Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch

A lot of people have been trying to make sense of the protests outside Parliament these past two weeks but there's really no need to reinvent the wheel.

Most human behaviour can be explained in the good book, or more accurately – the good books of the prophet Roger Hargreaves.

The characters are a little interchangeable but it goes something like this.

The tale of Mr Grumpy

It was a lovely summer evening and Mr Grumpy was at home – Crosspatch Cottage. He sat down in his armchair and picked up a newspaper.

He read stories about pandemics and government-imposed restrictions and people dying and hospitals overwhelmed.

And then do you know what he did?

He tore all the pages out of it – every one. He was in a shockingly bad temper. He was the most bad-tempered person you could imagine, Grumpy by name and grumpy by nature.

The following morning he was out in his garden, pulling out flowers – he couldn't stand pretty flowers growing in his garden.

‘Good morning,' said Mrs Happy. ‘Have you had your booster shot yet?'

‘Good?', replied Mr Grumpy. ‘What's so good about it? Get out of my garden, I don't believe in the need for a vaccine'.

‘I beg your pardon?,' said Mrs Happy.

‘You heard me,' snapped Mr Grumpy. ‘Go away and take your vaccine mandates with you.'

‘Bad-tempered fellows need to change their ways,' said Mrs Grumpy.

‘It's all rubbish,' retorted Mr Grumpy and went into his cottage, deliberately stepping on Mrs Happy's foot as he went past.

‘Ouch,' said Mrs Happy – ‘I won't be engaging with you again with normal constructive dialogue'.

Not so happy

Mrs Happy stood there, looking not quite so happy as she normally does.

So Mrs Happy told Mr Tickle of her plan for how to get Mr Grumpy to change his ways.

Mr Tickle had extremely long arms that could reach into every corner of society, so was the ideal person to carry out the plan.

Meanwhile, Mr Grumpy decided to go shopping and utterly refused to wear a mask.

‘You don't need to wear a mask,' snapped Mr Grumpy at a group of passing school children. They scurried off.

He went into the butchers and was immediately stopped in his tracks by Mr Meat, who asked him where his face mask was. He was frightened of Mr Grumpy but more frightened of Mr Tickle so he did as he was told when it came to government mandates.

Unbearable tickle-fest

Just then, an extraordinarily long arm came in through the door, and across the shop and up to Mr Grumpy and tickled him.

‘Oh!' squeaked Mr Grumpy, in alarm, dropping his sausages and looking around to see what had happened.

But could he see anything, he could not.

Mr Grumpy went next door to the bakery. ‘Give me a cake and hurry up.'

He repeated this at Mrs Humbug's candy store, and Mr Bottle the liquor merchant and then at the restaurant owned by Mrs Longsuffering, where he was asked for his vaccine pass.

And each time it was the same – Mr Grumpy got grumpy and Mr Tickle tickled.

It went on all afternoon – being tickled, dropping his shopping bags, picking them up and being tickled again. He just could not understand it.

‘I think if you changed your ways and be not quite so bad-tempered quite so often, this sort of thing might not happen to you quite so often,' Mrs Happy said knowingly.

Mrs Happy and Mr Tickle laughed and shook hands.

No happy ending

This is where things get interesting because Mr Grumpy had hundreds of grumpy friends and they all agreed that none of them liked being tickled by a couple of lying, condescending prats.

So they hopped in their vans and buses and 30-year-old Corolla station wagons and headed for Mrs Happy's front lawn.

They camped there for days and days and days, killing all the lovely grass, blocking the streets and issuing death threats to Mr Daily at the newspaper stand and all of Mrs Happy's friends and frenemies.

Eventually, Mr Tickle stopped tickling and turned on the sprinklers but Mr Grumpy and company were not that easily deterred. The appalling conditions only made them more determined.

So Mr Tickle played bad music all through the day but even that had little effect on the grumpiest of grumpy protesters.

‘Oh well,' said Mrs Happy. ‘Let's just leave it for Mr Sneezy to sort out.'

‘But do you think we can count all these tents towards our Kiwibuild programme?' she said, forever the optimist.

daniel@thesun.co.nz