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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at.

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Speaker 2: Me, And the obvious question is why, why would you

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Speaker 2: do it? Why would you put yourself through it? No

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Speaker 2: one was compelling us, No one had a gun to

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Speaker 2: our heads. We weren't competing for a million dollars on

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Speaker 2: a reality TV show. So why why? Two weeks before Christmas,

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Speaker 2: with all of the stress and the pressure of the

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Speaker 2: silly season, in the midst of that heavy, humid tropical

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Speaker 2: Auckland heat, with Marv seven months pregnant, why would we

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Speaker 2: decide that now was the time to put up wall

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Speaker 2: stickers in our baby's bedroom. Now. To be accurate, I'm

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Speaker 2: not actually totally sure if they were wall stickers or

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Speaker 2: wall decals. I don't really understand the difference between the two.

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Speaker 2: All I know is that they were two enormous trees,

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Speaker 2: each of them about three meters high, that came in

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Speaker 2: multiple parts, needing to be perfectly stuck to the wall.

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Speaker 2: Different branches and shrubbery had to be placed together perfectly.

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Speaker 2: Least one half of the trees sit lower than the other.

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Speaker 2: One mistake, just one mistake, and your eye gets drawn

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Speaker 2: immediately to the error. A tiny gap of wall in

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Speaker 2: the seam where the pieces should connect, or a lump

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Speaker 2: of bunched up sticker creased together, a permanent reminder of

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Speaker 2: stress and incompetence. My first experience with wall stickers or

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Speaker 2: wall decals was when I bought a four meter high

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Speaker 2: vinyl World map for my old apartment wall. Now, the

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Speaker 2: map was exquisite, incredibly detailed, but it required two giant

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Speaker 2: sheets to be perfectly aligned. I nailed the first one.

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Speaker 2: It was level, no creases, no lines. But I tilted

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Speaker 2: the second sheet by just one or two degrees. And

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Speaker 2: the thing is, when you're sticking them to the wall,

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Speaker 2: you start at the top. So by the time I

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Speaker 2: had worked my way down to the tropic of Capricorn,

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Speaker 2: it was obvious that I was in trouble. For years afterwards,

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Speaker 2: I stared at that wall, consumed by the overlap which

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Speaker 2: cut out three quarters of the territory between Adelaide and Perth,

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Speaker 2: and a crease which created an unexpected mountain range east

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Speaker 2: of the Falkland Islands. Trust me when I say this,

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Speaker 2: Even if visitors don't notice it, you notice it now.

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Speaker 2: I know what you're thinking, wall stickers are tacky. Well,

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Speaker 2: well you're certainly right in the literal sense, zing given

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Speaker 2: they would be the predominant visual features in our baby's room.

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Speaker 2: Marv had decided it wasn't the sort of thing for

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Speaker 2: which she wanted an al chipo job from Timu, and

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Speaker 2: given Marva is you know, kind of two people at

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Speaker 2: the moment, we figured I should probably be the one

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Speaker 2: on the ladder. Looking back at those few hours, though,

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Speaker 2: I think the fact the tree wall stickers were expensive

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Speaker 2: probably only added to the pressure of the whole situation.

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Speaker 2: As I teetered on the step ladder a little to

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Speaker 2: the left, hands outstretched to the wall a little to

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Speaker 2: the right, I felt beads of sweat run down the

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Speaker 2: bridge of my nose and PLoP onto the floor below me.

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Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no, not like that. Smooth it

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Speaker 2: with the palm of your hand, not your nails. I

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Speaker 2: don't know how hanging wall stickers compares to hanging wallpaper.

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Speaker 2: In the end, it was a team effort, from the

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Speaker 2: peeling of the stickers to the spirit leveling, to rubbing

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Speaker 2: out the creases and the bubbles against the wall. In

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Speaker 2: the end, though, the real measure of success isn't the

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Speaker 2: fact that the trees look fantastic, even though they do

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Speaker 2: the real measure of success is that, somehow our relationship survived.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

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