Prompt: You wake up and find a trebuchet on your lawn. There is no note. Who gave it to you, how, why, and what do you do with it?
The phone rang dragging me out of wonderful dream in which the blood of my enemies filled my bathtub. "Damn, I said, answering the phone, "Hello?"
"You're gonna want to see this. There's a catapult in your front, yard." It was my neighbor.
"What ? A catapult ? Why?" I asked rhetorically, "Hold on," I got up, put on my sweatpants and T-shirt an walked to the front door. I looked out the window through my still bleary eyes, "That's a trebuchet, not a catapult, "I said and hung up the phone.
I shuffled to the kitchen to make coffee still thinking about how silly it is that people can't tell the difference between a catapult and trebuchet. I chuckled to myself as I sat on the couch sipping my coffee and working on the morning crossword.
I picked up my coffee cup, but a sudden and jarring thought occurred to me, "Why is there a trebuchet on my front lawn?" I jumped up from the couch and ran to the front door, looking out, "Yep. It's a trebuchet."
I walked out the door to get a closer look. It was pretty solidly built, but there was no note, no packing list, and not even a shipping label. Who sent it? Did I order it by mistake? I did just order a new replacement belt for a whirlpool clothes dryer, maybe there was a mix-up.
As I stood there admiring the construction, the head of the homeowners association stomped towards me carrying a thick binder, "What the hell is this catapult doing here?! You are in violation of our bylaws!"
"Listen, I ca- "I stopped and looked at the binder and then said, "Wait, you actually have a rule, in print, outlawing catapults?
"Every HOA does, it prevents land wars."
"Huh," I said, "well this is trebuchet. Are there any rules against those?"
The head of HOA just stared a hole through me for ten seconds, looked down at the binder and shouted, "Damn it!"
I watched
as he stormed off and then looked back at my trebuchet. "Now, where did
you come from?
Just then my phone pinged, my girlfriend sent me a
message…
GF:
"Did you get my present ?"
ME: "You mean the trebuchet?"
GF: "yes"
ME: "Yes, but why?"
GF: "Because I thought it would come in handy"
ME: "For what?"
GF: "Taking down the HOA and their bylaws."
ME: "I love you."
No comments:
Post a Comment