Day 10 (ish) - Disparate is a fancy word for different

Local cinema cafe, around 1pm. Seated in the cafe are the usual assortment of doting and chattering Mums. What is more interesting is three disparate groups of blokes:

Group 1 = Myself and Dave the builder (not to be confused with Nigel the builder of Hamilton fame). With us are his 6 month daughter and my 6 month daughter. Both in chairs waving their arms in erratic directions and drooling happily. Our babies were fine too. We received a number of approving looks from the resident doting mothers.

Group 2 = Five blokes from the road worker's crew just down the road. Sipping flat whites and delicately munching blueberry muffins. I expected them to be discussing the Black Caps latest miserable defeat. But no, here is a tiny snippet of their conversation:

Burly bloke: "Mate, I make better muffins at home"

Unshaven bloke: "I can make a bloody good cheese scone"

Grizzled bloke: "He can, bloody sensational cheese scones they are too"

Burly bloke: "The wife refuses to bake so I ended up doing it myself. My mum taught me when I was young"

Grizzled bloke: "Look good in an apron do you?"

Burly bloke: "Why, you cruising for a piece of my fine kitchen ass?"

Group 3 = Two blokes having short blacks. Mind you, they would probably prefer large blacks or the fine kitchen ass of burly road worker seated nearby. Gay as the night as long (or a bit festive as my Nana used to say). Not that there is anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld once said.

Rewind 30 years and this scene would be completely different. For a start, New Zealand didn't understand decent coffee. Most would be drinking tea. Most Auckland cafes still don't understand decent coffee and don't get me started on Hamilton's so called coffee. There would be no stay at home Dads, no openly gay blokes and road workers would not be experts in baking cheese scones. Us blokes might be a bit dim compared to the fairer sex, but fuck me, we can adapt.