Mega shops and mega meals

I went to Palmerston North on the weekend and visited the new Mitre 10 Mega store over there. They were blowing up and giving away promotional orange and black vinyl balls, so I decided to line up and get a couple to give away to appropriate little people. (If you fit into that category, I *do* have one left over...)

The Mitre 10 balls are fairly large balls, about the size of a netball and, after I scored a couple, I then had to walk around the store holding them. The most comfortable way to hold them was to hold them against one's chest but I saw myself in one of the mirrors sold by Mitre 10 and I looked like I had brightly coloured breasts bursting out of a bra. So I lugged them around under me arms, instead!

Palmerston North now has two huge hardware stores – Mitre 10 and Bunnings. They are both so large that, when you enter, they give you a map so that you can find your way around. The one I got from Mitre 10 had an X on it and so I quickly went to that spot just in case I’d accidentally been given a treasure map. Sadly, the X merely marked the spot where the garden tools were sited. I thought about grabbing a nearby pickaxe and digging up the floor just in case, but the shop management always get excited when you display initiative like that. So I just hitched up my balls and walked on.

These big hardware mega stores really have all sorts of stuff in them. Mitre 10 even sold ping pong balls.

Shirley, a caregiver friend of mine, tells me that they put ping pong balls in the toilet to teach intellectually handicapped guys to accurately pee in the loo. The idea is that the guys are taught to aim for the ping pong ball.

This got me to thinking. Maybe they should put ping pong balls in public urinals. Firstly, one finds in public urinals that the users seem to have peed everywhere *except* in the urinal and, secondly, the idea could be especially useful in a pub. They could put a sign up above the urinal – “If you can’t hit the ping pong ball, you’re too pissed to drive!”

Anyway, the reason I had gone into Bunnings was to buy a sophisticated technological marvel called a cuphook. The stick-on cuphooks on the ceiling of my crockery cupboard are unsticking and coming off. So I can be working at my computer when the next moment there will come a loud CRASH from the china cupboard as a hook gives way and a large mug lands on the plates below. Thank heavens I have unbreakable crockery. It’s bloody annoying, but I look on the bright side. Any ants in the cupboard will be running the gauntlet…

Anyway, I asked the lady where the cuphooks were and in the ensuing conversation it turned out she was an ex-Wairarapian. Of course, I should have guessed this because she had this sort of rugged beauty, just like all of us Wairarapians, although some suggest that my appearance is more a case of rugged than beauty. But I know they are just jealous of my country-boy looks.

Of course, the Bunnings lady may have looked just ordinarily beautiful out of her Bunning’s uniform. Actually, being a full-blooded man. I have to say that she probably would have looked *delightful* out of her Bunning’s uniform. The Bunning’s uniform, incidentally, is a sort of a cross between a boy scout outfit and a pinny. It’s an outfit that would make Charlize Theron look rugged.

After my busy day braving the mega shops, friend Shirley and I went out for tea. On the advice of Shirley’s brother, who has the girth of someone with good knowledge of eateries, we went to a restaurant called The Rat Hole.

This establishment is probably a classic example of matter over mind in that the name of the place gives one all sorts of horrible images yet the food supplied at the establishment is so good that word of mouth has made the place very popular. It wasn’t a large place yet when we arrived there must have been about 150 people there either tucking into food or waiting for their meal to be cooked.

The food is what I suppose you could call country tucker – not particularly gourmet but basic tasteful meals of considerable size – you could have used the steaks for pillows. Well, at least until they started going off.

But, we had a very nice meal, I refrained from burping loudly after the meal, and no one threw us out. Well, in big cities of 75,000 people like Palmerston North, they aren’t used to our country customs.

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Allan