Oblivious

Geekman's family inflicted us on a church supper tonight. But my mother-in-law averred that didn't mean she was going to eat nasty cheap meat with plastic forks. So we, the Geekman family clan, arrived with our own poached salmon fillets, mango salsa, Italian bread, and real cutlery, and Geekman's mother constructed a civilized enclave at one end of the long table, where she defended our "real food" from her encroaching brothers and sisters in Christ (unsuccessfully in the case of Edna, who is 94 and polished off half a plate of salmon before Geekman's mother could make her understand that that wasn't part of the free nosh.)

Partway through the evening, Geekman and I were discussing why people might choose to live in Tokoroa. I said it might appeal to some people that it was really easy to become a big fish in a small pond. So Geekman asked his father: does everyone in Tokoroa in fact know who the big fish are? Do people know, for example, who is rich and who is poor? Is the social hierarchy something people talk about?

Social hierarchy? asked his father. There is no social hierarchy in Tokoroa. There is no rich and poor. Everyone is all the same.

And he used his silver knife to butter his Italian roll.

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* To give an idea of the sort of town it is, it probably suffices to mention that people at the dinner could recall everyone from the town who has ever gone away to university --- population Geekman and his brother --- and that the fact there was mint in the boiled potato had everyone commenting on the posh food.