Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2018-17

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IN THIS ISSUE

VOL. XXIV, NO. 17, April 28, 2018

IN THIS ISSUE

• In this Heroic Story, Rosemary Place writes about an honest teenager
• Kate Brookfield continues her story of their spring holiday
• Catherine Nesbitt sends an example of Irish generosity
• Here are some clever endings to a familiar beginning
• Barbara Wear forwards a story about the Greek legal system
• Sites are suggested by Barbara Wear, Jay, Judith English, and Tom Telfer

Rosemary Place of New York writes about a teenager who was

COMMITTED TO HONESTY

A few years ago, my family and I were driving home from our vacation in Florida to our home in upstate New York. At about 9:00 p.m., after driving all day, we stopped at a Wendy´s restaurant in South Carolina. We were already exhausted from driving, but still had a long way to go before we reached the hotel in Virginia where we had reservations for the night.

We ate, left, and continued driving. After about an hour and a half, when we had just crossed into Virginia, we realized that my husband left his belt pack at the restaurant. I had only about $20 left in my wallet; my husband had the rest of our money and traveler´s checks (about $1000) in his belt pack.

Even worse, the remote for his spinal cord stimulator was in the pack, and he needed it to manage his back pain. I had no idea how many thousands of dollars it would cost to replace.

Without much hope, we turned around and drove back to South Carolina. I never really expected to get our money or traveler´s checks back, but I hoped we could get back the remote for my husband´s stimulator. As I was driving, and contemplating either divorcing or killing my husband, my mind raced with all of the hassles of trying to cancel credit cards and figure out how we were going to get home on only $20.

We watched all the exit signs on I-95 for one that included a Wendy´s. The first one we tried was the wrong restaurant. So was the second. After a few more exits and three hours of driving, we finally found the right one.

The restaurant had already closed for the night but the crew, which consisted mostly of teenagers, was still inside cleaning up. We knocked on the door and explained our situation, and they let us in.

They had the belt pack! One of the teenaged workers had found it and turned it in to the night manager. She had inventoried the contents and locked it in the safe. All of our money, traveler´s checks, and credit cards - and my husband´s remote - were still inside. Words could not express our relief.

It would have been so easy for anyone who found it to take the money, but luckily for us, the teenager who found it was honest. That night, my faith in young people was renewed.

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Kate Brookfield describes travelling from

LISBON TO OPORTO AND INTO SPAIN

I really liked Lisbon and three days was not really long enough to see all it has to offer. But in the circumstances, we did see the main attractions. Maybe, some day, we can revisit. It is not an easy city for the tourist on foot, unless steep hills and many steps are no problem. The sidewalks are all made of uneven stone squares which adds to the discomfort of walking long distances.

After Lisbon, we went by train to the city of Oporto, known locally as Porto. Our Air BnB was a quaint basement apartment in an old house in the centre of town. At breakfast, I met a mother and daughter from Ireland. The mother gave me a sample of a special flax oil treatment developed by a famous footballer, I think she said, because of his many sports injuries. I have to admit, it did seem to reduce the muscle pain, but it was a week since my accident, so my body was slowly healing.

Michael had made arrangements to meet a colleague from the University. She took us to lunch at a very fine restaurant in the highest building in Porto. They talked shop most of the time, while I took loads of photos and really enjoyed the exquisite lunch. She had wild boar which is, apparently, common in this region. After the meal, she drove us to a very pleasant park and garden with a large lake.

View of Oporto from restaurant

The next morning we went to Oporto airport to pick up a rental car. Our next destination was a special hotel for the actual day of our anniversary, April 20th. It was the Paradores Hotel in Viano do Costelo. The Paradores Hotels are elegant hotels usually set high near castles or cathedrals. This hotel was above the church of San Lucia.

This place was on the Atlantic coast. I had the best crepes with strawberries and cream I have ever had. It was huge, and the strawberries were fresh, small and sweet! We walked the length of the shopping area and I bought some new pants at C&A, because the ones I brought were hurting my bruised side.

We came home and got all dressed up for our second anniversary dinner!

The next day we set off to drive down the coast road into Spain to Santiago Compostela. It was a very pleasant drive from Portugal into Spain. Signs of spring were evident everywhere, in the fresh green leaves of the awakening trees, blossoms on apple, pear, cherry, and almond trees, and especially the early wild flowers on the ground. When I was young we used to say if you can cover more than a dozen daisies with your foot, then spring is here!

To be continued.

Catherine Nesbitt sends this story of

THE SELFLESS IRISH

The Irish never hesitate to come to the aid of their fellow man (fellow air passengers, in this case.)

Shortly after take-off on an outbound, evening Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Boston, the lead flight attendant nervously made the following painful announcement in her lovely Irish brogue:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I´m so very sorry, but it appears that there has been a terrible mix-up by our catering service. I don´t know how this has happened, but we have 103 passengers on board, and unfortunately, we received only 40 dinner meals. I truly apologize for this mistake and inconvenience."

When the muttering of the passengers had died down, she continued, "Anyone who is kind enough to give up their meal so that someone else can eat will receive free and unlimited drinks for the duration of our 10-hour flight."

Her next announcement came about two hours later, "If anyone is hungry, we still have 40 dinners available."

This article is from GrammarBook.com:

A ______ WALKS INTO A BAR

The phrase A ______ walks into a bar has provided the take-off point for an uncountable number of jokes over the years. No matter what one´s opinion is of bars, we hope that everyone can appreciate the lessons in English grammar contained in the clever sentences that follow::

A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

Two quotation marks walk into a "bar."

A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

A question mark walks into a bar?

A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out - we don´t serve your type."

A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

A synonym strolls into a tavern.

At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar - fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

A dyslexic walks into a bra.

A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.

A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

Barbara Wear shares this story about

THE GREEK LEGAL SYSTEM

A man and his wife were getting a divorce at a local court in Greece, but the custody of their children posed a problem.

The mother jumped to her feet and protested to the judge that since she had brought the children into this world, she should retain custody of them.

The man also wanted custody of his children, so the judge asked for his side of the story.

After a long moment of silence, the man rose from his chair and replied: "Your Honour, when I put a coin into a vending machine and a Coke comes out, does the Coke belong to me or to the machine?"

Don´t laugh ... he won!

SUGGESTED SITES

Barbara also sends this link to a site that claims that many airline passengers do not follow the instructions on what to do in an emergency:

Jay forwards this link to a video of the most dangerous and extreme railways in the world:

Judith English sends the URL for an article on the pros and cons of banning plastic bags, and the problems with paper bags:

Tom Telfer forwards this link to an experiment by Professor Roger Bowley in which he show why holding your remote key fob against your head extends the range:

Tom also sends the URL for a video based on a real story of a group of old men who decide to revisit their motor cycling youth after one of their own passes away:

Tom also forward a pps file about a chrysanthemum festival in Germany which Jay discovered online with a URL you can click on:

In this Good News story, a woman with a rare genetic disorder adopts four sons with the same condition:

From the CBC business section comes this story about a CIBC financial adviser who says she is disheartened by the findings of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada on banks´ sales practices:

This site describes an idea to convert Third World trash into energy to fuel an array of social uses:

Claire Hope Cummings raises a number of troubling concerns that are at the heart of what threatens our future food supply: