At work today I drew the duty of the "Customer Welcomer" once again, but this time I didn't have anything that needed to be assembled to entertain myself with. To make things even worse, early in the day, I had to climb into the steel shelves in order to retrieve a bag of Beneful Dog Food for a customer, and while extracting myself from the shelving, I managed to bust my bottom lip open, so I am not exactly looking my best. Imagine saying "Afternoon" so folks over and over while looking like you've just been through a bar brawl. This is how my day had been going.
Long about 6:35 PM or so, I got an opportunity to break up the monotony in the form of a big green/yellow fire truck. You see, "Knoxville's Bravest" stops by the store periodically to do fire inspections and the like, and they also do some shopping for the fire hall. Every time they do so, they park the fire engine right out in front of the store, so I decided that I would mess with them a bit.
Just as the big pumper pulled to a stop in front of my patio, I came out and walked up to it. Just as the Firefighter who was driving alighted from the vehicle I hollered at him and said, "Hey Buddy. You can't park here, this is a Fire lane!", and I started to chuckle. The driver started laughing as well. His copilot had walked around the front of the truck and heard our conversation, so he said to me "That's okay. We're firefighters". I responded with "So that's how that works." and went on my way.
Approximately 3.5 seconds afterward, I thought of the correct comeback to Fireman #2. I should have said "I thought Fireman rode in Red trucks."
Dammit. I hate it when that happens.
Posted by Johnny - Oh at July 17, 2004 11:01 PMIt's called The Wit of the Staircase, only in French, which I don't speak.
I speak cat, and semi-British, and hillbilly, though.
Hey! We don't talk all Frenchie on this here blog! Maybe you could tell the 3 kittens I have running around here to quit knocking everything off the shelves. I'm pretty good at "semi-British" as well, Guv'nah. Living in TN, I am fluent in noth hillbilly and Redneck. It's a defense mechanism I've had to cultivate in order to avoid any "squeal like a pig" moments. :^)
Posted by: Johnny - Oh at July 18, 2004 12:25 PMSo why were traditional firetrucks red, and why did they change to that yellowy-green color?
Probably some kinda "Queer Eye for the Fire Guy" thing.
Posted by: Harvey at July 18, 2004 03:23 PMBut where any of the firemen wearing red suspenders?
Posted by: Jim at July 18, 2004 05:05 PMNo Jim. Not the first suspender in sight. No dalmation either. What in the world is happenning to our fireman?! I think the fact that these fine fellows were wearing Purple T-Shirts, lends a lot of creedence to HArvey's "Queer Eye" theory.
Posted by: Johnny - Oh at July 18, 2004 09:14 PM