Balderdash

PIGS CAN FLY!

Commonsense tells us this feat is impossible. But then with all this talk of Swine Flu… Okay, not funny!!!
Last week, a friend of mine played what she called a late April Fool’s joke on us. She’s in the Philippines, and she sent a picture of an arm, fully tattooed with an enormous luridly hued fish twining around it. We were all horrified, and asked her if she was crazy. I said it would look lovely when she grew older and my friend told her that she could painfully remove it using a laser. Then the clot says, “Hey, I tricked you all! That was the arm of one of my colleagues at work.” We were not amused.
I remember when we were in school; this classmate would always relate little tidbits about her boyfriend. It began to get on our nerves, because we were single. So we all miraculously acquired boyfriends (all imaginary, of course) and we would talk of various exciting outings and episodes. Every time she started up a story, one of us invented one which sounded much more glamorous and sophisticated. If she had an argument with her boyfriend and he gave her a chocolate and said he was sorry, one of us would pipe in how her boyfriend had given her a dozen red roses and written a poem as well. We were quite wicked, I think, and we thoroughly deflated the poor thing.
At one time, we could only get pizzas at the Intercontinental Pizzeria. They were quite pricey. Then this lady we knew said she was going to make pizzas at home and deliver them at a reasonable price. She was sure it would be a big hit with teenagers. So just for a lark, we got this friend who could talk with a semblance of an Italian accent, to call and pretend he was from the Italian embassy and he was delighted to know about her pizzas. After an extensive discussion of the menu, he said he wanted them really hot when they were to be served. He said his cook wouldn’t know how to tackle this and kindly asked whether she could come along as well, he would pay her generously and even send an embassy car for her. She enthusiastically agreed. After we had a good laugh, suddenly we thought she would be sure to rush out and buy all the ingredients, and so we felt quite mean. When we called and confessed our crime to her, she pretended that she knew; it was us playing the fool, but we were quite certain that she was totally taken in!
Then there was this friend who was not very bright who would keep telling my sisters and me that we were so lucky because we were born intelligent. Apparently however hard she tried, she just couldn’t do well in her studies. At first we were quite flattered, but after a while it began to irritate us. So, one day when she started her refrain, my elder sister answered, “Do you know those little black ants you get all over the place? Our mum puts them in our tea and apparently they are very good for the brain. It makes you really smart. Why don’t you try that out?” She said, “My, I’m also going to do this and see if it works for me.” I don’t know how we kept our faces straight, but the minute she left, we dissolved into hysterical giggles.We forgot about it until a few days later, she came bursting into our house and said,” Guess what? I tried your black ants in my tea and today I got half of my sums right!” When she left, I anxiously asked my sister if it was all right for her to keep eating all those ants. She replied, “If we can eat bulls, goats, sheep and pigs, what harm can a few teeny ants do? They will add more protein!” This friend had a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago; I hope it was not due to excessive black ants!

- Honky Tonk Woman.