It may have been uncharitable, but, just for a moment, I wished Shrek the sheep had run amok in the Auckland Sky tower last week.
I am almost frightened to admit to such thoughts, given that for years whenever Aussie Steve Irwin was excitedly bellowing in the face of innocent wild beasties on camera, I used to long for them to bite him, urinate or defecate, anything to get him to go away and leave them alone.
At the Sky tower I wanted Shrek to find some long-lost testosterone and charge through the building.
In my fanciful state, I pictured hardened, screaming gamblers fleeing amid overturned roulette wheels, a hail of chips and cards and crashing poker machines.
Then I wanted Shrek to firmly put down his well-manicured hooves and look so menacing that no-one, with or without a set of blade shears, would dare go near him.
If he piddled on the carpet, so much the better.
It was not to be, of course.
Shrek wasn't able to do anything so memorable.
Instead he had to endure the humiliation of having his fleece removed publicly for the third time.
He may only be a sheep, but since we have tried to turn him into a person, we should recognise the horror of public hair cutting.
Any woman knows she looks her best sitting before the brightly lit hairdresser's mirror, wet hair scraped back off her face to reveal every forgotten wrinkle and blemish.
It is even more attractive if she is having colour applied and the hairdresser adds bits of tinfoil, resulting in a wrinkled wet hedgehog-goes-disco look.
Accordingly, I should have been pleased to hear Shrek is retiring, supposedly at age 14. (I think he may have the typical celebrity confusion about his age since some reports two years ago suggested he was having his 10th birthday then.)In the time since he was found in 2004, after possibly hiding in a cave to avoid muster for six years, he has been travelling hither and yon raising money for charity (and New Zealand's profile, heaven help us).
His owner John Perriam says Saatchi estimated his worth to the New Zealand economy at $100 million.
Since I am fond of tucking in to a tasty lamb or mutton chop, it might be seen as petty and hypocritical to wonder whether this wether might have been better off remaining undiscovered.
Jet-setting and even donning crampons and going by helicopter to be shorn on an iceberg which is threatening to break up are probably things all merinos aspire to, even though the SPCA at the time reportedly called that venture exploitative and disgusting.
There was nothing vaguely silly about him having to wear a designer merino coat afterwards to keep warm, either.
Why are we letting him retire? Even if he is 14 he may have a few good years in him yet.
The late pet Australian merino wether, George, reached the age of 21 years, five months and three days in 2006, according to an ABC report.
So before Shrek swaps his hooves for a halo, can't we make more use of him?Why hasn't he been on Dancing with the Stars? Rodney Hide could have done with a partner who had a couple of extra legs to land on.
And there is any number of reality television shows which could be adapted to feature him.
What about Celebrity Cave instead of the tired Celebrity Treasure Island? Or Hoof Camp, where he could take wayward youth up to a cave, let them grow their hair long and help them evade the posse of scissor-snapping hairdressers dispatched to muster them.
Why was there no consideration of bringing don'twannabe country girl Paris Hilton to let her have a go at shearing Shrek with a disposable razor after she'd finished doing her legs with it? If that didn't work, she could try giving him a full body wax. `Paris gives Shrek Brazilian' would have made a suitably geographically confusing headline.
What about making more use of those crampons? Could we have sent him to the South Pole or up Mt Everest? Isn't it about time we had a new adventure to ooh and ahh over?A bit of imagination is all it would have taken.
If that was too frivolous we could get serious about more than fundraising.
Shrek could be the poster boy for an anti-child abuse campaign, pointing out that while he (as far as I can gather) remained submissive and silent during his various public ignominies, none of us should do that when we see or suspect children are being mistreated.
Considering all that, and the recent announcement of the resurrection of the Goodnight Kiwi, his retirement announcement seems like woolly thinking.
Barmy, even.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
