KEY POINTS:
One of my great Christmas memories is of lying on my back on the lawn, gazing up toward the stars hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa and his reindeer. That was the Christmas of 2006, and, shortly after, I was admitted into a drug centre.
The incident took place while I was working at my parent's ostrich farm just outside of Christchurch. Working on an ostrich farm is a cross between working at a free-range poultry farm and at Jurassic Park. And, as well as being incredibly non-profitable, it can be dangerous. These large, raptor-like creatures can gut you with a kick.
It was a hot day, a result of the infamous Canterbury nor'wester. But this nor'wester was also blowing in from the south-east, a rare phenomenon that subjects Cantabrians to a heat I can only compare to the kind of heat I experienced once after a man with one incredibly large testicle poured water over the coals in the Swedish sauna I frequent. But I digress.
Yes, it was a hot day, and my brother and I were given the gruesome task of executing two large ostriches that had apparently been wounded by my brother's rottweiler.
This normally placid canine had somehow entered the ostrich enclosure the previous evening and spooked them, sending them firstly into a panic, and then into the wire fencing that prevents these creatures escaping and terrorising the city.
Executing an ostrich is not the sort of thing you do every day, and the manner in which you do it is a little unorthodox.
In a nutshell, you gently place a black hood over the ostrich's head. This probably appears a little dramatic, but it serves a practical use as it calms the potentially dangerous bird down. This, in turn, makes the next phase a little easier.
Stage two involves striking the bird's head with a cricket bat. This probably sounds a little barbaric, but I can assure readers that this is widely recognised as the quickest and most "humane" way of executing a bird of this size. In fact, I am sure the early Maori probably used a similar method when killing moa, but, then again, how would I know?
My brother has a better stomach for this kind of thing, and he has a better average, so he opened the batting. A couple of well-timed strokes with the old Gray-Nicolls scoop and both birds were resting in peace on the back of the ute. Next he had to put down the rottweiler, but I won't go into too much detail about that as this Christmas tale is depressing enough as it is.
After some grave digging in the hot sun, I was parched. I headed indoors to quench my thirst, and my eyes lit up when I saw the oasis that was a large bottle of lemonade sitting on the kitchen bench.
In one swift movement, I picked up the bottle, opened my throat, and proceeded to gulp down half a litre of adhesive floor polish!
Unbeknown to me, Mum was polishing the slate tiles with a clear adhesive floor polish - the sort that you would naturally keep on the bench in a lemonade bottle. So how did this make me feel?
Internally my stomach burned out of control, as though I had swallowed $70 to $100 worth of assorted fireworks, a handful of welding rods and a zinger burger. The inferno continued up my throat like a chimney fire until my mouth was also ablaze, and my lips burned like I was sucking on a napalm popsicle.
Mum came to my rescue, but it would be many hours before the burning ceased thanks in part to monsoon bucket loads of milk and aloe vera juice.
Hours later, I was to experience a different sensation as the adhesive properties of the slate floor polish began to work their way through my digestive system. The polish bubbled inside me, its vapour escaping through every pore in my skin, my ears and even my eyeballs, and need I say, the more it worked its way out of my body, the higher I got! Regular glue sniffers would give their right arms for this kind of adhesive experience.
If I can draw parallels with the Asterix comics, I was like Obelix who had fallen into the magic potion as a baby. My body had become a bong for storing and administering hallucinogenic adhesives. Only time would tell how long this psychedelic trip around the ostrich farm would last.
The remainder of the afternoon was like being an extra in a Jefferson Airplane music video.
Occasionally, it was enjoyable, but, like Alice in Wonderland, a part of me wondered if I would ever return from this surreal world. The day had been surreal enough prior to drinking the floor polish!
Later that evening, Dad picked me off the lawn, an experience made all the more "trippy" by the fact that he was actually dressed up as Santa Claus, presumably for the benefit of the grandchildren. Then Santa took me to A&E!
