We went to Christchurch last weekend. I think most rational thinkers would agree that if there was a choice between going to Christchurch and thrusting one's tongue deep into the belly of a raging hot toaster, the toaster would win every time.
For reasons way beyond the psychosomatic, whenever I am in Christchurch, I am in unsound physical condition.
As a teenager, heading off for midwinter table tennis tournaments, I would leave Dunedin in a T-shirt, laughing and skipping rope, only to arrive at the cryogenic cold of Christchurch one wheeze shy of bronchial pneumonia.
As a student, I always got alcoholic poisoning in Christchurch.
And even in my 50s, in the prime of my life, I wasn't immune.
One Sunday in late February 2005, I left Dunedin fitter than a Sydney Manowitz fiddle, and arrived in Christchurch with advanced renal failure and jugular dialysis, requiring a kidney transplant the very next day.
The minute our latest trip to Christchurch was decided, my body fell apart.
Severe life-threatening root canal surgery had to be done the following day, and then an unrelated life-threatening gum disorder created a life-threatening lymph node infection with a concomitant CK muscle enzyme figure so catatonic, it drained the blood from my nephrology professor's knuckles when he read it.
Finally came a life-threatening blocked ear which left me hearing only every second word spoken.
Psychosomatic? I don't think so.
Extraordinarily powerful drugs and some crystals under the pillow dealt with most of this, leaving only the blocked ear.
Which wasn't so bad, as being nearly deaf took the focus away from being nearly blind.
Sheer common sense suggested the Eustachian tube was awry.
My friends said pinch the nostrils and blow like buggery, which I did, often on the main street, my bright red bulging cheeks and poppy eyes doubtless proving an arresting sight for cruise ship visitors.
Then Google politely suggested I blow through the nostrils, not the mouth, which may seem obvious to most humans, but I didn't get to where I am today by doing what is obvious to most humans.
After all, when I got my first computer and the manual said, open the floppy disc, I cut its innards free with scissors.
My needlessly smart son was more frightened than incredulous when he saw me doing this.
No son ever really wants empirical evidence that his father is as mad as a pencil.
So, yes, through the nostrils.
Three crackles and a pop and I was done.
There was just time to make six travel CDs for the interminable journey.
I had been forbidden to put Jesus Take The Wheel by Carrie Underwood on any of the CDs as apparently I have put this song on every travel CD I have made this year.
There is a suggestion here that anguished mawkish songs sagging beneath a slopbucket of religion are bad, but this is really something we should discuss at another time.
I did in fact sneak this song of soaring beauty and heart-wrenching sadness on to disc five, rather like the way the All Black selectors fill their bench with top players when they are playing lesser teams like Kenya or Greece.
Or, indeed, the Barbarians.
The just-in-case rotation selection policy.
And sure enough, while cured of all ills when I left Dunedin, sun bouncing off the bonnet of the Toyota Marino, the closer we got to Christchurch, the sicker I became.
When we reached the outskirts of the city, just past where the trotting trainers live, and just before Denton Park, a wave of life-threatening sicknesses, poured over me like a spilled jug of gravy.
Metaphorically drenched, and with a heart as black as licorice, I reached for Carrie Underwood.
Jesus would have to take the wheel.
As Oscar Wilde once said, and I'm paraphrasing, when you're coming into Christchurch, sometimes even blowing through pinched nostrils doesn't work.
Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
