Originally published in The Clifton Courier, April 6, 2018

The other night, I got up on my high I’m-from-the-country horse.

Now, this is interesting considering I’m someone who needs a block of wood as a boost to hop up into the saddle and I’m only just competent at riding (and that competence is arguable, however, considering that time I fell off a horse, broke my wrist and my life crumbled to pieces because I could no longer write, drive manual cars or shower without the company of a plastic bag).

I’ve written about my tendency to ham up my rural roots in the big smoke (see, I’m even doing it now) before. It’s just something that happens when you are surrounded by people who don’t know all the lyrics to Boys From The Bush. I automatically pretend I’m a member of the Outback Club. I’ll use strange words like “sorghum” and “charolais”. I’ll find a way to bring swags into the conversation so I can let it slip that I’ve slept outdoors. I may even start talking about the “rain out our way”.

And then I get into my rants. It all depends on what’s topical at the time – milk prices, live export or that extremely private, little-known gentleman Barnaby Joyce. Whatever’s been in the news.

But because I’ve been a little out of the cycle (I don’t know if you know this, but I was, like, in Europe. I’ve been to France, sweetie). So I’m not fully up to speed with the current events that I can chime in about “them bastards in Sydney just not bloody getting it”.

However, that’s not going to put a dampener over my bonfire (that you can light because you’re like five kilometres away from your nearest neighbour, I tell them) of country pride. I have this tendency to stew on things that annoy me about Sydney that wouldn’t be an issue back home. As such, I always have a backlog of “things that really shit me” that I can draw on at the moment’s notice.

And, recently, the targets of my rants have been dog owners.

You see, it’s now trendy to have border collies as pets. And I don’t disagree with that; they are lovely dogs that enrich many human lives. But the thing about border collies is that they were bred as working dogs and have a metric heckload of energy underneath that glossy, fashionable coat. They need to run. They stimulation. And they need big, open spaces.

Now, I doubt there are many backyards big enough for a collie in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. You can take them to the park every day, but they’re still being cooped up in a tiny yard – or worse, an apartment – for most of the day.

I’ve even started seeing kelpies being walked in Sydney parks. Kelpies in the city, for heaven’s sake. It’s bloody silly and makes me quite angry.

So, back to the other night. I was standing next to a guy at a reputable late-night kebab shop and we got talking about animals. I can’t remember how the conversation started, but the lovely thing about late-night kebab joints is that most people up for a chat. A whole new set of social rules apply. People are friendly. People actually talk.

Anyway, it came out that old mate had a kelpie.

And because I’d polished off a whole bottle of the finest, cheapest rosé the bottleo near me had to offer, I was in a ranting mood.

I started going on about how much space kelpies need and that they’re working dogs and that’s pretty bloody rough to keep the poor fella cooped up in the city. I don’t know how coherent I was at that time of the evening, however I did my best to berate him for having a working dog as an ironic appropriation of working class culture as an inner city status symbol. I may have even used the word “wanker”.

I thought I was doing pretty well at making it clear that I wasn’t from Sydney and that I knew stuff about the world because of where I happened to have grown up, portraying my background as proof of my superiority as a human even though it was something I had no control over.

But then old mate told me he was a farmer visiting Sydney from Victoria.

Oh. Dear.

According to my somewhat hazy memory, I backpedalled a bit then tried to rope him into my rant about wanker dog owners in Sydney. But for the purpose of ending this column on a comical note, I’m going to pretend I said this:

“So uh… get much rain out your way?”