The Ute Samaritan

I know I just posted yesterday, but I have an anecdote.

Yesterday HB and I went up to Matakana with some friends to get out of the city for a day and watch the rugby test in a more exotic locale than our local pub, the enticingly named Slipp Inn. 

Matakana is a small town in the middle of a winemaking region, and at some point the town got together and decided that their point of difference would be "fancy".  The fancy has been so well executed that it's now verging on the sort of place where you go out to buy a loaf of bread and return empty-handed and pissed off because all you could find was sustainably sourced, carbon neutral chia seed and pumpkin artisan bread which tastes like an expensive sample from the waste ponds of the local community that 100% of the funds from your bread purchase go into supporting.   

It has a farmers' market and an Indie Craft Market which, yes, is actually called that.  These are its public toilets.  Not kidding. 

Anyway, so HB and I and some of our friends (including Button, who doesn't play a starring role in the anecdote but will be pleased to have been mentioned) had spent the afternoon and the better part of the evening in Matakana, drinking beer and watching rugby and generally getting our fancy on.  

At about 10pm we were walking back from the pub to the place we were staying, about five minutes away from the village, when we passed a service station with a large and beautiful ute (or 'pick-up truck' if you prefer) parked outside.   There were eight of us - three of the original couples who had driven up to Matakana that day, and a pair of French tourists who we had met at the pub.  We all stopped walking and had a look at the ute.  It was an excellent ute.

One of our party was so inspired by the beauty of this ute that he hopped up onto the back of it and stood with his arms raised high.  Then he took off his jacket and shirt.  It was at this point that the other service station patrons stopped refuelling their cars and started to take some interest.  Ute Rider, encouraged by the sudden increase in audience, seized the opportunity to remove his pants.  

It was then, while he was standing buck naked on the back of the ute, waving his arms and roaring in delight, that the owner of the ute returned.

Now you would think that if you came out of the petrol station to find a large naked man atop your ute your first action would be to call a policeman, or at least ask the man to get off your vehicle and put some pants on, please.  But these were not the actions of the Matakana Ute Man!  

Instead he let us all hop in the back of the ute, pants or no pants, and gave us all a ride home. 

What a top bloke.