A PILL CALLED PRIDE

Life inside an iwi provides many reminders to beware of pride.  This was a lesson I finally and fully learned in 1975 when, as trainee nurses, my sister and I did a two week Public Health stint in Whangarei. 

This involved doing outpatient work in people’s homes.  Who knew that an amputee could live in such squalor that his stump became a happy home for generations of maggots?  This spectacularly gory lesson, and other more mundane ones, were firsts for us both.  But there was more.

My sister’s then boyfriend lived in Whangarei, and each night he’d take us out.  At the time The Big O was newly opened and The Grand was still worthy of its name.  Of course, bearing in mind that the height of flash for us up to that time had been a do at Davina’s in Awanui, we were dazzled.    

But it was on one of those nights out in Whangarei that we both learned this great truth on the dangers of pride; Kei riro ta koutou taonga i te maminga a te tangata e mea ana ki te whakaiti i a ia, ki te karakia ki nga anahera, ka noho i roto i nga mea e kitea ana e ia, ka whakapehapeha kau noa, he mea na tona ngakau kikokiko.  And this is how it happened.

We were at The Settlers Tavern when a stranger sat next to me and asked if I was a nurse. "Yes," says I. Then he asked, "Do you drop tabs?"  I had no idea what he was talking about until it came to me that he was speaking in code and tab must actually mean the T.A.B. 

"No," says I happily, "I don't bet on horses." He looked at me strangely and moved away.

Then he approached my sister who suddenly looked around, sidled over to me and whispered, "Have I got my mate?" I checked and told her, “No.” then asked, “Why?”  "Because," says she, "that guy just asked me if I dropped my tampon."

He may have thought we were a complete pair of nanas, but we knew he was a real rorirori. 

Later that night he fell off the balcony and someone said he’d overdosed on pills.  But when we took him to the hospital, all he had was a very high blood alcohol reading and an empty prescription bottle for amoxicillin in his pocket. 

I always remember him when I hear men either talking up themselves and what they’ve done, or talking down others and the mahi they do. 

Like the tab-dropper they are so puffed up by their own fleshly minds they wouldn’t know humility if it fell on them, reality if they fell over it, or an angel if it blew its trumpet right in their ear. 

I teach my mokopuna, when you see or hear such men personally attacking others, leave them to it.  They’re just tripping on a pill called pride.