Leah wasn’t at all surprised when her husband, Dylan, self-combusted. They had not long finished dinner and were sitting in armchairs watching an old episode of “I Love Lucy”. Leah mentioned that such an episode would never appear on television now because some of the characters were smoking cigarettes. Dylan said “That’s stupid. That makes me really angry” and then he self-combusted.
POOF! and there was left only a little pile of ash on the armchair. Leah had a difficult time explaining to the police exactly what had happened. Police Officer Plod said he thought self-combustion was a little bit unusual. In fact in his thirty-five years in the police force he’d never encountered it before. Leah looked at the little pile of ash on the armchair. She couldn’t believe it.
“It was like one of those electric car batteries in Florida that got wet and exploded,” said Leah. But Police Officer Plod didn’t have a clue what she was talking about because he never watched the News. “The electric car batteries got wet in the hurricane and exploded,” said Leah before realizing that her analogy wasn’t really helpful, and besides, Dylan’s self-combustion wasn’t anything like a 15 to 20 thousand dollar electric car battery exploding in the wet. “What are we meant to do with these ashes?” bemoaned Leah.
Police Officer Plod got a dustpan and brush. “Look Leah, we usually cannot ignore the fact that a husband has disappeared. I’m going to make an exception. In this case we shall simply sweep it under the carpet.”
The next day Leah and Police Officer Plod got married.
And are still plodding along…
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I think Mr. Plod was the name of the policeman in Enid Blyton’s Noddy and Big Ears books??
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Interesting…I’m not familiar with them and had to Google it. Kind of a UK thing, maybe.
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Yes – probably the Dr Suess of the UK but quite different (it didn’t rhyme!)
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Self-combustion, hah! He’s buried in the back yard!
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The trouble with burying ones spouse in the backyard (I have found) is it makes it difficult to sell the property.
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The occasional odor of rot does turn one off!
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I trust you, Bruce. It may sound like a quintessential story to have appeared at Weave a Web but it deserves to be seen in the company of Cat in the Rain by Hemingway for the layers of backstory and forestory it holds in its fold
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Well, you are so well-read Uma – that you makes me feel so ignorant (which I basically am). I’ve never read anything by Hemmingway – and now with my cataracts I can’t read a bloody thing anyway! Sometimes I would like to start my life all over again and to make a better effort – including in Mathematics and Physics…!
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Talk about restarting your life: who doesn’t?
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But how long before he joins Dylan under the carpet…and how high is her ceiling?
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I’m not sure about the carpet and ceiling, but the walls have a mat finish.
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🙂
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This one is up there Bruce. Haha
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