Perhaps the pull towards transformation has something to do with spring.
Plants are bursting into new life, baby animals are bounding about paddocks and the cat is making futile noises at the starlings outside. If only she knew how ridiculous her half-open-mouthed "eeking" looks she would hide under the bed with embarrassment.
If I concentrate on personal transformation, I can ignore spring cleaning. I can avoid altering my habitat from student flat squalor to one of those places where dishes are never dirty, horizontal surfaces can be seen and magazine photographers are probably lurking behind the pot plants. (Don't tell me, pot plants are passé.)
Metamorphosis it is then. I want to become a southern version of Michael Laws.
It shouldn't be that hard. I have been accused of wearing eye make-up, I can't dance, I love to talk and facial hair is not an unknown concept. I write a column too, although I like to think I have spared readers too many forlorn references to my early sex life or lack thereof.
Mikayla Lors will be my new name. Michael might think that sounds a bit white/brown trash, but I didn't fancy the sex change thing, it gets rid of the unneeded h and anything else likely to be mispronounced, and hopefully removes any suggestion I might be a stalker with a personality disorder.
The offspring don't know it yet, but my website will also feature happy family snaps. Well, I expect to hold up my end of that bargain by having one too many gins, and they will do their usual trick of ensuring one of them appears to be in urgent need of a straitjacket.
Such fripperies will not be important, however. What will be great about being Mikayla will be being a mayor.
It makes me giddy to think of the fun I could have with referendums. I wouldn't waste time asking about banning gang patches. Isn't there some worth in knowing who is in a gang so they can be avoided?
I would ask much more important questions of my constituents such as should men with ponytails be allowed outside without their heads obscured? Should there be special meeting places for willowy women dressed elegantly in speck-free designer black to prevent the rest of us feeling inferior? Should anyone seen with naked fat bulging over their trousers or skirts be issued with a ticket compulsorily referring them to the nearest nutrition and exercise clinic? (I am sure Tony Ryall could be persuaded to include such facilities in his integrated family health centres.)
We all know that with referendums everyone who votes gives the issue concerned serious and measured consideration before marking their ballot paper.
Using referendums means that those we thought we were paying to be decision makers have much more time to think about more important things such as their own travel and accommodation perks. I will be willing to devote endless ratepayer-funded hours to that.
If everything was decided by referendum there would be no need for politicians to have guts, to make the hard calls on controversial issues such as homosexual law reform.
It is surprising nobody has called for a referendum on the death penalty. A country which can devote years of discussion to a law removing the defence of reasonable force when parents are disciplining children could surely tie itself up in knots over that.
Sadly, calling for that will fall outside the realm of my fiefdom.
Writing mayoral letters with suitable gravitas will be one of the joys of the job. If primary school children from outside my area write to me expressing anger about something I think is none of their business, such as the lack of an h in my name, I will dash off a quick letter criticising them for their anger, suggest their teacher should be sacked and tell them I can't take them seriously until they debate issues I consider more important.
This may seem cruel and illogical, but it will be a fine education for the children into the way politics work.
Then, if busybodies accuse me of bullying, I'll say adults influenced the little darlings and emulate Barack Obama by inviting the children and their parents to afternoon tea. There won't be beer, but I could make scones.
They won't want to come, of course, but the gesture will make me look good. While I am looking good and bad-mouthing everyone else, nobody will dare ask how many children I have saved from abuse or death during my mayoralty. They will realise it is not my problem.
Blame and Shame (B and S for short) and Lors without Flaws will be my election slogans. Expect to see them on a bus near you next year.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
