An unusual question.....

This one is short, but definitely sweet, and for those who had come to believe that my days of disaster were over, you were wrong....

In the company where I work there is a canteen were everyone congregates for coffee and chats at 4pm. Its always a light hearted affair with topics ranging from Global warming to a hamster with two heads in a lab in Mongolia.

On one particular day in the not too distant past, okay, yesterday, a fellow co-worker whom for the sake of convenience we shall call Henrietta, walked into the canteen to grab a coffee and sit down. I was already sitted at the table, relaxing, and after Henrietta had got her coffee she sat down on the other side of the table from me.

Henrietta as it happens is about six months pregnant, and as she sat down I casually began to ask her a question about the pregnancy, in front of everyone, which was okay, as it was not meant to be a strange question - Before I go any further, those whom know me, will know that I have the knack of getting key words mixed up at the worst possible moments. I had intended to ask her:
"Hey, Henrietta, you got any strange cravings?".
It may not seem obvious how I could possibly get this one wrong, but I did. What in fact passed my lips was:

"Hey, Henrietta, you got any strange fetishes?"

Immediately as soon as I said it, I knew I had something incorrect, but i could not figure out what it was. I stared at the ceiling for a moment pondering what I had said. Suddenly it dawned on me and feeling horrified I brought my eyes from the ceiling to Henrietta, whom looked shocked to say the least.

At this point I promptly wet myself, metaphorically of course, and thankfully Henrietta did too, also metaphorically I hasten to add....

Back from the Brink and into the Clink...

Well it seems life is playing a joke on me, a permanent one.
Why do I say this? I say this because as soon as I retired this blog, everything wacky started to happen again. I have thus deduced that in order to protect my health, I must start to write again, in the hope that my life will return to normal. Fat chance.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were on a train, coming home from a day out in the city. We sat at the far end of a carriage facing each other, beside a window with a view over the sea. This all sounds nice so far, but matters were soon to take a turn towards the bizarre highway.
The day in question was quite warm and there were a number of wasps about, which I might add that my wife is utterly terrified of. During our trip on the train a wasp started buzzing between us and also induced terror in my wife. Since we were at the end of a carriage, most people were too far away from us to see the wasp, and only saw this terrified woman sitting opposite her husband.

What happened next was not exactly helpful.

In my infinite wisdom I decided to slap the wasp into the window. The wasp was positioned halfway between us, touching against the glass. I raised my right palm and slammed the wasp into the window. As many of you know I can be a little over eager sometimes, so the thud of me hitting the window was not what is commonly refereed to as quiet...

That may all seem fine and dandy, until I tell you that the other passengers who had not seen the wasp thought I had just assaulted my wife!!
Immediately other passengers confronted us about what had just happened, and if it were not for my wife explaining the terror of the wasp, I might not be writing this from this side of the clink!

Retirement

Well, its a sad sad day.

I have decided to retire this blog, for what I hope are the right reasons. You see I'm not having as many bizarre situations occur these days, perhaps sense is creeping in somewhere, or perhaps a guardian angel has me as a permanent assignment?
I could add various little stories, like the one involving a full bladder in the back of a car, a soda bottle, a nun and a traffic packed road, but I dont wish to dilute the quality of the blog like I did the Soda....

I have another more serious blog now where I write about various technology related subjects, on gizmo.newsvine.com so feel free to drop by and have a look.

I will not be deleting this blog, and if at some stage in the future my guardian angel dies in a tragic blimp accident, I'll bring this blog back to life, but for now, its a little bit of history........

