PERHAPS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PROMOTION EVER

I think you're already familiar with today's subject matter

You already know what I'm talking about; the New World Little Shop promotion.

Have you got the Cheesy Sausages yet? If not, do you want to trade, because we've got two.

Not since the days of Nintendo 64, Furbys and Cabbage Patch Kids have we seen our children so utterly and effectively brainwashed by mere advertising - and the difference here is the primary product isn't even what the kids are after.

When I say kids, of course I mean EVERYBODY. Admit it, you want the whole set of these things just as much as anyone else, which is a major bummer for you if you don't have any children, because collecting miniature grocery items as an adult could seem a bit weird.

The main problem for the glennzb household is we don't shop at New World. We shop at Pak'N'Save, partly because it's a bit cheaper, but mostly because it's on my way home from work.

This did not sit well with Monster Number 2. Not well at all. Weekly grocery savings and a convenient location hold no sway with a 9 year-old whose friends have all collected at least half of New World's Little Shop already. She started to take my persistent Pak'N'Save preference personally, almost as though I was punishing her for something.

Now I think of it, I should have told her that's exactly what I was doing. Monster Number 2 deserves to punished regularly. For 9 years she's been carrying out a series of guerrilla-style attacks at various strategic locations throughout the house, ranging from low-grade semi-political graffiti on items of furniture right through to a brutal campaign of psychological warfare which is relentless and still ongoing.

Some kind of retribution only seems fair.

However, in this case I was not deliberately depriving her of access to her rightful mini-grocery collection. It's just the way it was.

Just like in the days of prohibition though, there's more than one way to open the lines of supply.

Turns out my sister-in-law DOES shop at New World, and had amassed quite a number of tiny tins, packets and bottles. Monster Number 2's eyes practically popped out when she discovered them piled up on her kitchen window sill. What's more, they appeared to be just sitting there, not being collected by anyone!

That was all about to change. Immediately. By the time M#2 had left her auntie's house, she'd acquired her first cache of miniatures and made arrangements for a regular mailbox drop directly following any future New World shopping expeditions.

Of course, once she realised she could source these things without actually having to go to the supermarket herself, a whole new strategy swung into gear. Suddenly parcels were arriving from far-flung grandparents. Small bags of coffee and weirdly not-to-scale pineapples were being handed to nanas to be delivered from other distant relatives. M#2 was back in the Little Shop game and she was raking it in.

Like heroine, it turns out mini groceries are an addiction that must be constantly maintained, or serious withdrawal symptoms can hit, and hit hard. This meant daily mailbox checks to see if auntie had fulfilled her hastily agreed-to drop-off obligations. Of course more often than not, auntie hadn't been around, which led to M#2 bouncing out the front door in anticipation, only to return moments later shrouded in the dark clouds only an empty letterbox can induce.

So I caved. Don't worry, I still shop at Pak'N'Save, but some of my colleagues have started supplying ME with minis, so I've been bunging them in the box instead. I know, what a softie. Let's just keep that between us, okay?

Oh, and for god's sake, don't tell her she can win the whole set on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, I don't want to have to explain how family members are not allowed to enter.

Nothing like receiving a package in the mail

MAN OF MY DREAMS

Too much time on my mind

This is not another moan about how early I have to get up in the morning.

It may have something to do with the effect of Daylight Savings on my sleep patterns though.

I met a mate on the stairs at work last week who foolishly asked me how I was going. I'm not one of those people who answers politely when someone casually inquires after my health. I'm usually brutally honest.

"I'm feeling a bit shithouse actually," I complained. "I think it's the Daylight Savings jetlag kicking in."

This is a standard joke of mine; trying to convince people there's some kind of quantifiable physical detriment happening because we've either lost or gained an hour. I was in for a surprise this time though.

"Oh, it will be," he agreed, going on to back up my self-serving superstition with actual scientific facts on R.E.M. sleep and how a change in your routine can seriously interfere with your natural cycle, especially if you're already getting up in the middle of the night to go to work.

There's really nothing better than someone who's prepared to agree with your whinging.

Whether any of that bollocks is actually true I have no idea, but it could go some way to explaining the wacky, wacky dream I had the other night.

