Remember back in primary school how you had to get up in front of the class and tell everyone what your dad did for a job?

“Mine’s a banker!”
“My father’s a fire fighter.”
“My dad picks kumara (sweet potato).”

I still shudder at those cruel days when I would have to get up and say those dreaded words:

“My father … inseminates … cows”.

(WHY ARE YOU ALL LAUGHING?! IT’S NOT FUNNY!)

He was actually a dairy farmer, but not one of those rich ones. So he had to do a lot of extra jobs, such as driving trucks and hay making. And artificially inseminating cows. This involves sticking one gloved hand up a cow’s bum and the other, with a long bull-semen-filled syringee thing … well, you get the picture.

I don’t know how much he got paid, but, oh god, it was not enough. It could never be enough…