Eat it raw (1020 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crap:non-fiction
Rating: 2 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe (View user info) at 2004-03-13 02:32:18 EST
'Don't come the raw prawn with me.'
This is one of the more obscure Australian slang phrases I've ever heard. Best I've been able to figure, it refers to making someone feel sorry for you, the way a heap of raw prawns inspire a dull sort of pity in most people. They lie there, piled atop one another, little comma-shaped tails flicking weakly, and they're still alive. You feel pity. Right up to the point at which you dump them into a pot of salted water, crank up the heat, and let the little fuckers broil in their own juices before you eat them.
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A couple of years ago, I was prawning at the estuary with a few friends. We'd paired of and gone our separate ways, dragging those heavy ass nets. It was getting on dark and my legs were getting that slow deep ache that comes from walking through thigh-deep water for five hours. I called a halt and returned to the ute with Trev to wait for the others to get back.
You can get real bored, real fast, sitting on the tailgate of a Holden ute in the dark, listening to the radio babble faintly from the cab.
Swinging our feet, just sitting there, hearing the distant yells of our friends taking the piss out of each other, wishing they'd get back so we could go home and drink way too much beer and eat prawns and get maudlin about 2 in the morning.
Aussie weekends in the summer, don't you just love it?
Anyway. I was bored. I turned to Trev and asked him if he liked sushi. I knew Trev, knew his bullish adherence to the rules of 'blokishness', and knew damn well he'd never tried anything he referred to, in mixed tones of disgust and suspicion, as 'foreign muck'.
I also knew he was a macho son of a bitch.
At his denial, I shrugged and turned back to the water. I could see the torches, distant but getting closer.
'Oh well, not everyone can stomach it.'
This provoked his predictable bluster.
'I can eat anything you put in front of me. I've got a cast iron stomach. I just don't trust the Asians.'
Anyone who's ever deliberately stirred their friends into doing something dumb knows how the rest of the conversation went.
So, there's Trev. Sitting with a raw prawn in his hand. He looked nauseated but determined in the torchlight.
'Well?... go on then.' I couldn't keep the smile out of my voice.
He threw it into his mouth and started chewing it. Whole. Raw. I'm quite sure it'd still been moving. I can still hear the wet crunching sounds.
His face went an aesthetically interesting shade of grey. But he couldn't back down now... he was in the presence of a woman he'd like to screw someday, and the testosterone stew that passed for his brain wouldn't let him chicken out.
He swallowed. I was lost in admiration. 'Jesus, Trev, I can't believe you....'
'Salty,' he croaked, before he turned to the side and threw up spectacularly. This wasn't vomiting, this was something almost religious in its intensity. He hung his head over the side of the traybed and puked, and puked, and coughed, and hacked, and finally there was nothing left but shuddering dry retching.
He offered me twenty bucks to not tell anyone.
I turned it down.
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'Don't come the raw prawn with me.'
I wouldn't fuckin' dare.
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-05-20 06:24:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bickerstaff (user info) at 2006-12-08 21:19:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
How can I miss someone I've never met so much...
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-12-08 20:43:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
He offered me twenty bucks to not tell anyone.
I turned it down.
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HAHAHHAHA, geat stuff.
Submitted by steph (user info) at 2004-11-18 04:38:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ruin_dc (user info) at 2004-09-07 19:38:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
funny.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2004-09-07 19:26:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
evocative
Submitted by Hairsphincter (user info) at 2004-07-14 21:43:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hahahaha.
Perth.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2004-07-14 21:39:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Time to put some classic old school Circe on the most recently reviewed. Good stuff.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2004-06-05 14:07:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Raw prawns... *shudder*
Submitted by Insanethemind (user info) at 2004-06-05 13:51:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by drink_DDT (user info) at 2004-03-13 09:21:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Its funny that across the ocean guys still act the same. My friend swallows baby frogs as a party trick.
Submitted by I_Have_a_Kristen_Fetish (user info) at 2004-03-13 07:19:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by canuckistan (user info) at 2004-03-13 06:24:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
2 for the gross out factor
Submitted by Lyric (user info) at 2004-03-13 05:39:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hahaha!
This is great.