Sideswipe
Condiment food rage
“I spend time preparing a meal that’s tasty and balanced,” writes a reader. “Husband takes one look at it, doesn’t taste it or anything, just gets his collection of condiments from the fridge and smothers his dinner. We are talking things like truffle mayo (he’s a bit pretentious with his condiment collection) so things that will fundamentally change the flavour of the meal. I didn’t make fish and chips for the meal — tomato sauce or mayo, not both would be acceptable in that case. I think it’s unbelievably rude of him and he thinks its perfectly fine.”
Seeing clearly
Many years ago, before soft contact lenses were available, I lost one of my hard lenses when a friend accidentally knocked into me. I was camping at Orewa Beach with my parents and the purchase of the lenses had been my priority with funds from my first job after leaving school. I was standing in the sand when I lost my lens in the early evening. My quick thinking brotherin-law found four twigs and staked out the area and we began searching by scooping up handfuls of sand and letting it run through our fingers. No luck, so as the darkness came the same brother-in-law drove his car as close as possible to the site and we continued under the car lights. No luck so we called off the search. Early the next morning I returned to the site, where the twigs had managed to stay in the ground and sure enough my brother-in-law arrived and on the second time of sifting through the sand, there was the lens, a bit gritty but after a good rinse in cold water I was able to see clearly again!”