The poxtrot: our new dance
The crass conga lines snaking the streets outside fast-food joints had more than a few people holding their noses. How very vulgar to abandon nutritious homecooked meals for a bucket o’ chicken, fries and a burger.
But wait a minute. There was I, rising early to get my caffeine hit from the old coffee haunt. What a hypocrite. But I must say delayed gratification meant that the first sip of a professionally constructed coffee was comparable to having a new season Bluff oyster.
The Belgians have been told to eat more fries and, if I’m not mistaken, we were asked to eat more bacon. So this citizen of Planet Covidia did as she was told, even though before The ’Rona, I eschewed the pig because of the preservatives.
As porcine as I have become from the obsession with eating, the shelves continue to groan. If we could spare it, donating some of the pasta and tins we have Doomsday prepped ourselves for would help others.
Gluttony leaves its imprint on the front of jumpers and T-shirts. If I was entrepreneurial, I would offer dried dribble quasi tea leaf readings to predict a future that nobody can divine. If I was entrepreneurial, I would get the sewing machine out and knock up Zoom tops for work-fromhomers to do their waist-up business in.
Office spaces that will never be returned to – along with deserted hotels, built for a high overseas guest demand no longer there – are ripe for conversion into apartments so that everyone has a whare, a place to be in the brave new tomorrow.
Homeless people have been shoulder-tapped to dwell in motels, while golf course grounds are being mowed, when perhaps some could be turned into fields for agriculture so New Zealand can ramp up to feed billions in a starving world.
Apast prime minister, who abandoned his post, appears on a new late-night TV talk show fronted by a host who abandoned paradise for Palm Springs, as yesterday’s men try to have a bite of tomorrow, urging the fast tracking of the economy. Whatever that means.
The think tank is back in vogue as, on the same TV show, a Kiwi rocket man says the house has been burned to the ground and we must be bold and not go back to our old ways.
Meanwhile, a stunning autumn, like a Sunday morning coming down from the thrill of a high summer keeps giving and giving. Everyone who thought they had all their ducks in the row is realising their daydreams are thin as they stumble round the block and petrol-heads, rather than petrels, storm the street.
Level 3 has gone to some people’s heads as they encroach on others, who give them the hard twometre stare. Back at base you phone a friend/s to get you through.
Ah friendship, the glue in all of this. Some you have skirmishes with, others you send aid into, and then there are the failed states you have to withdraw all troops from. Those who practised dodgy social distancing back in the long days and nights of level 4, you refuse to meet, till the last level’s lifted.
We, who are so dependent on China, try to arrange our rage and forgive the source of our ruin, knowing we will be in hock to the offender for decades to come.
We size up future alliance partners, like boys and girls down the hall on Saturday night. Hopefully, we will only accept offers from countries with similar case numbers on their dance cards, as we learn to waltz without touching.