It's nice to be treated like a competent person by those in authority.
Last Saturday for a mate and myselves birthdays we decided to test our abilities and hold a hangi. Thanks to a huge effort by my flat mates we pulled it off fairly flawlessly. Cheers guys!
However I say fairly flawlessly because the fire brigade showed up. Being a group of scruffy students I thought we were fucked, that and we built it slightly close to the neighbours fence...
We weren't totally irresponsible though, we had the garden hose wetting the fence the whole time. I think the fact that we were showing some sense of concern for our actions made the fireys go easy on us. They hung around for 15 minutes making sure things were OK, and as the fire died down they said 'OK, we're off, looks like you guys have got things under control, but if we have to come back we won't be happy'
And that was that! No fine, no lecture, no overly stern looks and those leading questions which make you tell yourself off.
I was pretty impressed. I guess they could have thrown the book at us, but instead they looked at the situation and made a judgment call. Which is what authority figures should be doing, and more power to them to do that.
But anyway, in 2005 I went to Europe to meet up with my girlfriend who had been there for a year as an exchange student. I think in this case I won't go into too much detail, but long story ridiculously condensed; our relationship didn't survive the distance. Well, that relationship, we're still friends.
In Paris (a filthy place) we were atop the Eiffel Tower. Weeks of arguments had passed by now and whilst we stood up there I finally suggested that we should break up.
On the Eiffel Tower. Suck it, cliches!
After we had descended one level I said 'but, we can still sleep together right?'
She wasn't impressed.