Most rational thinkers would agree that as an incubator for creativity, you can't go past A&E at Dunedin Hospital.
I am there regularly. Saturday nights have proved particularly enlightening, giving me a whole new insight into the town in which we live.
I was back there again last week. As a diabetic kidney transplantee, I only have to mumble the phrase "chest pains", and every machine in the building is wheeled my way, the entire hospital put on fool alert.
Exhaustive tests mean exhaustive delays. I had brought in an interesting book on the legendary Gennett record label, but you only need a book in A&E when you don't have one.
I just laid back, closed my eyes, and started being creative. After three hours, a friend, still gleaming from restaurant crème brulee, joined me and my crust of bread. I told her I might be some time.
And I explained how when marooned in A&E, only high creativity will get you through that time.
Usually I write half a dozen short stories and map out three screenplays, but this time we decided we would try to win the Fortune Theatre Best Pick-Up Line competition they are running with Don Juan In Soho. My friend went first.
"The door's open, but the ride ain't free."
"That's a threat, not a pick-up line."
"I think it's enormously romantic."
"But it's Springsteen. We have to be original. I have a burning preference for Woof Woof."
"No."
"I lived off Woof Woof right through university."
"Ah, university. The time you now refer to as The Lean Years."
I was mercifully saved when a nurse came to shave tufts of chest hair off for an ECG. I was tempted to get her to carve out the week's appointments while she was at it. I don't have a Blackberry.
My friend asked if she could buy the shaver to use on her cat. I resumed.
"Are those water melons or are you just pleased to see me?"
"Do you want a ride home, or not?"
"Open Sesame?"
"I'm going to read a magazine."
Now that one was a keeper. Call me old-fashioned, but I've always had an inkling women like men who can read.
The ECG was fine. The chest X-ray was fine. They took some blood, and, if my eyes didn't deceive me, the phials were thwocked up a tube to the laboratory, just like that wonderful money-sucking system they had at Penroses.
Why did Penroses close down? It was pure Dunedin, as important as the Railway Station.
My friend was heating up. "I bet I can finish this pint before you can say your phone number."
"Classy. But for a man or a woman?"
"Women don't use pick-up lines."
"Really? There's a Nobel Prize there if you're willing to do the work. Beauty is only skin deep, but I can feel you in my heart."
"Far too wimpy. How about You can't possibly be for real, you have to give me the name of your plastic surgeon?"
"Needlessly verbose. And stupid. Pick-up lines have to be short, sharp and shifty. That's why Woof Woof works so well."
They sprayed goo on my chest for an ultrasound. My driver was driven to almost Shakespearean heights.
"Let's hope our babies will have your eyes and my pick-up lines."
"Precipitous. Rumpty should only be a subtle allusion, not the whole banana. I find myself inextricably drawn back to Woof Woof."
The staggering witplay continued.
Her suggestions were consistently better than mine, but I didn't get where I am today by admitting someone is better than me.
The medical team eventually concluded I was fitter than five stallions, and I could go home.
What a superb writing environment this was! They should base the Menton Fellowship here.
I will be stunned if anyone tops Woof Woof.
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
