Robyn’s Secret Passage

Oh, no. It’s the 2004 Food Show. Unlike last year, where I showed great restraint, this year I had but one goal: To get my money’s worth for the $15 entry fee. Oh dear. I did all the things I’d vowed not to do.

• I picked up toothpicks and speared them in cheese cubes.
• I sampled bits of meat that all tasted identical.
• I took microscopic slivers of chocolate.
• I dipped bits of bread into olive oil, and - in a new twist - dipped those oiled bits of bread into bowls of herbs and spices.
• I tried samples of ice cream.
• I felt horribly ill and had to sit down.

I realised that there is a good reason why people usually eat while they’re sitting down - because it’s physically uncomfortable to eat a lot in a vertical position. I found took a seat in the back of the cooking demonstration area and attempted to digest the previous hour’s samples, but just managed to felt like a gluttonous fat-arse, not unlike Governor Phatt from Monkey Island 2.

The cheese and ice cream demo guy was halfway through mixing up some cheesy stuff when I realised that a) I am sooo over cheese and b) I wasn’t feeling ill anymore, so I got up off my not-so-fat-anymore arse and got back to the food show. I can report the following:

• I feel sorry for people with a gluten intolerance. The gluten-free breads I tried were either dry and crumbly or damp and spongy. I don’t feel sorry for people who just go gluten-free as a last-ditch weight loss attempt.
• At the Vanilla Direct stand, I overhead one of the Vanilla guys saying that they were planning on changing the company name to The Natural Vanilla Company because, apparently, company names that are “[Product Name] Direct” are old and gimmicky. Whereas “The [Product Name] Company” isn’t?
• I remember at the Food Show about four years ago when all the organic food was a bit freaky and hippyish. Now it’s getting very very ordinary and mainstream.
• I scored a chart showing when fruit and vegetables are in season because, y’know, it’s more ethically sound to buy things in season and minimise environmental damage caused by international shipping.
• It’s interesting to see how Cadbury were discretely pimping their Mother Earth and (ahem) Natural Confectionary Company brands. “It’s so good that someone is making food without all that muck in it,” said one overexcited show visitor.
• Cyclops have this new liquorice-flavoured yoghurt that is unexpectedly delicious.
• I bought an oven cloth. I’ve never actually been able to get my oven to work, but, um, it was only $1.
• I also got some Nick’s Pasta fettucine for $1. I believe Nick himself sold it to me.
• I was in the midst of pilfering two sample boxes of Special K when the Kellogg’s lady said, “Would you like a sample of Special K?” “Yes, thanks,” I politely replied in the midst of stuffing the boxes in my bag and walking away.

I’m giving my bathroom a mini extreme makeover. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that I am cleaning it, but given the prior state of it, I need to jazz things up a bit to make the exercise tolerable.

After the bathroom ceiling leaked a few months ago, all this mould started growing on the ceiling. Yuck. So I bought some Exit Mould and got to work with its pump action power. Now, I knew from previous experience that wearing old clothes and sticking my hair under a shower cap would be a jolly good idea. But I didn’t know that wearing a face mask would also have been a good idea.

Most of the Exit Mould went on the walls and ceiling. Some of blopped on my old clothes, bleaching rusty orange marks on my navy blue t-shirt. I felt one droplet hit my plastic-protected head, making me glad that I wasn’t going to end up with a blonde dot on my hair. But I didn’t count on how much of it I’d end up inhaling.

I can’t smell properly. When I breathe in I can’t smell normal room smells. It’s only if I smell something up close (such as my chlorine-scented hands, or my bottle of L’eau d’Issey) then I can still detect a definite aroma.

I’m hoping that my sense of smell will return by tomorrow just in time for me to attempt part two of my bathroom mini extreme makeover, which will involve enamel paint.

The big question is, what the dilly-o did I do with that $20 I found on the street?

I took it to a bank and had it split into four $5 notes, and this is what happened to each one.

1. I bought a Lotto ticket. I got a $5 lucky dip, and it occurred to me that Lotto tickets cost exactly the same as they did back when Lotto started in 1988. I didn’t win anything, so therefore I do not get my velvet Elvis paintings framed or buy a giant leather couch. I take comfort that the Lotteries Commission helps fund the Arts Council.

2. I banked it. It’s sitting in my savings account not earning any interest because I haven’t got up to the minimum interest-earning balance yet. I’m not sure what I’m saving for. Perhaps some international travel. Yes, it’s been, what, eight months since I last got out of the +64.
3. I gave it to a dodgy old man. The “NO JOB NO BENEFIT” guy seems to have disappeared, so I was on the look out for another such person. Walking to the bus stop after work one evening, I passed a fellow sitting by the side of the road. “Do you have any spare change for a hot meal,” he asked in that raspy old homeless guy voice. I gave him the $5. I get that there’s a fairly high chance that the hot meal in question will end up being more fiery than hot, but if he wants to spend it on booze, that’s ok bye me. But, y’know, even drunks have to eat.
4. My vague intention with the final $5 was to spend it on myself, but I couldn’t think of anything special or new that I could buy. The $5 just hung out in my wallet a few days until I found myself at the Chinese laundry short by $1.50 to pay for my washing. I didn’t quite want to, but I ended up using the final $5 to cover the washing cost.

Nothing Zen-like happened along the way, but I have spent the last few days with a horrible cold.

A few days ago, as I was arriving at the gym, I saw New Zealand’s Most Glamourous Ex-Coma Patient leaving. I suspect she may have been visiting the physiotherapist located inside the gym complex.

It’s strange. From the neck down she has a sort of fabulous thinness that, realistically, only 14-year-old girls can achieve with no effort but which thousands of adult woman around the Western world covet. But from the neck up she looks like Skeletor.

This proves that being in a coma may be a quick ‘n’ easy way to shed those pesky last few kilos, but the side effects (wasted muscles, cysts, looking like a skull-faced hag) are not worth the effort.

And today I was walking down Victoria Street when I saw The Guy Who Came Second. At first I couldn’t quite pick him. I recognised him from somewhere, like maybe he was a friend of a friend, some dude I’d briefly met at a get-together a few months ago.

He looked at me, like he recognised me, and then I realised who he was. He was The Guy Who Came Second. And he was walking down the street with The Girl Who Came Ninth. They’d just bought some lunch and were, I assume, walking somewhere to eat it.

Ironically, none of these spottings took place at my workplace, which is known for its higher-than-average number of famous and semi-famous people.