Richard...

Richard...the merino mullet toting local farmer. Now a merino mullet is a special brand of mullets...it's a kiwi mullet. It has the poof and fluffiness of the number one road kill in new zealand--the possum and the curly-q tail or 'party in the back' of a pig. Now, I met richard while staying in a campground in the outskirts of Invercargill. As I made my way into the kitchen for a late dinner of sorts with my latest Irving novel in hand I found a comfy chair in the corner and sat down. A good 10 minutes later the real 'encounter' of the week occured. Richard introduced himself as a local who lived at the motor camp full time and was kind enough to point through the window to his trailer...the one with the year round christmas lights and huge fishing pond in the front with fake fish in it. We then got into a 'heated' discussion about his childhood love of farm machinery and how that translated into an adulthood spent collecting model farm miniatures. Now, richard was a rather expressive man always using his hands to gesture...it was hard not to take note of his hands or rather fingernails...each nail was cut in an alternating pattern of long, short, long...with an equal amount of dirt deposited underneath. Richard also had a lovely habit of calling me 'sweets'...not to be confused with 'sweetie'...but sweets. He then told me how his lifelong dream was to go to disney WORLD...funny I said, mine was to travel and see the WORLD.