This may make more sense if you read the other version first.
1. I may not be God but if I want someone to call me that I can give them ketamine and pray with them just before they go to sleep….
Legally done, of course, as part of a doctor supervised procedure. The doctor in one procedure was called “King of glory”.
2. While, God’s sense of humour may be strange, sometimes I may need to apologise for mine.
I started out with a dry sense of humour, then I started working in an emergency department, then I moved to a country with a very dark sense of humour, then I lived a war zone. So….
3. The smooth and shiny of the television ads for shampoo is not helpful if you want your head covering to stay on your head and not fall off 15 million times.
4. “You are my sister from another mother”, is not just a turn of phrase.
When you ask someone how many siblings they have (which is an important question because your birth order in your family determines your “little name” (nickname)) and they have to stop and count you are probably dealing with that situation.
5. “Are you booked?” means “Are you engaged to get married?”
Is that an 0800 number?
6. “Somehow” is a very useful word for answering the “how are you?” question when your day is not quite a box of fluffy ducks.
Living with non-kiwis for nearly my whole time I have realised there are quite a few kiwi slang phrases that are not non-kiwi general knowledge.
7. While God may not waste my time, other people seem to love to.
Patient histories tend to go like this:
“Why have you come today” “I’m sick”. Naturally.
“What are you sick with?” “My stomach”.
“What is the problem with your stomach” “It pains”.
When did this start?” “Long time”
“A day, week, a month, 10 years ago?” (Long time can mean all those things). “The other day”.
“What day?!” “Tuesday”. Why didn’t you say to begin with!
8. If you are not royalty but you want practice in a genuine situation doing the royal wave while people (well, mainly children) come running to the road side as you pass shouting your name (well shouting “Khawaja (Other!)” – but you hear it so often it might as well be your name) you can move here.
9. If we happen to meet and go to shake hands and I grasp your forearm instead or touch it with my forearm – just blame it on coronavirus.
Don’t think that I have adopted at all any weird customs from the people that I have been living amongst.
10. If you ever want to sing a song that says “Satan, you loser, loser” in church, you also should just move here.
Personally I struggle to sing it with a straight face, just imagining all the older gentlemen in their ties and shirts singing it back in my passport country. (The song does start out as “Jesus, you are winner, winner”)
Life Down the Rutted Red Road 