.
And what was the Yellowjacket doing with the boomerang in the first place?
(rimshot)
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Please don’t applaud, just throw money on the stage.
Everybody sing along. Dance if you want to.
and out the door I goes with my prize boomerang.
)