For the past six weeks or so, I have been filling in for my boss at an early-morning breakfast meeting.
As well as enjoying a rather pleasant helping of eggs Benedict each time I attend, this networking meeting requires me to stand up and speak for a strict 60 seconds about the exterior cleaning business I work in.
After four weeks of this I found myself basically back at square one and about to go over some of the material I had already delivered a few weeks before. Then I had a brainwave.
I'll talk about gutters.
Now to the uninitiated, or bothered for that matter, I'm sure gutters and making sure they are empty are not high on the list of relished conversational topics. In fact, I think I can see some of you yawning right now.
I know at my meeting I did see an eyebrow or two go up in that "groan, not again" manner. So I thought I'd spice it up a bit and throw in a seagull. Literally.
I began by explaining seagulls raid the bins out the back of the nearby food outlets and go up on the roofs across the road for a bit of peace and quiet while dining.
Unfortunately, some of the stuff they eat like bones etc gets stuck in their throat and they die right there and then on the roof. Add a bit of rain to the mix and you've suddenly got a dead bird being washed into a gutter where it blocks up the downpipe.
Once that happens it's curtains for the building. Read interior flooding, electrical circuits shorting out, fire, ruination, the works. Before you know it, the bankrupt proprietor of said building is busking outside Starbucks on a wet morning trying to make enough coin to buy his kids some cornflakes.
Now it would be fair to say I exaggerated things a bit. I know. Me. Right?
But the story went down well and I won a trophy for best speech of the day. I also "won", among much laughter, a $5 fine for going over my allotted one-minute time limit.
So that's the seagull.
I won a trophy for my seagull speech Photo / NZME
Now let me tell you about the pheasant.
It seems not far from where I am, a rather portly pheasant has taken it upon himself to walk across the new roof of this house each day and, er, well, do his "business".
This has upset the owner somewhat and she sought advice from the experts.
An aside here. If my old dad could see me now ... He was so very proud when I told him I'd interviewed a prime minister (David Lange) back in the day when I was a young newspaper reporter. That I am now an authority on the subject of pheasant poo on new roofs would, I think, cause him much amusement. I still miss that familiar laugh terribly.
Anyway.
I go up to the house in question and I can't see anything from the ground so I scramble up on to the fence. Sure enough, there it is. Pheasant poo. All along the ridge line.
I'm thinking about my course of action as I jump down from the fence and this lack of concentration causes me to overlook the nail sticking out from the timber and as I clamber down I rip my new trousers. Ker-ching! That's $90 for a bit of pheasant dung I can't actually do anything about.
Long story short, I'm leaving this place in the country and as I drive down the long driveway, a group of the inquisitive mini blue ostriches are picking about amid the stones.
As I get closer, not at any great speed you understand, they all get out of the way. Except for one.
Now I'm driving one of those big utes these days and it's a bit hard to see what's over the bonnet if you are up close.
I thought they'd all gotten out the way until my front alarm sensor goes off, something it does only if a collision is a fraction of a second away.
Almost instinctively I swerve to one side and just miss the bemused pukeko I can now see below my driver's side window standing there getting a close-up look at my tyre tread.
What I didn't miss, though, was the rock on the other side of the driveway. I knew I'd hit it because the sensor on that side went off. The car also made a crunching sound as my lower bumper tried to chew the rock – unsuccessfully.
Long story short, the minor bit of damage is going to cost me about $250.
The good news, particularly for any bird lovers out there, is the pukeko is still laughing. If you listen carefully you might just hear him and his mate the pheasant having a good old giggle at my expense.
As for me I'm just concentrating on paying the bills and trying to forget last week completely.
You could say the best thing for me to do is just accept it as one for the birds.