It all started with my boss asking me to babysit Sonny Bill Williams. Let's be clear here, this is in the dream, not in real life. In saying that, that actually is the kind of thing my boss would ask me to do. I don't mean literal babysitting, of course. SBW is a grown man, he doesn't need me to babysit him. He has a manager for that. No, when my boss asks me to babysit someone, it's usually either because they're new on air, or their whole show is.

In this weird dream, someone had decided to hire Sonny Bill to host an hour's talkback from 7 on Friday night. Don't laugh, stranger things have happened - like John Key hosting Radio Live one afternoon during an election campaign. Close call as to who I'd prefer to hear hosting a radio show - I think I'd go with SBW, not just because he knows more about boxing and tattoos, but because he can probably pronounce the word "texts" correctly.

Anyway...

I told my boss I couldn't do it, due to family commitments. I should have realised it was a dream there and then; I spend half my life trying to get OUT of family commitments. This one involved dinner though, so obviously I would have been torn.

Friday night rolled around (yes, in the dream) and somehow I ended up feeling guilty, leaving halfway through dinner and going into work anyway. Completely fantastic of course, like I'd ever leave a meal halfway through. For some reason everything was happening in Tauranga too, the family, the restaurant, the radio station, all in Tauranga instead of Auckland. Don't know why.

I arrived at work to find the station off air and Sonny Bill Williams holding a bloke in a headlock in the studio doorway. The bloke in the headlock seemed drunk, high and really angry about something. I assume he was angry BEFORE the headlock happened - either way, immediate action was called for.

I pushed the bloke out the door, Sonny Bill through it and tried to usher Mr. Williams into the studio. Angry man was now stuck in the lobby with no access card to get him any further.

I can't quite recall how successful I was getting SBW on air. He's big and buff, I'm weak and pathetic so it's possible I wasn't very successful at all. What I do know is, despite my best efforts, the angry guy got in anyway.

Weak and pathetic as I am, I couldn't risk him getting re-headlocked so I diverted him into a separate (fictitious) recording studio full of random musical instruments. I tried to calm him down by exploring a mutual interest in playing the guitar at parties. Then the guitar started vibrating, except it wasn't the guitar, it was the alarm on my phone.

I don't know how many of you have woken up at 3 in the morning with Sonny Bill Williams, but it's a really weird way to start your day.

Why would I dream all this? Is it because there's a new show on Newstalk ZB from 5-6am that's stressing me out a bit? Perhaps.

Is it because nobody really seems to know who Sonny Bill Williams will be playing for next? Probably not, given that's how he rolls at the end of every season.

No, I think I'll just go back to blaming Daylight Savings jetlag and leave it at that. It's science.

Like most people, it's his intellectual side I find so attractive

BEING MANIPULATED

Obviously, it's nothing to do with the chair. Sitting on an Aeron is like
"putting your bottie in butter" - Authentic Sir Paul Holmes Saying

I have a bad back.

I'd like to think there are many unavoidable reasons for this; an unergonomic work space, an old mattress, the time I fell off the playground and landed on my arse when I was a kid...

Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion the main reason for my bad back is my bad front. I'm fat, I'm lazy and I'm a bit of a weakling, all of which puts a lot of pressure on one's spine to lift the load.

Presumably, there was a time I didn't have a bad back, but I can't precisely remember when that would have been. Maybe around the time Mr. Sefton was trying to get me to sit up straight in 7th Form Statistics. If only I'd listened, perhaps I wouldn't be in the state I'm in now. Sadly, I never listened to Mr. Sefton about anything - especially anything to do with Statistics. In fact, it pains me to say (specifically around the T-12 area) I frequently did the exact opposite of what he wanted me to. I recall Mr. Sefton asking me to stop slouching and me sliding down even further in my chair, just to spite him. Imagine having me as a student in your class. Nightmare.

Could that be the real reason for my persistent pain? Karma? If I'd been a model student, instead of a model of disruption, would I now be springing out of bed each morning like a young lamb, rather than untangling myself excruciating link by link as the jumbled mess of frayed rope, knotted fishing line and rusty chains I have become?

