Last week Tillerman posted the picture above of two Star sailors for a caption competition. Oh yes, thinks I, what would really work would be bla bla bla. Fortunately before hitting the "Publish" button realised that no one would get why that caption made sense apart from me and (maybe) one other.
It was the result of one of those random chances. Waking up one Sunday morning with the usual pre coffee more asleep than awake brain, without thinking I grabbed the first t-shirt that came to hand.
What was important and worth thinking about over that first and most important latte was how I was to get to a rug shop by bike. This years big flat purchase is a rug for my living room and as they cost about the same as a decent dinghy it's worth spending some time looking for the right one.
This particular rug shop is in a very posh part of west London and while doable by bike meant a smart bit of navigation around the black hole known as Earls Court. However I made it and was soon helping the young salesman to go through a pile of 3 metre by 2 metre rugs.
All of a sudden he asked "So which Fastnet did you do then?"
For a moment I was amazed - they talk about knowing your customer but this was ridiculous! However then I noticed that the random t-shirt picked out that morning was indeed my Fastnet t-shirt, which sort of gave the game away.
We got chatting and it turned out my rug salesman was a bit more than your average weekend sailor, and had done not just a Fastnet but several. Indeed he had done a season or two of the Star sailing circuit, and when I got home I Googled his name, and yup there he was (and no, he wasn't one of those in the photo).
So when I saw Tillerman's picture my suggestion for a caption was going to have been: "Would you buy a new rug from this sailor?"
Hopefully you now know why it (sort of) would have made sense.
But also why that particular comment was never posted.
7 comments:
I had no entry for that contest either.
Then I realized that Wiggle Your Toes Day was coming up on August 6th (you didn't let it slip by without appropriate commemoration, did you?) and I figured ah, there's the perfect hook for a caption.
But then I thought that, like your rug salesman, no one would get the reference and people would just think I'm weirder than they already do.
Well now it turns out that someone is weirder than I am.
I like the idea of August 6 being "Wiggle Your Toes Day." I grew up in Los Alamos, where August 6 was "Take Cover, the Hippies Are Coming to Protest the Atom Bomb Day." Not that the hippies ever got violent, and as far as I know, the news media didn't pay attention to their protests except on major anniversaries.
I don't want to get into debates about whether we should or should not have dropped the bombs on Japan, or any of the political "what-if" speculation. I'd just rather wiggle my toes, who enjoy their release from the cramped servitude of enclosed shoes. The poor piggies suffered severe abuse during my childhood, when little girls were supposed to have dainty, pointy feet, and now I atone by allowing the toes freedom whenever I can.
Man, that O'Docker is weird.
I had no idea that it was wiggle your toes day on the 6th!
If only I'd known I'd have done a specially big wiggle. If nothing else it would be a "hurrah - I've lost the last of those sea urchin spines" celebration.
I shall have to wait till next year :(
Wait a minute. What's up with the Earl's Court deal? Is that a sketchy part of town? Kris and I stayed up that way and it seemed pretty decent. Walking distance to everything we needed and pretty quiet. Were we mere blocks away from havoc? Or is it just that streets are hellish for a cyclist?
Its an ok area, just not very good when on a bike. Going through it are two one way roads going North-South, linking the Embankment to the M4 (or at least start of) that gets very busy.
And either side there are some nice bike paths through parks, but when you get to Earls Court couldn't see any bike friendly routes - maybe there are there but didn't find them
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