Having lived there for the best part of 20 years, I feel qualified to write about it.
I successfully took two or more buses to get to school every day, visit friends or go ice skating and survived the government imposed carless days, all without crying like a bitch to media about how hard done by I was.
Since the storms hit most of the country last week I've had to endure the never-ending whinging from many a Jafa complaining about a bit of bad weather and longer than usual power cuts, with the story of a $100,000 Aston Martin stranded in floodwaters qualifying as (heart)breaking news.
Or this headline: "Day 4: Nerves fraying, answers demanded as thousands still without power".
Poor diddums, how positively draconian and stone age. I'm surprised there wasn't a 'How to survive without your arty-farty coffee machine' guide published.
But the worst had to be the ongoing saga of the couple with triplets — nauseating and emotive to the max.
As a mother of multiples myself, I — again — feel qualified to speak. Cry me a freaking river. Welcome to the real world, dearies.
And triplets or three singletons ... what's the friggin' difference when it comes to a little 'ole power cut? Grow a pair and suck it up like those in nameless and faceless NZ towns and cities have done for decades, without public complaint.
What do you hope to gain by bitching about it so publicly? A crowdfunding page for emotional distress? Stop being so precious.
Had these stories occurred anywhere but Auckland, they would never have seen the light of day.
Take the life-changing earthquake in Christchurch ... People lived and managed without power, water and/or functioning toilets in far worse conditions for weeks and months on end. They just got on with it ... without the need for a public pity party.
During this latest storm, entire homes outside of Auckland were totally destroyed by tornados, but the enduring news story is the powerless superpower — aka Auckland.
The temperature drops to below 6C in winter or rises above 25C in summer and the rest of us are tortured by headline news reports of unbearable weather conditions resulting in the sellout of heaters or fans. God forbid over-indulged Aucklanders should have to shiver or sweat, like common folk.
And can you imagine the outrage if carless days were re-introduced to this new breed of inhabitant? There'd be rioting and anarchy.
We're talking about a self-entitled population that would rather crawl along at 15km/h in the cars they think define them, than lower themselves to make use of perfectly good (and probably quicker) public transport.
It's bad enough that the rest of the country has to subsidise their sorry arses in the many schemes that are implemented to make their sad, congested, over-populated lives easier ... but on top of that, they have the gall to expect our sympathy when they're faced with what many of us would consider average weather events.
And what if Aucklanders had to experience the number of earthquakes the rest of us have to contend with? We'd never hear the bloody end of it.
They may live in the largest city in New Zealand but that doesn't make them any more worthy.
Those days without power may have been better spent in gratitude, appreciating just how much we smalltown yokels bankroll them.
The spoilt brat look does them no favours ... #aucksordorks
*Kate Stewart is an unemployed, reluctant mother of three who has just announced she will not be standing for the Auckland mayoralty — feedback to: investik8@gmail.com
