9.15.2007

The gas business is like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you might get!
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Unknown said...

HAVE YOU TRIED FISHING?
Have you tried fishing? Not your common or gardening angling, but “reel fishing”! Not with worms or artificial flies, but with “real meat”, like the 12 STEPS or the BIG BOOK. We used to do it every summer…well! It was your summer and our winter. You’ve probably gathered, that I used to live in Australia.
We’d hire this boat, quite a big one it was, Ethel and the kids, Bill 44 and Bob…he’d be 37 by now. We’d do a picnic basket – lovely it was, our 5th Step, sobriety dates, drinking stories, a couple of bottles of wine and the 12 x 12. And off we’d sail over the reef. The sun would beat down, often the sea would be as calm…no calmer than the 12th STEP and we’d just drift. We’d put our lines over then and just wait – play AA tapes, talk crap, and ring our SPONSORS. Wonderful it was. Mind you, Ethel, didn’t care for the bait, it was the smell you see and the sight of HOW IT WORKS cluttering up the deck. “Micky”, she’d say! “The AA PROGRAM is putting me off my dinner”! Well, it didn’t bother me or the kids, it wasn’t like that, the OXFORD GROUP had delivered it quite fresh but Ethel used to say that CHAPTER 5 “sneered” at her and made noises, offensive noises, when the gases escaped from its crap. The kids loved that “Mum”! They’d say when it did it – “RARELY HAVE WE SEEN A ZOMBIE FAIL WHO HAS THOROUGHLY FOLLOWED OUR PATH,” Well she didn’t like that, not Ethel, strict BUCHMANITE, she was, thought it was very disrespectful. She would go into one of her sulks and it would last for “bloody hours”.
Mind you, she did get a bit more excited when Bill shared his story. Well she had to with Bill frothing at the mouth and banging his fist against the side of the boat. And then there would be more…Bob got into the act, tearing chunks out of the 12 Steps, spitting everywhere, snapping at Bill. But I don’t think she really approved, not Ethel. She said it was senseless 13th STEPPING. Well I suppose it was if you look at it that way! But there are lots of 12 STEP PROGRAMS aren’t, there?
It went wrong when Bill did the 9th Step! Huge it was, more like the 5th step, really. Again and again he raved on like a psychopath, but he wouldn’t shut up. Clever “bugger”! He had learned you see. Well I was determined that I was going to do a personal INVENTORY. I threw the BIG BOOK, all the picnic stuff in the water. Bill went mad; I’d never seen him so upset. He tore the rod out of its restraints and hurled it in the water. I didn’t stop to think, that’s always been my problem, “being sober” – Bill followed the rod! Well! He was gone in “two bites” and I didn’t catch the PROGRAM. It seemed to know, it sort of “grinned” at me and then just made off. Bob wasn’t too pleased either…he’d missed his HIGHER POWER!!
Peace Be With You
Micky