After the carpark incident, I'm thinking the avocados probably costing somewhere around $150 each. Photo / Getty Images
After the carpark incident, I'm thinking the avocados probably costing somewhere around $150 each. Photo / Getty Images
ON THE SAME PAGE
Early Sunday evening I was struck down with the most terrible of afflictions for those of us in the media game - writer's block.
Ordinarily that's the time of week I gather my notes, one of Mrs P's world-famous-in-our-house cuppas and head for my office.
An hour or so laterall the creative juices this two-finger typist can muster have done their job and you have a perfectly cooked column, just the way you like it, for breakfast a day or so later. You don't get it any sooner because NZME likes to keep it in the fridge to mature for a day or so first.
Unfortunately this week the juices a'la creative went on strike and even Mrs P's coffee couldn't coax my two index fingers - I like to call them Picker and Pointer - into action either.
I was sitting there staring glumly at the screen, wondering if this was the end of the road after 39-and-a-half years in the job and whether my dad was right all along and I should have joined him and become a panel beater, when Mrs P's phone rang.
Apparently the caller was doing the rounds to let The Girls know a major shopping opportunity was afoot.
Avocados have been very expensive in supermarkets this year. Photo / File
It seems there is a place near where we live (legal and all above board I should add) where avocados are less than half the price of some of the big supermarket outlets. Naturally this had sent Mrs P and her mates into a frenzy. The item in question simply had to be purchased. There was no time to waste.
I nodded in agreement as Mrs P breathlessly relayed the detail of the phone conversation. Fine, I thought. Go for it. Just leave me here to work out what I'm going to write this week. Unfortunately I misread the intent of the story being passed on. Apparently she wanted me to go and do the deal. Right now.
Naturally with such a seemingly hot deal on the table, regardless of whether we actually needed avocados or not, I knew resistance was futile so I mumbled something about being busy and needing to write a column as I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door.
It was only a 20-minute round trip but I have to admit I did it basically on auto pilot, my mind scrambling to come up with something to share with you over the breakfast table dear reader.
I got the avocados, paid for them and returned to the car, still without the foggiest idea as I reversed out of my parking space.
Then something came to me. Or to put it another way I hit something. It was a shopping trolley and I bowled it.
As far as I'm concerned it failed to give way and/or should not have been parked where it was so it wasn't my fault but the upshot was a slight dent and a few scratches in my rear end.
Previous experience tells me even small dents and scratches can end up costing the equivalent of the gross national product of a small Pacific island nation so Mrs P's hot deal actually ended up quite expensive.
I'm thinking the avocados probably costing somewhere around $150 each.
Oh well, at least the experience gave me something to write about.
But it certainly would have been useful right now if I had become a panel beater like my dad suggested all those years ago.
• Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief too much serious news gives you frown lines. Feel free to share stories to kevin.page@nzme.co.nz
