Jim Hopkins: The ins and outs of quite a complicated situation

One sup on a time there was a happy little Out who lived with all the other happy little Outs in Outer Roa.

Well, she didn't actually live with all the other happy little Outs because they would have needed a very big Out house to fit all the Outs in.

And they still might have left the odd Out out.

No, the happy little Out lived with her brothers and sisters and her Mummy and Daddy, Mr and Mrs Out, in a modest, adequately insulated four-bedroom Out house.

That didn't leak.

Well, actually, it did leak, but so did all the other Out houses so no one thought anything of it.

No one came around and said: Look, Out! There's water coming in!

So the happy little Out stayed happy, even if she did have to put up with the occasional drip - like her big brother.

Who had to put up with the occasional drip too. We're not going to call people horrid names in this story, are we, boys and girls?

The happy little Out loved living in Outer Roa with the rest of her whanau, which was a word first used by her great-great-great-great-great-great-Grandfather Out when he sailed from Taiwan.

After four weeks at sea, and still no sign of Outer Roa, he had thrown his hands in the air and cried, Is it whanau?

Happily, it wasn't, or there'd be no story. And no happy little Out, either.

And she was happy. Really happy. Every day, the happy little Out went out and ran about. And when she got bigger, she still went out - to catch fish and birds, some so big they couldn't fly.

Then, one day, the Outs woke up to find there were too many Outs in Outer Roa and not enough fish and birds. So the Outs split up and built forts to protect their own food and sometimes even took other Outs out and took their food too!

Well, things went on like that for a while. With a bit of trading and a bit of fighting the Outs generally sorted things out.

Then, one other day, the Outs woke up and saw a whole lot of Ins coming in. Look, Out. In coming! the Outs yelled out as they watched the Ins come in.

And the Ins looked at the Outs and the Outs looked at the Ins and thought Wow! and soon lots of Ins and Outs were going out and falling in love.

That wasn't the only thing they were doing, of course. As more Ins kept coming in, there were fights over land. Sometimes the Ins fought the Outs and sometimes the Outs fought the Ins and sometimes, some Outs joined the Ins to fight some other Outs.

But that's another story and we won't worry about it here.

Meanwhile, all the Ins and Outs who'd been going out started having little In-Out children and the In-Out children started having children, some with Outs and some with Ins, and it wasn't long before Outer Roa was full of In-Out-Out-In-Out-In-In-Out-(in) people ... but don't mention the (in) to your Grandma, boys and girls!

And some of the In-Out-Out-In-Out-In-In-Out-(in) people said they were Outs and some said they were Ins and some said they were both - and that was all right too.

What wasn't all right was the naughty man who said, Gosh, there are not a lot of Outs In Outer Roa now, are there?

Not all Outs, anyway.

It seems strange to me that when you're In you're In and when you're Out you're Out but when you're also halfway In you can be wholly Out!

Well, when they heard that, lots of In people were Outraged. And Incensed. This is Outrageous they said. We're not going to talk to that naughty man any more!

Even Mr WinstIn Peters - who hadn't been in the news for a while but had been in and out with just about everybody over the years - said, This is evil.

Well, as soon as he said that, the outspoken Interviewer Mr Paul Honky got him in for a hard-hitting interview on the Breakfast show - which was a special treat for WinstIn because they usually only have the Prime Minister in on Breakfast.

Why do you think the naughty man is saying these naughty things? Mr Honky asked WinstIn - presumably because it hadn't occurred to him to ask the naughty man himself.

Because he's naughty, said WinstIn.

Will he stay as leader of the naughty people? asked Mr Honky - presumably because, being an outspoken Interviewer, he liked giving people a free hit.

Of course not, said WinstIn - who knew when he was onto a good thing.

Meanwhile, while the In people were outraged, lots of Out people were in their houses and pubs and taxis and factories, scratching their heads and saying, What's the problem here? Many of us have been saying that for years but we can't get a word in edgewise.

So, once again, two conversations were going on in Outer Roa. The In people were having one with each other in their media and the Out people were having another with each other.

The moral of the story is: It doesn't matter if you're an In person or an Out person or an In-Out-Out-In-Out-In-In-Out-(in) person, if you're outspoken about anything the In people think you shouldn't be outspoken about then you're bound to be in trouble in Outer Roa.

And we all lived unhappily ever after.