Chewed up the green

From BlackWhite magazine - issue 09, covered

Marshall shares a memory of a jaw-dropping job he really sunk his teeth into.

Years ago, I was contracted to paint the roof of the main clubhouse at the Remuera Bowling Club. I will never forget being perched on its roof hip, where I had just finished spraying the whole roof face in a strong burnt orange, Resene Twizel. The building overlooks the main green and, on this particular day, the finals of a high-level tournament were in progress – and any interruption of such a contest would be deeply frowned upon.

Just then, I was overcome by a major bout of sneezing and out shot my upper denture plate, which started skidding down the roof collecting not-yet-dried Resene Twizel as it went. Down the roof they careened, directly towards a group of very professional-looking men who were standing around measuring the distance of a finished game from their kitty. My fervent prayer was, of course, that they would hit and lodge in the spouting and that would be that – but no such luck. Such was the force of the sneeze and the pitch of the steep roof that those blasted pinky whites – now covered in orange paint – jumped the spouting and launched right out onto the green among the circle of men in very serious contemplation.

To my further horror, as I sat frozen to the spot, I watched as those dreaded choppers of mine bounced in among the bowls before finally coming to a stop – to my utter amazement – remarkably close to the dear little white ball in the middle. Time seemed to stand still as the ring of white-clad doctors, lawyers and managing directors stared on. No one, it seemed, was capable of making a move for a very long time. After what seemed like an eternity, one of them bent down and picked up the offending falsies and called out to me in loud Queen’s English – Stanley-Livingstone style – the overstated obvious, “these are yours, I presume?”

And all I could toothlessly mumble back was, “Yes, they are. Did I win?”

Colour mentioned in this article...

BlackWhite magazine

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