Loaded question has no answer

Southern Mel
Daily Mercury, 25 August 2010

“ARE you from here?” I paused, as any Mackay resident from down south would.

“Do you live here?” Ah yes, a much simpler question to answer. “Yes, I live here, but I’m originally from Melbourne,” I replied as we stood waiting in the taxi rank.

Now the first question may sound simple, but it’s not one for me, or any other southerner for that matter.

And it’s not because we are ashamed to say we live in Mackay. Far from it. It’s because we are in the midst of an identity crisis.

If I said yes to the initial question I would have felt I was being dishonest. If I said no, I would have felt like I was dissing Mackay.

Well, I am glad I waited for the follow-up question, as the two girls I was chatting to were tourists. “We are from Rockhampton. Is the wait for taxis always this bad?”

I told them it was usually busy on a Saturday night.

“Argh, we never have to wait this long in Rocky,” one of the girls moaned.

I guess sometimes the wait was a bit tedious. But I could only compare it to Melbourne where you could virtually hail a cab from any corner.

“Another question. Why are the clubs so expensive to get into here?” Another question I couldn’t answer. Again, I could only compare to Melbourne where there were more clubs to choose from, thus it was easier to avoid a cover charge.

“Well obviously people are happy to pay it,” was all I could offer. Fortunately, the

girls then jumped in a cab. It was far too early in the morning for them to fire off more questions I couldn’t answer.

But on the way home I wondered why that first question was so difficult to answer. How long do I have to live here before I can say I’m from Mackay? Will I always be from Melbourne? When I went to Melbourne for a week I was keen to get back to Mackay.

Does that count for anything?

Halfway home now, I fired off my own question. “Are you from here?” The cab driver paused for a second before replying: “Well, I’m originally from Brisbane but I moved up here three years ago.” Looks like I’ll grapple with this one for a wee bit longer.