With less than a month until nominations for Australian of the Year close, a new front-runner may have emerged. Known only as Dean, this legend checked a can of Emu Export as his only baggage on a flight from Melbourne to Perth. The only thing that might hurt his chances of winning the coveted award (which is apparently a real thing and was not made up by Chris Lilley) is he only checked a single can for a four-hour flight.
Apparently, Dean has a mate who works for the airline and the two hatched their scheme as a bit of a joke. Dean tagged and checked his single beer and then watched as it arrived, unscathed, through the baggage check.
Australians call a single can of beer a “tinny,” as Australian customs dictate that as many words as possible end in a “-y” sound. For example, what we Yanks call outlaw motorcycle gangs, Australians call bikies while truck drivers are called truckies. Aussies will call a bottle of beer either a stubby or a tallie, depending on its size. They also call McDonald’s “Macca’s” which doesn’t end in a “-y” sound but is just as weird.
In case there was any doubt that our man Dean might be a bit of a bogan, he commented to the Unilad, “Sure enough there she was, alone on the carousel proudly making her way around. And there I was in my flanno and RMs to greet her. It was perfection.” Dean then presumably drank a warm export on a cross-country flight.
Export is one of the more popular beers in the state of Western Australia, so I’m not sure why Dean didn’t take a VB as he was flying out of Melbourne. Not found on any list of popular beers anywhere in Australia is Foster’s. Other things popular in Australia include skin cancer, casual racism and pretending Vegemite is edible.