OddThinking

Joe couldn’t find a free car park and eventually parked in a space reserved for a professor.

If you are going to study biology, at some stage you have to come to terms with the fact that your chosen career is not just about patting dolphins and trekking through the forest. You need to know something about the workings of the icky insides of an animal. For many students, the Sheep Prac. was that moment.

As a student, my father, Joe, paid his way by driving trucks. He had many stories of life as a truckie.

One Sunday morning when I was a teenager, Joe confronted me. “Where were you at 1am last night?” he demanded.

“I… ummm.. errr…” I stuttered, quite startled.

I haven’t been posting here regularly for the past couple of months. The reason is that I have been rather distracted; my father was diagnosed with a fatal illness in April, and passed away this week.

A few months ago, I saw an advertisement for Today Tonight, a controversial Australian tabloid-style current affairs show. Alongside pushing a miracle new weight loss system that doesn’t involve surgery and a in-depth cross-promotionreport into the intrigue and controversy of a reality TV show contestant’s past, the promo warned that “Australia’s number one con man is at it again”.

I was watching the show with interest, until something rather unexpected happened.

I recognised one of the victims!

Lister really didn’t like Craig much, but that was no excuse for the dirtiest prank I have ever heard.

Wayne worked on a project installing a custom computer system onto an oil-rig. When the system was ready to ship, they packed it all up into boxes, took it down to the car-park. Then they ran one last test.

I started to read the question: “Anthony and Janet are chemistry students and are having an argument about-”

“Stop there!” interrupted my father!

“Buttered-side up!” my father exclaimed with joy, “It landed buttered-side up! What are the chances of that? It never lands buttered-side up!”