We had another birthday in the office; and for once we managed to get the cakes snuck in without the victim's knowledge, and ~ bonus ~ got everybody into the kitchen at more or less the same time.
And then we couldn't light the candles.
Out of the several dozens of people who work here, nobody had matches or lighters. All the smokers were either out sick, out on vacation, or had ~ gasp ~ recently quit (smoking, that is).
We ran like mad around the building, asking each other for possible whereabouts of firelighting devices, scrabbling amongst the forgotten oddments in culs-de-sac of desk drawers, and collaring & shaking down suspected smokers, to no avail.
It was proposed the engineers use the tools and knowledge at their disposal to come up with a prototype. I cast an eye over the bits & bobs strewn around the eng'g dep't & thought, all this technology, and we can't make fire.
Someone finally remembered they had matches in the emergency kit of their car. Candles were lit, and, three seconds and a birthday wish later, blown out.
If only we had an old-fasioned "In Case Of Fire..." glass case which contained an extinguisher*... I would now gladly pay the money to create next to it a smaller glass case containing a dog-eared matchbook, with a sign that read "In Case Of Birthday Cake..."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* The word for "extinguisher" in French is extincteur which I took to mean "exterminator" the first time I heard it.
So now extincteur always puts the same image and phrase running over & over in my head. Framed in a doorway: a bearded man wearing dark glasses and a nondescript (yet significantly bulky) tweed coat with the collar turned up, carrying two battered briefcases. Je suis Victor, he says, l'extincteur.
Well, that's free-association for you.
Posted by edgar at May 1, 2003 05:00 PM