Sideswipe: May 21: On the way to a stag party

On the way to a stag party.

Generational nightmares

1. The parent-of-a-young-toddler's nightmare

"You dream that you're asleep but suddenly awakened by your crying child. You think, 'Jesus, I can't even sleep in my dreams.' This strikes you as so profound that it wakes you up. You grope for a pen with which to write it down. The pen falls on the floor. You reach for it, fall out of bed, and the noise wakes your sleeping child."

2. The grandparent's nightmare

"You call your adult child to ask if his children have been letting him get any sleep, but no one answers — in fact, you don't even hear a ringtone. Then you realise that you're calling him on the remote for the sound bar he installed under your television two months ago that you've never been able to unmute. You desperately poke all of the buttons until, for some reason, Jimi Hendrix appears and asks if you want to go out for pizza. You decide the hell with your son — it's his fault that you can't call him. Suddenly, you're in a Pizza Hut with Hendrix. You ask him to play the guitar and he says no." (Read more at Nightmares, Ranked, the New Yorker)

Street smarts of yesteryear

Photo / Supplied

Isobel Gillon writes: "I am the archivist at Auckland Girls' Grammar School and was delighted to see the photo in this morning's Sideswipe. The two girls in uniform are from AGGS — full summer uniform, navy tunic, short-sleeved white blouse, Panama hat with navy hat band and black shoes and stockings. Stockings were compulsory street wear, even in summer, although students were allowed to change into white socks at school. Your reader's mother "was horrified" about a stranger buying them icecream to be photographed — so would have the headmistress, Miss Rua Gardner. Eating on the street, in uniform, was definitely against school rules."

Council's cone solution

A reader writes: "This tripping hazard has existed on a very busy footpath in Border Rd, Henderson for over a year. Council's solution is to place an orange cone beside the problem."