What do you call those little packets of butter you can't open, she asked. Gosh. One could live 60 years and never have to stretch the brain that far. This was what those people on quiz shows call a toughie.
I suggested an acronym with U for Unopenable as the first letter. Perhaps an UGH. I had no idea what G or H would stand for, but prising butter out of one of those things is definitely ugh, they are utterly unopenable.
I have had them on planes and in hospitals. Eye surgery without good lighting is easier.
The following week, she appeared at our table again.
This time she spoke of the increasing expense of funerals (she said she buried her husband in a hired suit, which I thought was pretty classy) and she also had some telling observations on Americans.
What is your name?
I asked, ever the seeker of truth.
Sheila Shuttlebus. I didn't ask her if it was a real name. I mean, Shuttlebus obviously is. There is a Shuttlebus on every block these days since that TV show, or was it a Wombles song?
But Sheila?
Anagram of Leisha as in actress Leisha Ward-Knox?
No, she is havin' a laff there.
Sheila has a show on Access Radio every Tuesday, which is today. If you are reading this at 9.55am, having gone for morning tea slightly early, she is on in five minutes.
You may have heard the trailer while threading your way through this constantly surprising station - "amusing musing on the peculiarities of life, the writing's biting, the rhyme's a crime and the verse gets worse".
Sheila peels these poems off like we peel bananas. Pam Ayres is an obvious reference; Pam, who told everyone she was influenced by Bob Dylan and then, later, changed that to Lonnie Donegan. Sheila is much more Lonnie than Bob. And those with long television memories might hear strains of The Wheeltappers And Shunters Club here too.
Sheila's jokes run for one line.
"I may have only one book in my library, but at least it's in alphabetical order ... He doesn't understand Roman numerals; he thinks we have just fought World War Eleven."
Her poems are a little longer, quirked with a broad Lancashire accent. Here are some lines from her headstone poem Is There Anyone Out There Who Thinks The Way I Do ...
"I know that what I do isn't really fair/but if I get some chocolates, I never ever share/I don't go to the hairdressers every single week/I haven't joined ITC to learn how to speak/I've never taken part in a protest parade/I've not had a facelift or me nose remade/I don't show photos of me children, trips or pets/I don't buy any Lotto tickets or take any bets/I've not been to Rarotonga on a luxury cruise/I've not smoked cigarettes or pot, or been on the booze/I don't wear contact lenses, just ordinary specs/I've never watched a movie with explicit sex/lots of people live together, I still favour marriage/most people I know have got cars, I've just got a garage/is there anyone out there, who thinks the way I do/I'll share me chocolates with you, and then we'll have a brew."
The musings, amusings and pomes are led in and out of the show by marvellously perfect songs - C'est Si Bon, Lily Of The Lamplight, Honeysuckle Rose - and the occasional stringed fillet of Mantovani. It is a unique little half-hour, unlike any other.
Sheila tells me she has enough poems to get her through to mid-October. I suspect she will have written quite a few more by then.
Sheila is worried people might think they are autobiographical; she is keen to point out she has not had 50 husbands and 500 children. And I believe her.
Is there anyone out there who thinks the way Sheila Shuttlebus do?
I would like to think there is.
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
