I couldn't believe anyone would do that to a blind person, but my roommate didn't seem bothered by it. I pressed him for more information and asked why he thought it was OK. Come on, it's a blind guy! How could anyone punch a blind guy? That's one of those things you simply don't do, like farting in an elevator, or running with scissors.

My roommate kept beating around the bush but I kept bugging him, and finally he said, "Well, Geoff, the blind guy was a real a$$hole."

What does this delightful little vignette have to do with Australia? Frankly, not much, except that is was here that I finally understood my former roommate's brother's motivation. It was here -- at the Harbour City Hotel in Sydney Australia -- that I roomed next to Neil.

Our first night in Sydney Sarah and I were sound asleep in a jet-lagged stupor when we both awoke to a loud bang next door. It was the middle of the night, maybe 3:00 a.m. The bang was followed by a strange squeaking noise and then a door slam. Then another door slam, and another, and then a weird scurrying sound outside our door and down the hallway. It got quiet for a while, and then just as I was falling back asleep, the scurrying happened again, this time a loud ground-shaking thump-thump-thump. Then a few more door slams. Then, quiet.

The next morning we heard it again. Bangs, shaking ground. We thought maybe our neighbors had a large dog or something. Whatever it was, we hoped it was leaving soon.

That next night passed uneventfully. We assumed the worst was over. But then, early the next morning our sleep-deprived bodies were woken up again, this time by a shrill voice, a middle-aged Australian woman yelling, "No! No Simpsons this morning, no Simpsons this afternoon, and no Simpsons tonight!" A strange voice screamed some kind of angry reply. I was angry and I was tried, so I crawled out of bed and opened the door, more to let them know they'd woken me up than to see who it was making the noise.

Now, let me pause briefly and try to defend myself, knowing that I'm about to offend my reader. Understand please that I'm writing this in Australia, an irreverent and egalitarian society in which putting someone down is in a way acknowledging that they are your equal. We're all just the same, so political correctness is pointless. Now, back to my misery.

I stuck my head out the door, and there he was -- Neil, the 12 year old midget. All three feet of him.

Neil yelled some gasping insult at his mom, then turned and ran down the hall. (That explained the thumping.) Why he ran I don't know, but every time he moved, he ran, and ran loudly.

Each day was the same. Lots of loud noises in the night, door slams, and early wake-ups as Neil did his sprints back and forth. A few days into our trip I saw Neil in the elevator and saw an opportunity. I jumped in just as the door closed.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he replied, "You're American. I can tell."

"Yes. I'm from Seattle. Where are your from?"

"I'm from . . . " wherever, I wasn't really listening.

"Oh, that's nice. What's your name?"

"Neil"

Now down to the important stuff. "So Neil, how long are you in town?"

He looked at me with an icy stare, "Two weeks. We're staying for the Olympics."

My heart sank.

You don't need to guess that it was a long two weeks. Anywhere I went in the hotel, Neil was there, like my short high-noon shadow. I'd walk past the TV lounge and he'd be there staring blankly at the screen. I'd go to the shower room and he'd be in the stall next to me singing some unintelligible tune in mumbled words or, worse, laying naked on the wet tile floor brushing his teeth.

He was always darting out from around corners or banging into your legs on some hurried mini-mission. You'd fill up your cereal bowl with milk and on the walk back to the table he'd come running out from behind a counter and trip you up. Neil would always stop, stare at you like a deer in the headlights, and then just as quickly he'd disappear around the corner.