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Roger Rabbits with |
Thanks Tauranga City Council (TCC). You have dumped me right in it. Right in the poo. Well, next to it.
Because I now must start my day in the pre-dawn chill and pong at a bus stop outside the Chapel St faece farm – minding my own business but breathing in the stench from everyone else’s business. Nice!
And that’s because some grinch who hasn’t acclimatised to the rarified air on the decision-making floors of TCC’s new Devonport Rd palace has nicked my carpark outside work – while Grinch himself probably gets a basement carpark as part of his employment package.
You won’t see him waving down a Bayhopper bus outside a poo farm. Ah, the haves and have-nots.
But I’m suffering profound inconvenience and pain from this significant loss. Perhaps I’m just out-and-out pissed, irked and annoyed.
Where I used to park all day with impunity, a street-side bay exactly 27 convenient paces from the front door of my place of employ, the spoilsport council has, overnight, erected a P120 sign, which I am told means “piss-off after two hours”. I apologise for the excessive use of the word “piss” but you will appreciate in the context my commuting issues, it’s appropriate.
Before sparrows fart
All this has upended my life. Stuffed up my routine. It’s affected how I think, feel, and operate. Which, admittedly, was always marginal.
Now if I ignore or forget the sign it might cost me more in fines than I earn that day. Does council take measly third world pay scales into account when handing out parking fines?
And when I say “nicked” it wasn’t MY carpark, it was anyone’s carpark. But each day I laid claim by being up and about before the sparrows had rolled over, scratched their tail feathers and stretched their landing gear. Then exactly five minutes and 23 seconds, including a couple of red lights, after leaving my cave I would slip into that freebie carpark just off Cameron Rd. And stay there all day. It was a beautiful thing. No meter, no meddling, no new-fangled licence plate recognition technology messing up my day. All this by 6.30am while Mr Killjoy at TCC was probably still struggling to untangle the cord on his middle management pyjama pants before heading to work to plot wrestling my carpark from me.
Now, if I take the car, I have to park so far down Cameron Rd in the morning I need a visa to get back. And a packed lunch and water bottle to break the walk.
Other options? Get off my ample, two axe-handles across butt – and walk! I’ve done it. Forty-four minutes from door-to-door. But then I need a cup of tea and lie down when I get there.
Chauffeured limos?
Perhaps one of TCC’s big yellow 68-seat chauffeured limos might be the ticket – it felt like a chauffeured limo when I was the only passenger on a 10-minute journey on a Bayhopper recently. I felt quite special.
But buses have their issues for me. My deep, dark and dank cave is 100m off a major commuter corridor. There’s a procession of buses all day but getting on one is my problem.
At the top of my street I could turn left to a bus stop – a walk of about 10 minutes. Then after a dark, cold and possibly wet wait, I pay for the bus to carry me back down the road I have just travelled. Or I could take the ‘poo pong’ option – at the top of my street – turn right towards town and a bus stop right outside a sewage works 200m or 300m away. A bus stop outside the faece farm? It’s not good for the image to be loitering outside a sewage works. Passersby will also wonder why I didn’t ‘go’ before I left home.
By the time I reach that bus stop I’m halfway to town anyway, so I figure I may as well walk the 25 minutes into town. I have timed it. The things I do for excitement.
Pong of the poo
Even if I did bus to work, I’d need a second bus to take me down Cameron Rd to work, or I could walk – another 15 minutes. Or perhaps I could break it up – overnight in the CBD. And I can still whiff the pong of the poo farm – it’s permeated right to where this soulless soul should have a soul.
Floods, pours, trickles
The fan mail flooded in this week – one email actually – but it ‘poured’ in. “V” says Jim Bunny’s take on “5% Tuesday” at the supermarket last week was bang on – “well written, very fair and I laughed all the way through”. It reminded her of England’s “mass hysteria January sales”. But school holidays are just as bad as “5% Tuesday, she reckons. “Children too young to get a driver’s licence do as much trolley swerving without warning. Very off-putting.”
“V” once made the mistake of going to the supermarket on “crazy Tuesday” and when she saw a full carpark, realised her mistake, immediately did a ‘u-ey’ and went home for a nice relaxing cup of tea. “Love the column. Brightens up the day Jim. Thank you.”
No, Thank you! Now the bobtail’s all fluffed up with pride.
Don’t wait to catch Jean near the supermarket on “crazy Tuesday”. It won’t happen.
“No Way!”
She lives at one of those communities for seniors at Pyes Pa and there are many residents who won’t join any centre activities on a Tuesday because its shopping day and they get a discount. Save $5? Or stay home for some fun? No choice really.
“Residents will even refuse a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday no matter how ill they are. Tell Jim his “bloke” told it right.