Out And About

I have just been on an exciting trip to Hamilton.

Exciting because Hamilton has four-lane roadways. That HAS to be exciting for someone from little old Masterton.

It was a journey of questions. Questions of great human importance that sprang up in the strangest of places.

For instance, Hamilton has this big Wharehouse store where you go up on an escalator while your trolley goes up on it’s own little escalator (a trolleylator?) beside the human one. It’s all very exciting because, when you reach the top or bottom, you have to dive off the human escalator and grab your trolley before it is ejected madly from the trolleylator, to cause chaos and mayhem amidst the milling Wharehouse customers nearby.

This modern trolleylator technology raised many questions. After all, many shopping trolleys have little seats for toddlers. So, do the toddlers go up on the escalator with you, or on the trolley on the trolleylator? And if you have granny with you, do you put her wheelchair on the trolleylator and … yes. Does she go up with her wheelchair?

Sadly, technology creates more questions than it answers!

Another question came to mind while driving up to Hamilton. I went up to Hamilton with Palmerston North-based friend Shirley, to help her finalise the sale of her house in Hamilton and bring the last of her stuff back to Palmy.

We were accompanied by her mother.

Now, I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that a chaperone accompanied us. I could have been upset, but, then again, it’s nice to know that Shirley’s mother thinks that I’m such a nubile hunk that her daughter needed a chaperone.

The question that came up on the trip up to Hamilton was why do about 90% of other drivers you pass all speed up when you are passing? Is it that 90% of New Zealand drivers have a very unhealthy competitive instinct? Or did they speed up just because they saw Shirley’s mother, who is a very religious type, crossing herself throughout the passing manoeuvre and thought that she was giving them the fingers?

The classic example of this competitive instinct came at the end of the journey as I wended my way home alone through the Wairarapa. I came up behind an elderly man in a small car and was stuck behind him for ages. The opportunity to pass came and I took it: firmly, smoothly, and with no fuss. I had just settled down to a steady speed after passing him when the old guy hurtled back past me at a most illegal rate of knots determined to get back in front of me.

I let him go. Hey, if he wanted to be traveling in front of me at naughty speeds I was quite willing to let him be there. After all, I am always willing to follow, at a reasonable distance, any sacrificial pinhead as he speeds towards any oncoming traffic policeman. And when the traffic policeman has u-turned and pulled the sacrificial pinhead over, I will, of course, barp and wave my thanks as I go past.

While I was in Hamilton I went to lots of cafés and did lots of critiques for my developing website - the Kirk’s Kiwi Café Critique website. In one café, the lady who served was about as friendly as an Iraqi hit squad. In another, called the Sahara Tent, the décor was all Middle East and they had these tent thingys in which you sat on cushions around a table to have your repast. A neat little touch was that the cooks all wore a fez. Well, they each wore a separate fez. It would have to have been a LARGE fez if they were all wearing the same one. But I digress…

While in Hamilton I was also the victim of a rapacious ATM. My only fault was that I got engrossed reading the bad news on the statement the ATM had printed for me and walked away looking at it, leaving my card behind in the slot. As I walked away, the ATM machine beeped raucously at me and attracted the attention of a man nearby who came across to me and asked me if I had left my card in the machine.

Shocked, I hurried back to the ATM and reached out for my card. With all the innate nastiness of the average bank manager, the ATM waited until my fingers were about to close on the card before it silently and mockingly swallowed it up.

Thankfully, a visit to the central Westpac branch saw the staff there provide me with a new card on the spot.

I am a reluctant Westpac customer and no fan of the bank, but I have always found Westpac staff to be great. And the staff in Hamilton were brilliant. Thanks folks!

Armed with a new card and access to money once more, I now had the opportunity to see all the highlights of Hamilton. So I visited the tip.

The tip was very exciting. They even had their own little recycling shop there. It seemed to sell almost everything except used nappies. And given half a chance and a strong local organic fertiliser community, it would probably sell those, as well.

Interestingly, they not only throw away rubbish in Hamilton. They also throw away wallets.

I was in the Pak’N’Save carpark when I saw something lying on the ground. Being naturally curious, I wandered across to see what it was. It was a wallet linked by chord to a wrist attachment. It’s obvious that the owner knew how easily she lost things! Yet didn’t use the wrist attachment.

I picked it the wallet and opened it. Inside were all the usual collection of plastic cards – ATM, credit card, driver’s licence, etc, plus well over $100 in cash.

It was obvious by the photo on the driver’s licence that the wallet was owned by a young lady who probably couldn’t afford to lose that money, let alone go through the hassles of cancelling and renewing all those plastic cards. So I wandered back into Pak’n’Save and left a message with their Customer Service (Customer service? At Pak’N’Save?) that I had the wallet. I also left my phone number just in case the Samantha Rimmington who owned the wallet enquired there.

Then I got a loan of a phone book from the local BP station and rang the only Rimmington in Hamilton. The lady on the answerphone said that she regretted that she and her hubby couldn’t answer the phone but they were away sailing on their yacht. Huh! With that much money I would have thought they’d have had their landline diverted to their cellphone!

After that, I decided to take the wallet to the Police Station and let the Police worry about it.

So I did that. The trouble was there were no parking spaces empty outside the Hamilton Central Police Station at 7pm at night. So I had to do a U-turn on a busy highway to get to an available one. U-turns over four lanes feel rather weird. It’s like doing a U-turn in the middle of a motorway. You expect to have a car slam into you at 120kph. Maybe that’s why Shirley was giving advice from the passenger’s seat. And why I could have sworn her mother was praying quietly in the back.

But I got to the parking space, did a quick six-point park, and took the wallet into the reception area where warning signs advising me that I couldn't get bail unless I met specific criteria began to make me carefully search my memory for anything illegal I had done recently. I decided that, other than that u-turn, I was OK.

Then a nice police lady came to the counter, all the Lost and Found paperwork was filled out, and I left. About an hour later, a nice constable from the police station rang me on my cellphone to say that the young lady had been in to claim her wallet. Aaaaaah, I’d done good. Warm fuzzy feelings!

Then, on Wednesday it was time to drive home, a long journey broken only by the occasional stop to critique a café.

By the time we got back to Palmerston North, it was too late for me to pick up pussy Scrooch from the cattery, so he had to stay an extra night. I must admit that missed him attacking my feet through the duvet that night.

Today, I had to attend a business skills course, even though I’m recovering from car lag. What is car lag, you ask? Car lag is like jet lag, only lower.

And don’t be like a friend of mine who, when I told her that in a txt, txted me back asking “Lower?!”

As I said in my reply: “Yes. Lower. All that bracing yourself for corners later plays merry hell with one’s leg muscles. And I won’t even mention the bladder!”

--
Allan