“What? Why am I Sam? Is it because I’m fat?”

“Yes, it’s because you’re fatter than me.”

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My mattress can be described with many words, but clean is not one of them. I bought it from the Salvation Army in 2004 and even then it was dirty. Seven years later it was time for a new mattress, and Anouk offered me hers. So I took it.

Her movers moved her mattress from her house to mine. I decided to take my old mattress to the landfill because I was too ashamed to sell it.

So, new bed – check. Old bed – check. Car with a tow bar – check. Trailer attached to tow bar – check. The old mattress was ready to move.

In the pouring rain, Katie and I chucked my old mattress and base into the caged trailer. Note, the trailer was caged, the kind of cage that you rent to ensure the contents are safely contained as you drive at high speeds.

We’re driving to the landfill, with the mattress in the trailer. I look in the rear view mirror. The mattress isn’t safely in the trailer. It’s not there at all.

“Shit. I think the mattress is gone. I mean, I can’t see it in the trailer. Did it flip out?”

“Yes it did Jeff, yes it did.”

“Shit. I should turn around and get it, right?”

“Yes you should Jeff, yes you should.”

“Are you sure? New Zealand doesn’t have the forensic facilities to link that mattress to me. This is so embarrassing.” I felt emasculated.

We turned around and found the mattress in the middle of the road and it was soaked from the rain. It was very heavy.

We dragged it to the trailer and wondered how it flipped out in the first place. I guess it’s a testament to the strength of Wellington wind.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

I must end this a little early! Sorry. I’m bad at blogging and now that I have stuff to write about, this has to die.

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much because the rest was boring. I’ll try to blog more regularly, I promise.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

A picture of something that makes you happy

This makes me happy because it’s the first photograph I took with a medium format camera. Looking at it makes me miss photography.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

Someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future

Seriously? Does everyone need to get married?

I don’t see myself getting married in the future. Maybe one day that will change but I’m happy by myself.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

Nicknames you have and why do you have them

I’ve been called many things throughout my life.

At Xero Catherine calls me Jif, like the peanut butter. When Dan was here he heard this and started calling me Juf.

Most vowels in New Zealand are soft, so pen sounds like pin, deck sounds like dick, and Jeff sounds like Jif, which is why she started calling me Jif, I think.

In my previous job my colleagues called me Fingers. Fingers is a dirty nickname.

They called me this because when I type, my fingers dance in a blur of movement. I’m that fast. Also we had an arcade machine and I was the king of Bomberman, due to the dexterity of my digits.

When I worked as a seasonal fruit picker I had the most racist nickname. Most of the seasonal workers are pretty poor. A lot of them were Maoris.

One day out in the field I took my shirt off, which caused two immediate reactions from my fellow fruit pickers.

The Maori women had an uncontrollable urge to feed me. At the time you could count the ribs on my back, and most of the women were lucky to see their toes if they looked down. They were pretty big. The only reason they didn’t run towards me with buckets of chicken is that they were too busy crying.

You see, the light from the sun reflected off my back and straight into their eyes. They raised their hands in front of their faces as if the light would make them spontaneously combust. It was like they never saw a white boy before. Their knees buckled under the weight of their laughter and they cackled, “Boy! Look at you! You’re just like Casper the ghost you are!” Today if I drove up north they would still call me Casper.

These nicknames I’ve earned in New Zealand so all of my other nicknames are from high school and grade school. My last name, Wegesin, is hard to pronounce compared to Smith or Harrison and this is a problem when students call each other by their surnames. Saying Wegesin is like stumbling forward because someone tied your shoelaces together when you weren’t looking.

So instead of Wegesin my friends in school called me derivations of my name that highlighted how ridiculous it was, like Wiggisandro, Wegglelasecki, Wiggilopolis.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

Plans, dreams, goals you have

Right now my only goal is to be a New Zealand citizen. I apply in February, so hopefully by May I’ll be celebrating.

This one is pretty short. I’ve already talked about some of my goals. In January I’ll publish a blog reviewing my goals from this year and I’ll include an updated list of goals for the new year.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

Someone you want to switch lives with for one day and why

I would be fat Gotch. He’s a kid from my youth. We were playing baseball, and I was pitching, and he was fat and sporty and up to bat.

He hit the ball, the ball hit my jaw. My jaw went into a state of shock, and stayed open for the rest of the day. I couldn’t close my mouth.

You never think about how much you use your mouth until you can’t move your jaw.

And you should also know I have an unusually wet mouth. When I go to the dentist, he uses two saliva suckers. My mouth is that wet.

So you can imagine what it was like when my family saw me, jaw open, drooling everywhere.

I would be him so I could apologize to myself, as he never did. He just laughed at me.

Granted it would have been funny to see. Even my sister laughed and cried when she saw my jaw and heard me trying to speak. But still, an apology would have been nice.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

Another picture of yourself

I’ve skipped day 15 too! Naughty!

Amber and I drove to Makara and took pictures of the coast. She snapped this one of me.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

A picture of you and your family

This is bad. I don’t have pictures of my family and me together. We rarely take photos, I’m not sure why.

Family, the next time I’m home we need to take a picture together.

This post is in the “30 days of me” blogging extravaganza! I’ll blog every day for around 30 days.

A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

I also skipped day 12, sorry!

Someone who’s hurt me. This is tough. I’m not easily offended so I honestly can’t think of someone who’s hurt me recently.

I surround myself with honest and supportive friends. We rarely argue, but when we do the argument never ends badly. The last time I remember being hurt was this past summer, but I’m not going to write a letter about it. It would be too personal. Lame!