This note was put in the letterbox of an Auckland family (caps are the writer's own). "Hello owners - more specifically "the Mum" ... I know (and can HEAR) that you delight in your children's achievements or physical capabilities ... BUT, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT ANNOUNCE THE WHOOPSand AARRS in such a loud and annoying fashion ... We all have children, some at a different age to yours - but PLEASE REMEMBER, although I might like to congratulate your little one on her/his achievement I DO NOT LIKE THE FACT THRUST DOWN MY THROAT COURTESY OF YOUR STRIDENT BANSHEE VOICE. GOD SAKES, YOUR VOICE IS ENOUGH TO SCARE AWAY YOUR CATS WHO POO IN MY GARDEN FREQUENTLY ... Please keep your enthusiasm down to 20. Better for my hearing. Don't want to go deaf via occupational hazards (ie like your voice). Council will have to be notified next time as I am quite tired of the caterwauling."
In one ear and out the other
"This really just happened to me," writes Adam Yates, from Tauranga. "I just got back from getting lunch at a sandwich place (not Subway). There was a new staff member who should not have been let out alone.
"I have a masters degree in philosophy so I know about this stuff," writes Joshua Russell, referring to a Sideswipe item about Pythagoras, not running through the bean field, because he hated beans so much. "Heaps of people in Pythagoras' time were animists, which means they believed that inanimate objects are alive. Pythagoras would not run through the bean field because he believed beans were reincarnated souls."
