Open Writing

Now, settle down my children and I will tell you a tale. A tale of classic cars, which goes like this.

Once there was a very clever engineer who was, by profession and inclination, a designer of extremely fast racing cars ("You've heard of Formula 1 … well, something like that"). This very clever engineer was married to a nice wife, and had two very nice children. He also had a large, rather undisciplined shaggy dog, so young that he still did not really know his way around things, and sometimes made a mistake.

One day the nice wife had a visitor staying and the ladies and the children decided to spend the day in town, shopping and lunching, and generally having a good time. Unfortunately, unbeknown to them, the large shaggy dog - whose name was Bozo - had been locked into the house by mistake.

In the house, the family had just had a lovely new kitchen fitted, costing a bomb. As the day wore on poor Bozo began to feel that he very badly needed to go outside, he needed s-p-a-c-e, a tree, and a place where he could relieve himself and then scratch dirt over it.

It got later and later and the family did not come home. Bozo grew frantic. Eventually, despite all his better intentions, he started scratching at all the doors, including the cupboards, trying to find a way out. Eventually there was nothing for it, and Bozo let go!

The scene now changes to the very clever engineer. He loved cars. He loved them so much that he collected them. He had a very big collection of very special, very expensive and absolutely irreplaceable classic cars. To house these cars he had built a large garage, installed air-conditioning, under-floor heating and wall-to-wall carpeting to keep the cars comfortable and happy. He had also installed extremely sophisticated and expensive security devices.

That evening guess what happened? The family came home, and found the damage and mess that poor Bozo had caused. The very clever engineer came home and found the damage and mess that Bozo had caused; and freaked out. To ease his wounded feelings he decided to visit his large collection of classic cars and take solace from them. He looked for the very special key to open the garage housing his classic cars in the greatest possible comfort and safety. It could not be found.

He questioned every member of the family and nobody knew where the key was. Eventually, getting madder and madder by the minute, the VCE (very clever engineer) broke open one of the doors to the garage and spent a couple of hours inside with his large collection of very special, very expensive and absolutely irreplaceable classic cars. Gradually as he walked amongst them and communed with them he got angrier and angrier because they key had been lost and he had had to break the expensive security to get in.

Eventually he decided to pack it in, called a taxi to Heathrow and flew to Italy to the arms of his mistress.

Next day, his wife was loading the machine with the family wash. Feeling in the pockets of jeans and shirts to make sure there was nothing in them, guess what, she found the key to the garage in her son's jeans. Somehow he had overlooked it, and not told his father that he had it.

Bozo was in disgrace, the son was in disgrace, and the father had gone off to Italy in a towering rage …

And what is the lesson of this story my children?

Never leave a big shaggy dog locked up in a house when the family is out, ESPECIALLY if he does not know the correct way to behave!

Eventually the VCE came home from Italy and made friends with the family and Bozo again, but it cost another bomb to fix up the kitchen. It also cost a further bomb to fix the security on the garage housing the large collection of very special, very expensive and absolutely irreplaceable classic cars. Believe it or not, nobody even owned up to where the key had been all along, as they were all afraid of the VCE and his very quick temper.