Summer Times asked 12 Otago people to describe the best day of their lives. (To ensure variety, we ruled out the day contributors met their partners, married them, or their children were born.)
December 23, 2001
"Would you like to come to a party?" asked the economist, 10 years ago.
It had been a glorious summer of tiny bikinis and all-over tans.
The economist and I had only recently met, in a bar the size of a long drop, he mistaking my non-stop talking for an interesting personality, I assuming his hopelessly mismatched clothing was the result of paint-fume neurological damage.
In those halcyon days, over long afternoons scented with salt and vinegar, he showered me with poems that rhymed and rollerskates. I laughed at all his jokes.
A balmy night, stars twinkled in the firmament, a warm sea breeze tousled our hair. Outside the surf club, the ocean gently shushed all cares. Inside, everyone was beautiful.
Cheekbones, muscles - blondes as far as the eye could see.
Stepping out of my shoes and on to the dancefloor, gyrating as much as my tight red cheongsam [some sort of body-hugging Chinese dress, ed] would allow, drinking cheap cask wine out of a plastic tumbler.
"I can't get no satisfaction!" lied the band's lubricious singer.
Things began to wind down around 4am. I proposed a taxi, but the economist wasn't having a bar of it. "It'll be at least $20!" he shrieked, unintentionally demonstrating a soupcon of cheap.
We set off down Forbury Rd, he skateboarding, me rollerskating.
It is quite difficult to rollerskate in a tight cheongsam. You just can't get any traction. I fell over almost immediately and, for some reason, couldn't get back up.
"Come on!" yelled the economist, already some distance down the road.
Time skittered. The economist suddenly loomed over me, his head unfeasibly large.
"Oh my God!" he shouted, then disappeared.
Things went black and red. There was a period of nothing, then blinding white lights and someone booming, "a compound fracture of the lower right leg, tib and fib! It's alright, I'm a doctor!"
Of economics, I thought, passing out for good. I woke up on Christmas Eve.
"Terrible headache," I croaked to the nurse at the end of my cast.
"That'll be your hangover, love," she deadpanned.
Months of incapacitation put the kibosh on my teaching career - for which, generations of students should be forever grateful.
Marooned, nothing to do but read, I would start down the path to writer. Unable to get to the fridge, I lost 10kg.
Incapable of avoiding his charms, I fell in love with the economist.
Break a leg, everyone.
• Lisa Scott is an ODT columnist.
• If you would like to share your "Best day of my life except for ..." story with ODT readers, email mark.price@odt.co.nz for details.
