Having taken an enforced break for a number of weeks with ideas drying up faster than a Canterbury river, MyThinks has had a sudden burst of prefrontal brain activity and brings you a random number of thinks related to recent political happenings. Enjoy.
National Leader Judith Collins is walking through a weekend market. She has been brought here by some of her party minders as they try to soften her image from the hard-nosed, car-crushing, Thatchery evil-doer to a light blue puppy. Some might say this to be a near impossible task, but a task the minders are undertaking none-the-less.
Collins strolls around the market awkwardly greeting people. This isn’t the usual National Party stronghold of rural New Zealand. This is an inner city market. People are eyeing her suspiciously. Some are even lightly heckling the beleaguered leader. Cries of, “Mrs Useless,” and “Captain Underdone” ring out across the markets. Collins does her best to ignore the comments but a slight glistening near the corner of her eye belies her usual granite appearance. She looks to the left and her moisten eye is drawn to a nearby stall decorated with light blue balloons. She wanders over.
“Hello Mrs Collins,” the stall owner begins, “and welcome to my stall.”
“What are you selling, kind sir,” asks the Leader of the Opposition.
“Anything and everything,” comes the reply, “Walk around and feast your eyes upon my wares.”
Collins moves around the tables under a white gazebo structure. She casts her eye over a myriad of strange and unusual items. Nothing really captures her attention until she comes to a silver cabinet. As she tries to open it the stall owner is quickly by her side with an ivory coloured key.
“Please let me get that for you,” he says before quickly unlocking and opening the cabinet.
“Thank you very much,” replies Collins as she looks over the contents of the cabinet with eager eyes.
“I see you are a connoisseur of this kind of noise maker,” says the stall owner mysteriously.
“Yes, indeed,” replies Collins, “I’m extremely interested. Can you talk me through your collection.”
Placing white gloves on his hands, the stall owner carefully lifts out a tray and places it on the table next to the cabinet. Even though the morning is awash with drizzle, the tray sparkles, as do Collins eyes.
“What about that one,” she asks excitedly.
“Well,” says the stall owner picking it up off the tray, “this whistle belonged to Don Brash. He liked to use it from time to time to try and get the media to take notice of an old white man and his antiquated world view.”
“Of course,” notes Collins, “Brash was never Prime Minister.”
“Well played m’lady,” replies the stall owner placing the whistle back on the tray. He holds up another one. “What about this one. It used to belong to Michael Laws.”
“Yes, well, I’m not sure I have any use for the whistle of a former mayor who couldn’t even keep the traditional spelling of Wonganewee on his council building.”
“Indeed. I got this one off Mike Hosking last week.”
“Mike’s Minute… no thank you… I want a man who can last longer than a minute, thank you very much.”
“Touché,” says the stall owner. He returns the maserati coloured whistle to the tray.
“I don’t see anything from Sean Plunket here,” notices Mrs Collins.
“Oh god no,” retorts the stall owner, “I’m not a $2 Shop!”
“Ha!” laughs Collins.
The stall owner hovers his hand over the tray a few moments longer before he has a sudden realisation. He runs to a car parked behind the gazebo and rifles through the boot. Collins follows, intrigued. Eventually he finds a small blue bag which he unzips and opens. Inside is a lone silver whistle.
“This,” he begins, “used to belong to the late Sir Robert Muldoon…”
“…Wow…”
“…and, as you know, he used this whistle all the time. Against almost every sector of New Zealand society, but especially Tom Scott and most of South Auckland.”
“It’s perfect,” whispers Collins, “how much?”
“Oh… for you, madam, this whistle will cost nothing…”
“Nothing?” asks Collins.
“Nothing…” replies the stall owner, “…but your soul.”
“My soul,” questions Collins.
“Your soul…” says the stall owner, “…all you need to do is gift me your soul and you can have Sir Robert Muldoon’s personal dog whistle for absolutely no charge whatsoever.”
“I have no problems paying for this whistle with my soul,” replies Collins with a wry smile, and the stall owner passes her the whistle, which she places carefully in the pocket of her trouser suit.
Collins says her thank yous to the stall owner and slowly walks away gleefully patting her pocket. Little did that poor stall owner realise, but she, Judith Collins, leader of the National Party, has no soul.
She turned around for one last look and long-distance gloat at the gullible stall owner to find the gazebo, the car, and most importantly the stall owner had completely disappeared…
My Thinks 