The day started with me heading down to pick up the Ghanaian lady. She was ready to go and it was pouring heavily. She was very thankful of me for picking her up again. I told her no worries. Let’s be frank it’s really not a problem, it’s me needing the money right now to pay for things like rent etc. So I will take as many bookings as possible!
I dropped her off at the bus stop said if she needs me when she returns then I will happily pick her up again.
Next customer was from the airport. A honeymoon couple returning from Maui. The lady said all I know about Australia is that everything there wants to kill you. I said you know what doesn’t kill you though? She replied what? A machine gun. They both laughed and said you really don’t hold back do you? Nope I don’t. It’s true Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting since 1996. Our right wing government brought in strict laws, outlawing high impact weapons including assault rifles.
The machine gun was invented originally for war. The concept started in Britain by James Puckel, this concept design was to fire maximum rounds, but without reloading (Britannica, 2019). The implementation of such a weapon did not happen until the American Civil War. I could get into the nitty gritty of machine guns and gattling guns, but from an Australian perspective the machine gun was devastating for our people.
The debate on gun on whether it is an assault rifle or not. The fact it was made for war originally. You can call it an assault rifle. Think about Gallipoli in Turkey a beach on the Dardenelles. The ANZACs in WWI had rifles and handguns. The Ottoman Empire had machine guns facing down the beach. People were mowed down in the thousands. Trenches were dug as quickly as possible, but the carnage was too great. The original machine gun was definitely a war machine and was mobilized by Nazi Germany in WWII. A more compact sub machine gun. Not to hunt deer, but to kill masses of amounts of people (War History Online, 2019).
If you go to a shooting range the target is an outline of a human. Not an animal. You can’t deny the sole purpose for certain types of guns. Now here’s the warring minds at work. I think guns are fun to shoot. They’re easy to load, easy to work, but I do believe the laws should be stricter to own a gun. Here’s me a non-citizen in the USA. I can go and purchase a gun easily. I walk in fill out a form saying I’m not a psychopath and get a small tutorial and off I go. In California I could have purchased a gun whilst waiting for the dentist. As long as my car rego matched my drivers license, then I’m good to go. I couldn’t believe how easy it would be to partake in the United States prized constitutional second amendment. “The right to bear and possess arms”. I’m not an American, take note that this is even before my pathway to a green card. I was on a two year working visa. Me an Aussie could have walked out in California one of the strictest states for gun ownership with a firearm. Unbelievable.
I dropped my passengers off and proceeded to town, when I got a ping at the hotel near the airport. Blake. Sounds Aussie. Drove up to the foyer and as soon as he said Paul, yep two Australians. It was refreshing. They were in from Port Headland in Western Australia. Are you lost? Nope. Told them I worked on a project over there back in 2012. In fact it was my first project after hitting that damn kangaroo. I still remember that car accident like it was yesterday. When Time slowed down in one of the fastest moments on my life. Anyway these two were here for a wedding. They all live in Australia and love it. The brother was getting hitched to an American, but didn’t want to be living in a country that had Trump as a president. We chatted about Aussie beer. Asked me about VB and Emu Export. Unfortunately no you can’t get here, but you can get Cooper’s and Boags. They were going to the Kangaroo and Kiwi. I find it funny that most Aussies would seek out the most Australian places in a foreign country. Emu Export is a WA beer that was called wife beater beer when I was there. Horrendous. I liked the taste, but didn’t have the urge to beat anyone. The mother chimed in and said it’s watered down these days. 🤣😂
After dropping them off at a house they tipped me well and told me to be safe on the roads here. I thanked them and went to find another customer. Five hours later I noticed my phone fading in and out due to temperature changes. I had restarted my phone several times. I had also managed to drop choccy under my seat in that time. I managed to salvage it out from underneath. Thank goodness. Don’t want that to melt under there.
Then finally a ping at the airport. Debra. It was actually Ryan, Debra’s hubby. He was with a lady who I thought was Debra, no this is Rosa. We’re here on a conference in Birch Bay. Awesome longer trip home, but I need to go the grocery store and buy butter. Oh well I’ll take the huge fare. We chatted and he said we need to drop Rosa off at another hotel in the bay. I told him to add a stop. It didn’t work. So I dropped him off and he went to order me, when another uber got him. Darn! He said he’ll get me to take them back to the airport on Thursday. Fine that’s a better and longer trip than 2 miles. See you then.
I headed back to winco when I got another ping at target. OK uber that’s how you want to play? I’ll accept. It was a lady I had picked up once before. It was wonderful to see her and her mum again. After dropping them off I got another ping over at the hospital. It was a fellow who works with radiation to kill cancer. Wow crazy job. He said they have programs that stop errors. Oh? Well essentially if you use too much radiation you can destroy unaffected tissue. It can be rather harmful. They said they have a strict quality assurance team and measures to minimize errors. Nice one, no lawsuits.
After a 5 hour glitch I still managed to get my quota!
Till later.
References
https://www.britannica.com/technology/machine-gun
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/whotube-2/need-know_sturmgewehr-watch-x.html/amp
