KEY POINTS:
As one of the more reliable members of the Herald on Sunday team, it's often me that the editor turns to for advice on the direction of the paper or when he has tough assignments other journalists are likely to shy away from.
So I wasn't surprised when he called me into the office and asked me to attend an orgy at a swingers' party.
"With you?" I asked cautiously, mindful that my answer could have a huge bearing on my future employment at the paper - after all, in a roundabout kind of way, it was through some sort of sexual favour that I got a job writing for the paper in the first place.
"Of course not with me! I want you to infiltrate a swingers' party, become an embedded journalist and write it up as an award-winning essay."
"Can't James McOnie or one of the other columnists like Matt McCarten do this story, sir?"
"No," was his response. "McCarten is undercover at Rainbow's End and McOnie has already blown this one. You are the only man for the job!"
Apparently McOnie had been asked to do this assignment last year but he made a complete meal of it. He infiltrated the party, became embedded and then wasn't heard from for three weeks. The story was never filed and McOnie has never ever really discussed the matter since.
I agreed to do the assignment providing the paper paid all my expenses, overdue parking tickets, and a historic Baycorp bill involving the questionable repair of a clothes dryer.
Before attempting a story like this, it's wise to do some research. I needed to look, act and feel like a swinger, otherwise I would be immediately exposed as an undercover journalist or just some guy crashing the party, hoping to cash in.
In a nutshell the deeper and more embedded I became, the better the story would be!
I tracked down McOnie who was doing a freelance undercover piece on the mysterious behind-the-scenes world of Kelly Tarlton's. "What happens when the kids go home, the travelators grind to a halt, and the lights are switched off?" kind of thing.
Posing as a sea aquarium specialist, McOnie has been undercover, unbeknown to the staff for three months. He came close to being exposed a couple of weeks ago when he was seen adding chlorine to all the large fish tanks. But this stuff-up pales in comparison to an incident a week earlier when McOnie was asked to feed the penguins and the seals. McOnie fed the penguins to the seals, a situation made worse by the fact that the place was chocka with school kids at the time. On the upside, many of these children witnessed first-hand how food chains work and important biological concepts like survival of the fittest, but on the downside many of the children also needed extensive counselling after the debacle.
I asked McOnie what he had seen on the swinger-party assignment, and why he never filed a story.
At first he was reluctant to share any details at all, but eventually after I showed him some sordid photos of myself in some compromising positions, he felt sorry for me and began to talk.
Apparently there are a number of "clubs" in Auckland: "Some are better than others and some can be quite skanky," he told me.
The idea is that as a couple, you attend the club on a particular night, have a few drinks, chat about work, the new smacking bill, perhaps global warming and then shag each other senseless.
I was intrigued and wanted to know more. I asked McOnie why he never published a column and he gave me some lame excuse about his dictaphone not being water resistant and consequently shorting out in the spa pool.
Clearly McOnie wasn't telling me everything - what was he hiding?
McOnie wasn't giving anything away and besides he had to go and feed the manta rays. I knew that the only way I was going to get to the bottom of it was to get myself a water-resistant dictaphone and become embedded in the world of the swinger!
Then I went home and told my wife! Next week: my Swinger Expose!!
