These are so funny! Especially the fleas and emus. It occurs to me that this one might be puzzling to non-Australians: to those who don’t know the Australian dialect of English, both sayings are invocations of ridiculous misfortune on an offending person.
‘May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.’ is clear enough, but ‘May all your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down.’ may be incomprehensible to those who don’t talk Strine. To clarify: a dunny is a rough outdoor toilet/latrine, often a pit with a splintery wooden seat and obligatory redback spiders under the aforesaid seat, and is usually provided with reading materials, not to be confused with the bunch of newspaper squares hung on a nail for wiping. It is a very necessary comfort facility in remote areas, even in these decadent times.
A chook is an Australian chicken. An emu (not to be confused with the Finnish ‘emuu’ which is something utterly different) is an Australian wild bird, often as tall as a human, somewhat resembling an ostrich, and famous for its huge horny feet, large beak which is Very freely used on anything which annoys it, and its extremely irascible temperament. I certainly would not care to be in a dunny which was being kicked down by a mob of the things.