Opinion: Aussie rudeness a little hard to beer

ROGER MORONEY - AT LARGE
In Port Phillip Bay, over there in the state of Victoria, there is an island.
It is, rather fittingly, called Phillip Island.
There is a fine motor racing spread on the southern edge of the island ... the edge which faces out into the meteorologically daunting Bass Strait.
You wanna see ragged white caps and explosions of white water on rocks?
Then venture to the Phillip Island race track in mid-October around the time it hosts the MotoGP. That's why I was there 10 or so days ago, to watch the ferocious 200km/h slides out of the terrifyingly fast turn 12 into the main straight, and to wonder and ponder at why anyone would want to spend NZ$7.50 for a single can of draught beer - plenty did.
It was wild, wet, chilly and utterly wonderful.
A master at sneaking into major sporting events, I managed to get into the well-guarded and strictly off-limits Yamaha factory garage and touched the throttle of multi-world champion Valentino Rossi's race bike. I even sat in his chair which has his number 46 embroidered on it.
I would have died a happy man right there and then.
But anyway, whilst in Australia I determined to do what I have done in all previous visits, and that was to seek out and purchase several bottles of Aussie ales you can't get here.
So, during a brief visit into the town of Cowes on my last day upon the island, I sought out a bottle store.
It looked like any bottle store you'd find here in Kiwidom, except for the prices ... it wasn't cheap. A six-pack of Vic' Bitter, brewed and bottled not 90km away, cost $4 more than you can get it for here. Figure that out.
So in I went and approached the great chiller doors and perused the racks.
I found three bottles which appealed, and then found one of the most disturbing shop assistants I have ever encountered.
Although I daresay Idi Amin would have found him adorable. He was kneeling on the floor filling shelves.
I couldn't work out the prices properly as the bottles were sort of scattered about, so simply asked "excuse me mate, what's the average price of a single 330ml bottle of beer"?
He looked up at me as if I'd just plunged a knife into the heart of his children's favourite pet koala.
"What are ya talkin' about?"
He said it with a snarl, which unnerved me.
"The price of a single bottle," I replied.
"Prices are up there," he snapped, pointing at the chiller doors.
I said I couldn't work them out and he simply unleashed a look of despair as well as a word we cannot publish.
He stormed past me toward the chiller and I tagged along like a lost child.
"Here! That's ya single bottle price, ya seex-pack and ya slab."
Then I pointed out that the price of the single bottle was for a different brand of ale. It did not match what stood behind the price list.
He let out a huge sigh, sneered again, swore, and said "well some ******'s put it in the wrong ******* place haven't they!"
Then he barged past and back to his carton of cheap Aussie red and the shelf he was depositing it on.
So I picked out three bottles, giving no thought to the price as I was too afraid to ask again, and took them up to the counter.
He watched me put them down and continued stacking.
So I clinked them lightly to attract his attention and he let out a sigh. Well, no, it was more like a series of backfires from Rossi's Yamaha on trailing throttle.
"Nine fifty," he snapped, so I handed him a tenner and he slid the 50 cent change toward me without a word, or a bag to put the beer in.
"Got a bag for them?" I asked.
His expression was now that of a man whose children themselves had now been stabbed with the same knife, and by the same assailant, who took out their beloved koala.
I got given a bag, but I had to put the bottles in it.
Eight hours later, I was stopped by the authorities at Melbourne Airport. They had heard the clink of bottles in my carry-on bag.
"Sorry mate, you can't take them aboard," the customs chap, who was a nice sort, said.
"Is there anyone out there seeing you off you can give them to?"
I said no, there wasn't.
Then I sort of snapped.
"There is a repository I could shove them into," I said. "But it's stacking a shelf at a bottle store on Phillip Island."
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.