THE AUSSIE

      With an All-American boyish clean-cut 

round-faced look, and wearing a GAP hoody, this dreamboat's accent gave him away, he was an Aussie.  

Just behind me in line at the Dollar Tree, he leaned against the black conveyor belted counter.

"I'm getting out of here."

At first I assumed he meant rushing out of the store, but his body language said he was relaxed.

"Oh, really?" and I raised my eyebrow encouraging him to expound.

"It's too cold." he said.

I looked at the clerk who is a friendly acquaintance, we exchanged bug-eyed telepathic looks.

"This is cold?"  

The sun was shining, and granted I was wearing a sweater, but none of us had on a coat, and we were all old enough to have lived during the Blizzard of '78 and the coldest year of the century in 1994, a brutal -43.  And let's not forget that horrible ice storm!

"It's too cold for me," he said again.

"But it's not that cold, not as cold as it's gonna get."

"The plane's leaving,"  again his words didn't match his easy demeanor, "tomorrow.  I'll be gone for 3 months."

"But it's only October, the cold weather starts in December sometimes not until January ... you should leave then for 3 months.  Where you from anyway?"

"Darwin.  Darwin, Australia.  It never gets cold there."  

Then as we wrapped up our purchases, he went off topic.

I had to take a minute to shift my focus from the cold weather, to the absentee President and the word-salad Vice President, Sleepy Joe and Kamalablah, to which this stranger from Australia referred.

I chuckled thinking THEY should get on a plane and run from the cold when he said, 

"You've got crazy people running this country!"

Let's keep the Aussie!