Some people think road cones are boring. They're wrong. The story of the road cone is a feel-good Kiwi tale of success, lives saved and drunken humour.
With massive infrastructure projects in some cities and rebuilds in others, road cones have never been a bigger part of the New Zealand way of life. We have more road cones per head of population than any country on earth (probably).
I'm talking about the cones on the road here. Not the ones behind desks. A road cone on the road is for safety and traffic direction. Human road cones are non-reflective, talentless job-huggers who do nothing but block things from happening. Employed placeholders with no ideas. You probably have a few in your office.
I first became interested in road cones growing up in Dunedin. Like many teenage New Zealanders I enjoyed stealing them and putting them on statues and up trees. One evening my mate The Cooz and I stole 11 road cones and placed them carefully in his sister's bedroom while she was out. It was a great joke until The Cooz' dad found out and yelled at us.
He claimed we had stolen $1100 worth of taxpayers' property. We could go to jail, some one could have died. He also claimed we'd nicked sherry and gin from his liquor cabinet to make rocket fuel. (Which was true). He made us return all 11 road cones to George St in sober daylight. Humiliating.