Category Archives: humor

Happy Landings

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Jack just gets under or over the wire in time this week

I finished my guest post last week about the re-roofing of our house, with a comment about the rain barrel being installed on the upstairs balcony at the back of the place. You access the balcony via a door off the landing at the top of our stairs.

This was clearly foreshadowing for Jack’s Big Adventure on Friday past… I had fitted a valve and attached a hose to eventually have the rain barrel feed our washing machine; Wendy wants to “reduce our footprint.” On Friday morning I went out in the drizzling rain to check that everything was secure and working and not sending rain straight down into the room below. As the balcony door behind me closed, I heard a click.

I had locked myself out!!

Wendy was in Knoxville, I didn’t have my phone and from this angle behind the house no neighbors would see or hear me. The rail on the balcony is fifteen feet off the ground below, which is a concrete slab. Drizzle turned to deluge as I debated what to do next.

I tried kicking the door to no avail. The nearest section of newly installed roof was wet and slippery and it felt unsafe to try again.

Then, I noticed the hose, coiled like a rope at the side of the balcony….

So I wound it around the corner post and let it dangle down, I clambered up onto the barrel and over the rail and then I grasped the hose to lower myself gently down.

A rubber hose in the rain isn’t something you can easily grasp; it’s rather like trying to hold the inside of a banana peel.

As the hose slipped through my grip I remembered my Dad stepping backwards off a painting tressle in the late 1950s and breaking both his ankles. He spent months in hospital recovering and every time it rained he had pain – – Time stretched as the hose slipped through my hands, and I wondered which bones I would break. Fate intervened. Just below was a tub full of empty cans we save for recycling. I broke the tub as the tub broke my fall, but none of my bones broke.

When I told Wendy what happened, she sent a couple of friends to check on me. We had a jolly supper together. You have to admit, it’s a funny story now that it’s safely over.

The moral of the story – always have your phone with you and friends close by!

The Boundary Fence Kit

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I am at my parents, and in their garage, I came across a “Boundary Kit.”

Wait, what? Do they make these for those of us who can’t maintain our own??

After further investigation, it turned out to be for dogs, but it was too late, my imagination was off and running on how to modify this for best day job use.

First off, change those white boundary flags to make a yellow flag zone. In this zone you can still ask a question or suggest an idea but cannot reach the director’s desk to demand any paperwork. But you can reach across to hand over coffee or chocolate.

The repellant detectors: the fence should pick up on pointy collars, and anything made with linen. Male or female, anyone wearing a high-quality thread count outfit will automatically be shocked back at one hundred paces. The flags at this border will say “send an email.” This would eliminate about 30% of the day’s useless conversations and 90% of meetings, IMHO.

The fence would, of course, automatically shock back anyone wearing a red tie. It would also repel anyone wearing patterned ties involving dollar signs. We’ll have to check the design parameters to see if it could also do monogrammed shirt cuffs and ties, without distinguishing them from t-shirts with lettering. People wearing t-shirts with lettering should be let through; they contribute fun perspectives to ideas exchanges.

Of course, it goes without saying that anyone carrying more than three sheets of paper would be repelled by weight. In fact, we could add a trap door function for those carrying a file folder weighing more than six ounces. They’ll never bother you again. (Could we teach the fence to recognize the word “INVOICE?”)

By voice activation, the fence would incinerate anyone inside its range who used any of the following words or phrases: robust, paradigm shift, low-hanging fruit, run the numbers, or go viral.

Finally, the fence in “professional” setting would go into overdrive on Friday at 3 pm, and simply repel everyone.

Patent pending. Please form an orderly queue.

P.S. For a little extra, you can have the “writer’s version” which not only repels everyone, 24-7, but also shuts off your internet access in random three-hour stretches. It’s amazing what you can get done in those time periods. The writer’s version would also need the capability to instantly fry anyone who says, “Are you still working on that.” But it needs to only mildly shock spouses who “just pop in with a quick question” about supper or thermostat settings. I’m sure we can figure this out.