Wendyl Nissen: Identity parade

My husband had an instruction for me as we approached a community hall in Tauranga. "It's time you stopped sulking," he ordered.

"I know you don't want to do this, I have known you don't want to do this for eight months so let's just get it over with."

We were at a show. It was called the 50 Plus Lifestyle Show and my husband had booked us a stall where we would sell my natural cleaning products and, while he was at it, signed me up to do some seminars.

"I have just decided to reprogramme my attitude," I said. "I am going to have fun."

It's true. I had spent the drive down listening to upbeat tunes by bands like the Doobie Brothers and Herbs and psyched myself into the belief that talking to people non-stop for six hours a day was something I could probably manage without a hipflask of whisky in my purse.

Meanwhile, my husband eagerly set up our stall to look like my Nana's lounge, put the stock out and did that thing men do where they dust off their hands to signify a job well done.

I blame it on a previous incarnation when, as a 26-year-old, he used to sell handmade knitwear at Cook St Market. He was now reliving those days of dope smoke, incense and tarot card readers, except it was 2010 and we were surrounded by iPads and healing magnetic bracelets.

We stayed in the caravan, which was one of the incentives my husband used to coerce me to do the show. For the first time in the six years we've had that caravan I ironed my clothes, curled my hair and put on make-up. No one recognised me.

Which was also the case when the show started.

"You're not that Wendyl from the radio are you?" they would ask. "You look so different."

I resisted the urge to ask what image they were working with when they listened to my voice.

Others insisted my photo was too small in this column to explain their failure to identify me.

One woman insisted that I was the successful New Zealand author Nicky Pellegrino.

"I've read your Recipe for Life," she said proudly.

"I have written a book of recipes and they are, in a way I suppose, recipes for life but not a book by that name."

"That'll be Nicky," piped up my husband who spent much of the weekend resisting the urge to chat but his eavesdropping skills were fully tuned.

Another woman loved my magazine. "It's such a good read, I so look forward to getting it every month."

"Oh, I used to edit magazines," I said. "Maybe you're thinking of one of them?"

"That'll be Lynda Hallinan," prodded my husband, explaining to the poor woman that she had mistaken me for the editor-at-large of NZ Gardener magazine.

When I wasn't being mistaken for someone else I did a seminar where I demonstrated how to make your own chemical-free lemon dusters and spray cleaner and used the opportunity to tell 100 or so woman about the subtle invasion of chemicals into food, cleaners and beauty products. I spent a bit of time on the nonsense that is injecting the poison Botox into your face.

I went for a walk later and got the evils from the woman at the stand promoting cosmetic enhancements. I stopped at a few other stands in what I thought was a collegial "we're all in this together" manner and heard complaints that their customers drained away to go and listen to the mad woman no one recognised who was peeling lemons on the stage.

And then I found Phil. Phil's wife has my book, Phil knew who I was and happened to be working at the Avanti stall where my future bike was hanging out.

I stayed with the bike boys for safety before being brave enough to race back to the comfort of my Nana stall.

"I've bought a bike from Phil," I told my husband who was explaining firmly to a woman that no, he wasn't married to chef Peta Mathias.

"How much?" he asked rather too quickly.

"About half the price of that iPod I let you buy last week."

"Good old Phil," he said as he grabbed the cash box and headed over to make new friends at the iPad stand.