Sideswipe: Sugar is the new heroin

Sugar shot

"I went into Gloria Jeans opposite Sky City Casino for a caffeine fix and ended up having a sugar shot," writes a reader.

Seeing life from the other side

A: Why can't there be a male Hooters equivalent where male servers are shirtless and highly sexualised? asks a reader on Reddit.

B: You're thinking of male strip clubs.

C: No. Not a male strip club. A strip club is a strip club. I want a place called Cahones where waiters wear Speedos and are forced to stuff if they don't fill out their uniform well enough. I want them to giggle for my tips. I want it to be so normalised and ingrained in our culture that women bring their daughters there for lunch (because whaaaaaat the wings are good! Geeze sensitive much?) where they'll give playful little nudges like, "Wouldn't mind if your dad had those. Heh heh heh", that their daughters don't even understand but will absorb and start to assume is just the normal way grown-up women talk about grown-up men. I want to playfully ask my waiter if I can have extra nuts on my salad and for him to swat my arm with an "Oh, you!" because he knows if he doesn't his manager will yell at him. I want other men to pretend to like going there so I think they're cool. I want to go to Cahones during my lunch break at work and when I come back and tell the other women in the office where I went they chuckle slightly and the men around us suddenly feel self conscious and they don't know why.

Funeral by invitation

"I attended an invitation-only funeral a few years back, and I felt rather privileged knowing everyone there had been specifically invited. The reason was this particular friend didn't want people attending who she had not seen in a long time, those who she didn't like, and those who thought they 'should' be there, to be seen. We were all on a phone list and were called after the passing and given the funeral instructions. It was a beautiful ceremony and the funeral notice was placed in the paper after the event. The only upset people would have been those who read about it afterwards. I liken it to a wedding, where you have those who mean the most to you, why not a funeral."

Way to sell the outfit, love

Dining wake-up

"My very proper English brother-in-law and wife paid a visit to New Zealand and invited us to dine with them at their hotel," writes David Williams of Rotorua. "The young waitress took my plate away as soon as emptied to be admonished by my said brother-in-law to which the pert waitress replied, 'Go on with you, you silly old thing!' My wife and I laughed but he certainly didn't! New Zealand at its best!"