I reckon it would have been great fun to have been a spy in the old days. Photo / 123rf
Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief that laughter helps avoid frown lines. Page has been a journalist for many years and has been writing a column since 2017.
OPINION
Remember those old spy movies where the hero would meet some shady character in a dark alleyway or some foggy backstreet.
You know the ones I mean. Where he’s got a newspaper tucked under his right arm and the contact has to sidle up all casual like and say: “I hear the roses are blooming in Moscow at the moment.” Or something like that.
I mention this to set the scene for a rather odd “exchange” I was involved in this last Friday evening.
I reckon it would have been great fun to have been a spy in the old days – especially if I could deliver such a corny line like the above without giggling uncontrollably, which I doubt – but I’ll just have to settle for an explanation of what I was up to the other day.
So. As you know by now, Mrs P and I are in the early stages of a life lived on the road, or more particularly in the caravan we’ve bought.
And as is the case with such things, we’ve discovered there are heaps of things we’ve got that we don’t need and similarily there are heaps of things we need that we don’t have.
In the latter category is a plastic tank that allows us to manually fill and dispose of our wastewater. All the stuff from the washing up, showers, sinks etc.
We did our research and discovered the best sort to have is one with wheels on which you can roll off to the dumping station of your choice.
Naturally, we are watching the pennies and nearly choked at the price of new ones. Consequently, we did what I’m sure most of us have done at some stage and went online for a cheaper option.
Lo and behold we found one not 20 minutes from where we are currently parked up and I was soon making arrangements with the owner to pick it up.
Here’s where it started to get interesting.
The only time the other party could meet us was around 6.30pm on Friday night. He had a pressing engagement at 6.45pm.
What’s more, the pick-up point would have to be right in the centre of town, outside a certain restaurant.
I deduced from this the other party had a dinner engagement at this particular spot and time was obviously of the essence.
With that in mind I hurtled towards the meeting point, his instructions to me fresh in my mind.
“I will be in a red van and I’ll park outside. I will only be there for 10 minutes,” he’d messaged me earlier.
I had resisted the urge to tell him he’d know me because I would have a copy of this very newspaper tucked under my right arm. Not everyone gets my humour.
On that basis I’d decided against also having a password or a phrase to utter. Though something like “Chur bro. I see hot and spicy is back on the menu at KFC” would have introduced a distinctly Kiwi flavour to the proceedings I’m sure.
Anyway.
As I drove, through some early evening fog as it happens I kid you not, I couldn’t help but think back to those old spy movies and those classic secret meetings/exchanges you’d see on the old black and white films.
What would I discover at the end of my journey through rural New Zealand to a small-ish town where my contact waited?
Well, Dolly Parton for one.
Actually, I’m just assuming it was Dolly Parton. I mean it may just have been a bloke with a beard, a blonde wig and a colourful outfit. But she or he had certain, er, physical characteristics which, if you get my drift, left me with no doubt it was the famed country singer. I think.
Just what she was doing here, walking across the road in front of me in the gathering gloom, I wasn’t exactly sure of but never mind. I had a meeting to get to.
A minute or so later, still shaking my head in puzzlement, I arrived at the chosen destination, got out of the car and looked for my contact’s red van. Nothing.
The chosen spot was literally in the centre of this town with restaurants, a pub and a couple of other busy foodie outlets jostling for space on each corner. It would be fair to say on this particularly evening this little place was pumping.
That’s when my phone rang.
“I’m in a white beemer down the road,” said the voice on the other end. “I have the goods.”
Now the thing is, when you are standing at a cross roads and somebody says they are “down the road” you have four directional possibilities.
Naturally, being a bloke, I took the wrong option. Twice. In my defence, I had prepared my mind for a red van but my contact had changed it and that obviously confused me.
Eventually he ran out of patience – and time presumably – and rang back.
“Just stay where you are,” he said rather curtly. “I will come to you.”
So, I did as I was told and stopped still, right outside the window of a restaurant full of hungry diners on one of the corners.
That’s when I saw a figure in strangely familiar garb walking towards me carrying a large, loud blue tank with red lids and black wheels.
As he got closer I instantly recognised him.
It was Batman.
I’m guessing I must have done a bit of a double take because momentarily I couldn’t speak, which is rather unusual for me, I must admit.
A glance sideways revealed two diners sitting in the window of the restaurant, mouths agape, presumably wondering what on earth was going on.
“Sorry mate,” said Batman. “I’m off to a stag do. We’re all dressing up and I didn’t want to get out of the car looking like this.”
Anyway, standing there on the corner of the busy intersection, diners looking on bemused, Batman quickly showed me how the tank worked. Then I paid him the agreed sum and he raced off, cape flowing behind him, to fight crime and evil elsewhere.
Well, actually, he raced across the road to the pub where Dolly Parton had just turned up and was waiting outside. They went in together.
The absurdity of the situation made me smile, as it did Mrs P when I relayed the tale to her once I got back.
And what did she ask?
Obviously, she wanted to know if Batman’s wife was with him and was she called Robyn.
Gang patches can no longer be worn in public.