KEY POINTS:
Whoopeee! It's Hoodie Day. Proudly brought to you by the Gummint-funded Adolescent Health and Development Council, or something of the sort. And thank goodness they have, we gratefully say, with a song in our hood and a tear in our heart.
Let those miserly curmudgeons who bang on about wasteful Gummint spending hold their stingy whist and bite their surly tongues.
"Shame on you!" we say to such as those. "Hoodie Day is precisely what we need with power cuts looming and gloom upon the land.
"Would you rather have a Lead-lined Underpants and Full Breathing Apparatus Day to celebrate those blokes in New Plymouth who're frantically recommissioning an asbestos-ridden thermal power station merely to prove there's no crisis looming?"
Confronted thus, the critics would bow their heads and pull their hoodies over their faces, the better to mask their blushing shame.
Of course, we'll never know how the Gummint-funded Adolescent Health and Development Council actually came upon this brilliant idea. Or where they were when they did. Perhaps it was the Tongariro Lodge. That certainly seems to be the spa du jour. So it would be nice to think the council went fishing for inspiration at New Zealand's "ultimate trout-fishing lodge".
"Gosh, if it weren't for the stimulating ambience of this [relatively inexpensive] resort, I don't think we'd have a Hoodie Day, Doreen."
"You're sooooo right!!! Another daiquiri, Dennis?"
"Why not?" They clink glasses. "To the taxpayer, my dear!"
And while the AHDC's members were having their top-level executive retreat, it would also be nice to think they may have bumped into some of those 94 lovely Housing New Zealand folk busily doing the very same thing.
Question: How many Housing New Zealand executives does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: 94. But they can't do it this week. They're at the Lodge.
With the gang from the AHDC, perchance, eagerly working on Hoodie Day. You can imagine the after-match, can't you?
"Hullo!" the AHDC would say. "Fancy meeting you here!"
"To be honest, we'd rather you hadn't," Housing New Zealand would reply.
"No! Don't be embarrassed. There's no better place in which to search for new and better ways to spend the public's money."
"Well, that's true. And we at Housing New Zealand are constantly seeking means of improving our customer service, thereby enriching the lives of the poor."
"Many of whom wear hoodies."
"Quite so. Another daiquiri, Doreen?"
Now, be honest. In the absence of a two-bar heater, nothing could make you warmer than imagining a conversation like that.
Yet, for some inexplicable reason, the CEO of HNZ has seen fit to apologise for taking her top-level chaps and chapesses to the (reasonably austere) environs of the Tongariro Lodge. "I'm sorry," she's said, her cheeks the colour of two Pink Batts. "It was not appropriate."
Of course it was, my dear!! What else are taxes for? Hang not your head in shame. Walk tall. Wear a hoodie. And send us the bar tab, too.
Then again, you'd have to say everyone's apologising at the moment. Even the politicians, who spent much of Wednesday saying "Sorry" to the veterans they'd sent first to Vietnam and then to Coventry.
Sadly, the sincerity of their apology was undermined somewhat by the eagerness with which so many of them vaingloriously reiterated their opposition to the war and their conviction it was wrong. Telling soldiers they've been very loyal and very brave but it was all a total waste of time isn't exactly the distilled essence of regret.
Not when it was the politicians themselves - in various incarnations - who'd turned their backs on their own troops. If ever there was a time to keep such self-serving declarations private, it was Wednesday.
Perhaps those who felt the need to blend their praise with condemnation should also have worn the hoodies we're so proudly sporting today.
Still and all, at least they did express regret. And next week - or the week after that - they can do it all over again. They can rise to their feet, faces limned in sombre regret, and tender another remorseful apology, this time to all us shivering souls huddled in the dark when the power cuts hit.
"Gosh, we're sorry," they can say. "It's a bit of a shambles really. But, honestly, what with getting better 'customer service' at Housing New Zealand and boosting broadband and electrifying the trains and promoting New Zealand Music Month we just sort of forgot about the dams.
"Bit like the roads, really. Only for a decade or two, but that's enough. Still and all, don't despair. There's some good news too. The Adolescent Health and Development Council - those wonderful folk who gave you Hoodie Day - have had another wizard wheeze!!
"They're going to have a Hotty Day! When we'll all wear hotties on our heads so our hair feels warm!!! And 94 lucky taxpayers are going to get a complementary Tongariro Lodge blanket, courtesy of Housing New Zealand!!!!"
Gee, thanks!!!!!!!
