Roger Moroney: If you have an issue reach for a tissue

Roger Moroney says pollen has already started arriving, uninvited and totally unvaccinated of course so many of us are up for catching it, by the nostril load. Photo / NZME

I will start this missive with an ingredient I will use to later finish it…although I daresay a slice of potential readership will suggest I end it now and call it quits.

Fair enough, but I have to earn my cartoned rewards so bear with me…again.

It was somewhere in England years and years ago and I was with a fellow Kiwi and we veered toward a pub by the Thames, where people had clearly visited before us.

For left upon one of the tables were two cans of spent ale, and one unopened one.

"Must have been Yankee lads," my mate remarked as he picked up the untouched can of that fine US fizz called Coors.

"I knew this was a lost coors," he said.

"Your round," I sighed.

And so then, the lost cause, and causes, which filter through life.

Especially life during the windy pre-springtime.

The time when those who have shares in the places that make tissues rub their hands with delight, as the sales accelerate.

I don't rub my hands.

Roger Moroney.

I rub the central region of my face…the nasal zone.

For the pollen has already started arriving, uninvited and totally unvaccinated of course so many of us are up for catching it, by the nostril load.

Yep, this annual interloper and intruder upon our breathing systems, and car bodies, is back and it ain't even spring yet.

What is causing this? I have to ask myself knowing I'll never get an answer.

I just sniff and look away…for the box of tissues.

On that note, aren't they so aptly named?

You go aaatishu! and then you go for a tissue.

Mind you, the fine chemist shop folk will be enjoying the sounds of sneezing and nose-blowing evacuations as those sounds accompany the sounds of ringing tills.

For anti-pollen/hay fever/sneezy stuff.

And yep, it does counter the pollen punches.

But cars can't walk into a chemist shop (it's okay…I will explain).

The other morning I washed the car down for it appeared to have contracted yellow jaundice overnight.

It was a clement sort of morning with light winds (so it certainly wasn't last Monday) and the breezes did the drying up for me.

So, two hours later I wandered back outside and glanced upon the roof and the bonnet and yep, in that 120 minutes the dusty coating had returned.

My thoughts went back to the day at the inn beside the Thames.

"It's a lost coors," I wailed, before correcting myself.

"I mean it's a lost cause."

Like that old saying "you can't fight city hall", this thing is all about having no ability to fight Mother Nature and her pollen chums during the springs and early summers.

She is impervious to pollen-related sniffles and fevers and I daresay she harbours a wry smile when she looks at what we, the human coors…I mean cause, have allegedly done to the atmospheric landscape.

So yeah, the hand-wringing green brigade is stoically adamant that we must all do our bit to reduce carbon stuff in the air (despite the fact Asia and Russia pretty much ignore such notions) but they can't do anything about the pollen menace thing.

And I know why.

Because they've all got shares in tissue manufacturing companies…and some have probably got friends and family working in chemist shops.

I know what you're thinking.

"He's started early on the cause…I mean Coors…today."

But you are wrong, both of you dear readers.

I instead started early today wiping the car down and I shall wander back out there in two hours' time and repeat the whole process.

How the car sales yard crews cope I don't beer to think…I mean bear to think.

It is indeed a lost…you know how it goes.

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off centre.