Wyn Drabble: Mucking in a positive after drastic event

The mucking in that came after the cyclone was certainly a positive we can take away from such a drastic event, says Wyn Drabble. Photo / Paul Taylor

There has been some mass mucking in recently. It is a wondrous thing! At a time of enormous adversity, it brings together people – many of them complete strangers – and spades, gumboots, buckets, tree loppers, chainsaws, utes, trailers and good old-fashioned hard work. Even baskets of freshly baked scones.

It’s gritty and it’s heart-warming. It’s humanity at its best.

But before the mucking in came the hunkering down. The whole saga began with the request to do just that. Many of us had never done it before so weren’t entirely sure what it meant. What exactly were we supposed to do?

At first, I relied on simply observing what other people were doing and that enabled me to come up with a number of possible definitions.

The first was that hunker down means rushing to the supermarket to buy toilet paper. The evidence was provided by empty supermarket shelves.

The second meaning was to rush to the supermarket to buy eggs but that proved a toughie during an egg shortage.

The third was to rush to the supermarket to buy bread which, again, was difficult because there was none left.

Wyn Drabble. Photo / NZME

The fourth was to rush to the supermarket to buy milk. Again, supplies were low but there might have been some of the powdered variety.

So, as you can see already, hunkering down appeared to rely pretty heavily on the supermarket which became a sort of hunkering down HQ. If there were any left, you could also buy some candles. And matches.

As there were too many variables with these observations, I tried a different tack to get to the bottom of what hunkering down was; I looked it up in a dictionary. This offered: “to sit with your knees bent in front of you so that your buttocks are almost resting on your heels.”

I gave it a try but the rain and wind outside continued just as fiercely so that all seemed rather pointless, besides which it was a tad uncomfortable and I felt would soon lead to severe cramp.

Luckily my eye also noticed a second dictionary offering and this one made more sense: “to be prepared to stay in a particular place or situation for as long as necessary, especially for protection or to achieve something.”

But then I noticed another news report which told us not to hunker down but to bunker down which is probably a little like hunkering down (using definition 2) but in an underground bunker – but only after you’ve been to the supermarket for the loo paper, eggs, bread, milk, candles and matches.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a bunker – I’ve been a bit lazy in the excavation field – so we just had to stick with hunkering.

Yet another news report said we needed to bunk up but that sounded rather too familiar for an emergency situation so I put it down as a typo or a misunderstanding.

The dictionary definition failed to mention important details such as being without electricity, water and communications or the fact that our hunkering HQ, the supermarket, might be unable to operate. We just kept hunkering.

Many will never again take for granted – to cite just two examples – a flushing toilet or the ability to contact loved ones.

But then, of course, came the mucking in and I think we all now know what that means. It’s certainly a positive we can take away from such a drastic event.

So that’s hunkering down and mucking in sorted. Both are difficult but they can certainly bring out the best in people.

Not that we want to do either of them again anytime soon.