…..a funny thing happened on the way to the….

There are times when I find myself laughing uproariously at the most ridiculous situations and events – and this week seems to have been a particularly funny one. In an effort not to lose the actuality of these occasions, I concluded that I should “blog” them. That way I can laugh at them again later, when they have almost gone from my memory.

Nipple rings – My big sister is turning 50 in 2 weeks time. She tracked us down only 4 years ago – was adopted out by her birth mother – and is my father’s first child, born when he was only 17. He claims to have been unaware of her existence until she made contact.

Louise is a wonderful, beautiful, warm, intelligent human being – one of life’s true survivors. But I digress – Louise’s story is for another time – she deserves a blog all of her own.

My mother – who is delighted that Louise has found us, and that she and I are close - asked me if Louise had pierced ears, as she thought she might get her some earrings for the occasion. Being a rather staunch lesbian woman, our Lou, just the thought of the dangly spangly earrings my well meaning mum would have purchased for her was enough to send me into fits. However, Louise does not have pierced ears. She has pierced nipples.

I informed my mother of this fact, and asked her if she could please take a photo of the shop assistant’s face when she is at the piercing parlour requesting to view the nipple rings for purchase – my 71 year old, very proper mum. (And she will get them, I will bet on it……..)

The long pole – Standing outside my workplace recently, in the valiant pre-winter sun, I saw an unexpected sight. A man was walking along toward me, on the opposite side of the street, with a very VERY long piece of white plastic piping. Spouting, I thought, gotta be. But – this was one heck of a LONG piece of pipe…..I’m talking around 4 times his own height.

In order to carry this piece of piping, of course the man had to hold it in the middle, and he did. Tucked into his right arm. He strode quite purposefully along toward a destination unknown– and the white piping bounced and bent slightly at each end as he walked. For some reason, Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops movies sprang to mind…….

I noticed he was approaching a dog leg curve in the pavement that was going to require some very careful manoeuvring to avoid hitting something in front, or behind. Determined not to break his stride, the man carefully directed the pipe (some 3-4 metres in front of him) ahead through the dog leg, before he himself had reached it, to allow for the length of the thing. Good move – I thought – except he had forgotten for an instant about the 3-4 metres bouncing along behind him.

The rear 3-4 metres struck a parking ticket machine. It didn’t seem to strike it hard, but being a plastic pipe, and the machine being metal, there was a lot more bounce off than anyone could have expected. The man suddenly found himself being pulled into an anti-clockwise turn and for that reason – not surprisingly – the front 3-4 struck the power pole that he had been at such pains to casually avoid seconds earlier. Now, of course, the bounce off effect went into reverse, and the clockwise turn was initiated. I began to have visions of the man ricocheting between objects, pipe clutched firmly, for hours until finally someone rescued him. (It wouldn’t have been me – I was too busy laughing my head off and hiding around the corner to spare him the knowledge that he was my afternoon’s entertainment).

However, the man – while perhaps not too forward thinking – was cleverer than I had surmised (considering the situation). He simply dropped the pipe. Of course, it cracked – right in the middle. I really felt for the guy. After all he had had to endure, he would now clearly have to get a new pipe – the length of the thing was clearly important and, had any of the pipe ends been slightly damaged I suppose it could have been lived with. But right in the middle? Nope, not his day.

And just to prove it, a young woman came along the path he had just trodden, teetering along on the thinnest and highest high heeled shoes I’ve seen in a long time. Not expecting to encounter a long white pipe on the pavement, and not taking much notice of her surroundings either (iPod headphones clamped securely in place), she stepped fair and square onto the pipe. One leg went with the pipe, and the other remained where it had been placed at its last step half a second earlier. She found herself quite suddenly sitting on the pavement in a most unladylike position.

Unhurt (thankfully) but clearly furious and assuming that the man had put the pipe right where it was to intentionally trip her up, knowing of course that she was coming along behind him (not), she began to scream and swear at him. The man – now distracted from his immediate predicament – gaped at her, wondering what he could possibly have done to deserve such a bollocking (he had been too busy examining the crack in the pipe at his feet to notice exactly what had happened until it was just too late). Having finished her tirade, she stalked off, glaring occasionally behind her at the man as she walked – but now watching at least where her feet were going.

The man pick up the pipe by one end and proceeded on his way, this time dragging its length behind him. Already damaged, it no longer mattered if it became more scratched from its continued journey.

I felt for the guy – thought I admit I was still laughing (by now, at the unceremonious and ungraceful pavement stop performed by the young girl). I also had to hand it to him – he had remained utterly and completely calm throughout the entire incident. As he walked on with his pipe he looked around at me – emerging from around the corner of the building where I had been guffawing – and grinned. He know, at least, that he had made my day.