Well done boys, these stories have kept me chortling all week (the mental image of Matt in free-fall with a buzzing chainsaw is a picture allright, complete with the Loony Tunes music in the background). I think I've previously posted several of my own personal episodes, and am warmed to read of your own. Stu reminds me of another.
One winter, when I was sharing a large victorian house with a few colleagues and mates, I popped home one lunch time to pick up something I'd left behind that morning. As I walked up the garden path I was puzzled by what appeared to be cotton wool pressed up against the windows. As soon as I opened the front door I realised the place was on fire. (I've never owned up to this until now, but I was in the habit of leaving my slippers up close to the still warm fire in the morning, so they'd be nice and warm when I got home in the evening, and I reckon this is where it all started...). Confronted with the fire, I remembered that someone had once described to me the total mess that the boys from the Fire Brigade had made of their lovely house when they turned up for a bit of extintinguishing one evening. So it seemed to me that the best course of action was to have a go myself. I didn't have anything with me to help put out the blaze, but I knew of a hardware shop a couple of blocks away that sold extinguishers.
H: Hello there, how are you doing?
Salesman: Fine than you, can I help you with anything?
H: Yes, I wonder if you have any fire extinguishers?
Salesman: I think we may have sold out sir, I'll just have a look out the back.
H (to his retreating back): I'll take two if you have any!
Off he goes, to return empty handed.
H: No luck then?
Salesman: I'm afraid not, we've sold quite few recently.
H: Oh..
Salesman: We could order one, it would be no problem.
H: How long would that take then?
Salesman (brightly): We'd probably be able to get some by the end of the week!
H: Oh. Actually, I'm in a bit of a hurry, I think I'll leave it. Do you know of anywhere else?
Salesman: Try Robinsons, on the High Street.
H: Righty-o, thanks for your help.
Anyway, after a little while, I returned home with an extinguisher. I have to say though, I had probably left it a little too late, my slippers, amongst other things, were no more. I then had to phone the landlord to tell him his house had burned down. All in all, it wasn't a good day.
Every now and then I reckon you are presented with two alternative solutions to a sitiuation. There's the regular common sense one, but worryingly there is always a bonehead-so-stupid one, and perversely you know in the back of your mind that it is this one that is more interesting and has the potential for providing better entertainment.
I reckon Our Lord Jesus Christ knew this when he turned water into wine. He could have gone for Lucozade or Pepsi, they would have been much more refreshing, but in my minds eye I think the wine he went for was a real dense soupy red, the sort that leaves a trip hammer in your head the next morning. He must have had a right old laugh. It's been a few days since I read The Good Book, but seem to remember he tried something similar with loaves and sausages.