Whatever the cause, unless I'm lying flat on my back on the floor, the ache's pretty much always there, varying in intensity from a dull throb all the way up to, "Oh my god, it burns! It burns! Mr. Sefton, I'm so sorry! Please forgive me! I'm begging you! Make it stop!" To be honest, even if I am lying flat on the floor, that'll only buy me about 10 minute's relief before everything seizes up and I won't be able to get up off the floor.

Still, what do you expect from a 70 year-old? Pity I'm not even 40 yet.

I have sought medical advice. A mate of mine put me on to a guy called, and I'm not making this up, Doctor Bill. Dr. Bill is a chiropractor, but more importantly, he's also a kinesiologist. This means he has the freaky ability to keep you from holding your arm up by tapping you on the head.

I realise that might sound like airy-fairy, magical, new-age mumbo-jumbo, but it doesn't change the fact Dr. Bill fixed me. In fact, it was Dr. Bill who figured out the whole falling-off-the-playground-when-I-was-a-kid thing. Initially I had to see him once a week, but he soon weaned me off to once a fortnight, once a month, a 6 month top-up then I never went back.

And it only cost me 8 million billion dollars. Cheap at half the price.

Of course, even miracle cures don't necessarily last forever. Whatever clever trick Dr. Bill worked on me has started to fade and I'm buying my Lotto tickets in Ponsonby to try and amass the funds required to go back and see him.

In the meantime, you can understand why I love a good massage. The Domestic Manager and the Monsters are well aware of this, making a massage voucher the ideal go-to Fathers Day gift. This year the voucher was for somewhere new, which is always a slightly nerve-wracking experience. While I'm definitely into having my inflamed back muscles mashed around for half an hour, I wouldn't say I'm the kind of person who wants to touched intimately by a stranger. With an accent.

I always experience some anxiety in the initial stages of a massage appointment. This is partly due to revealing personal details but mostly due to revealing my person generally. There's always a long and involved form to fill out on which you have to divulge your medical history, list medications and allergies and sometimes even draw little diagrams highlighting your problem areas. I'm not much of an artist, but since my problem areas extend from the top of my bald head right down to the arches of my feet, my diagram usually involves a rough oval around my entire body.

As for medications, I'm not really a hardened consumer of pharmaceuticals. My drug of choice is usually whatever generic paracetamol is on special at the supermarket. And the only things I'm allergic to are exercise and a healthy diet which, as I've already mentioned, is probably what got me into this bind in the first place.

On this occasion however, there was no form to be filled. On the one hand, I applauded this spurning of superfluous paperwork - I really, really hate filling out forms.

On the other hand, just what kind of fly-by-night, half-arsed, Mickey-Mouse outfit were these people running? My fundamental form-filling aversion won through though, and assuaged any concerns I may have been harbouring about following correct rules and regulations.

Then came the undressing part - or did it? I like being told what to do, not just by massage therapists, by anybody. But when it comes to getting naked in front of someone you don't know, it's best if there are some clear instructions issued early on. Unfortunately, like the stupid form, these instructions were not forthcoming.

I'd explained the location of the pain. The massage therapist had told me where to lie on the table. She hadn't told me what not to wear.

Uncomfortable pause.

"Shall I take off my shirt?" I asked. What a stupid question. Who ever heard of someone getting a massage with their shirt on? But I had to say something.

Maybe she'd been playing a very funny joke on me, because at this point she left the room, saying she'd give me a few minutes to get undressed.

Still not enough detail. Just HOW undressed did she want me? I desperately tried to recall how naked I'd been at other massages in the past... Shirt off, obviously... but pants? It's only a bad back. Still... lower back. Yes, she'd need access below the belt-line probably. Undies on though, surely. Socks off? Why wasn't there a form clearly outlining the requirements? I was really missing those forms now...

What if she came back in, saw me sockless, screamed and ran from the room to call the authorities to have this dirty, sock-stripping pervert arrested? If I hadn't been experiencing tension between the shoulder blades before this moment, there was definitely plenty for her to work on now.

I must have made the right call with the socks, because there was no screaming upon her return, just a few groans - and they were from me, an involuntary response to her unwinding my twisted muscular mess.

As massages go, this was a good one, although nowhere near long enough. They never are.

Oh... and in case you were wondering, I went with socks off. What can I say, I'm just the kind of guy who likes to lie on the edge. Groaning.

I've heard of being addicted to prescription medicine,
but supermarket medicine?