Almost too bad to blog

Well not even I believe this one, I think I must have spent the last year in some sort of dream state, meaning that this blog and everyone of you reading it are not real. So if you would all be kind enough to pinch yourselves and save me the hassle that would be great!
Last week my wife and I were in a large local department store. As usual she was browsing all manner of skirts, tops, shoes, scarfs, bedding, coats, trousers and the occasional spatula.
As you might imagine, I reluctantly pried myself away from this ‘browsing’ and started to wander around the store. I looked at the occasional item, such as the credit card swiss army knife, but thought better of it, as I get myself into enough trouble without weaponry. Eventually I found my way to the mens shoe rack. Now I’m not one to boast but finding shoes that fit me is somewhat of a rarity, and when I found not one pair but no pairs that I could even get a foot into, I was not remotely surprised.
At this stage I began to get a little tired and began to search for my better half. I got up from the bench where I had been trying on shoes and slung my laptop bag over my shoulder, with one strap over my right shoulder and the other hanging loose. Take note of that, its actually important!
I started to look around the store for my wife and caught sight of her examining a multitude of trousers. She evidently had not yet moved on to spatulas. I began to make my way toward her and after about ten strides noticed a tugging from behind. Immediately I adjusted the laptop bag I was carrying as I just assumed it was the strap sitting awkwardly on my shoulder. Having done that I continued walking and after another ten or so strides I started to feel the tugging again. This time I turned around to try and see what it was.

What I saw next horrified me as I actually thought I was going to get into serious trouble, the kind of trouble where you only get to see your family from the other side of some very large bars!

The item doing the tugging that I had been noticing was in fact a pram. It seems that on my journey across the store, the loose strap on my laptop bag had snagged the handle bars, and you guessed it, this pram had a baby included. It seems I had inadvertently towed this little one across the store away from its mother, a mother that was now heading toward me with great speed and phenomenal determination!
In my panic I yelled “I’m Sorry, I didn't mean to” but before the sentence had left my mouth she grabbed the pram and made an expression that made me feel like she was about to pummel me. I honestly think that she was about to call security but thankfully I managed to explain to her that that I had accidently towed her baby away with the loose strap on my laptop bag. Thankfully she seemed to accept this, but she still departed my presence quite rapidly!

On a finishing note there is one good thing I can take from this story:

I’m glad I didn’t try and go downstairs.

Father, Son and Holy.....

This one is not so much about what I did, but what I observed and my reaction to such.

The year was about 1993 and I was at a harvest service in my local church. I was there with my mother and my brother. We were sitting right at the front of the church, thus ensuring a prime view of what was about to occur. I always had a reputation for been prone to giggles in a church setting, but nothing could have prepared me for what was going to happen in this sleepy little church over the next hour.....

A Franciscan monk was the visiting preacher at the service. Typical to the stereotype the monk was in his eighties, wearing the usual brown gown with the hood and the white rope around the large waistline. About thirty minutes into the service came the time for the sermon. The monk, we’ll call him Ambrose for the purposes of this story, slowly made his way toward the pulpit and slowly ascended the steep spiral staircase towards the top. Once there Ambrose settled himself into position and began to preach.
Thirteen years on I don’t remember the content of the sermon, but I do remember the finish, it was an ending that no sermon has or ever will match...

As Ambrose came to the end of his sermon he concluded in the usual manner by saying a brief prayer and then he began to cross himself like this:

“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy”

He was about to say “Spirit” but as he was about to utter the final word he took a step back in his preparation to descend the spiral staircase. It turned out to be quite a step back, as the next sight that graced my vision was that of an eighty year old monk backward somersaulting down a spiral staircase. The speed at which he descended and the noise which accompanied was unprecedented in the history of preaching. After what seem like an age to my fascinated eyes he pounded to the floor at the bottom of the staircase and with the thud I completely and utterly lost control of myself. While everyone else was rushing to check his pulse I was in fits laughing, so much so I was struggling to even breath.
I know its terrible but I could not help myself. I was promptly sent out of the church by my mother to calm myself down, even though she was having difficulty avoiding loosing control herself!

Thankfully there is a good ending to all of this, in that Ambrose fully recovered from his acrobatics. I'm sure by now he may well have departed this earth, but hopefully not in such a spectacular manner!

I honestly don’t know how anyone can say church is boring.....