[at-l] Datto's funny story

[Debbie_Smith@Millipore.com]

Okay, so Datto finally decided to respond to email... gave an explanation
of his absence but didn't include the funny story!  Luckily for you all (or
y'all if you're from the South) he did send it to me privately.  Since he
makes obscure reference to it in his reply (where the deer and the hornets
do play), I feel the need to share it with each and every one of you.  I
think he wanted to but was just shy. (Yeah, you'll believe THAT when you
read this story.) So it's here at the end.  But first, a couple comments to
you Datto:

> I chase tents without any...I chase tents.

     Without any... pants on???  I see a pattern here
     I think Give me Chocolate was right about the
     strange things your neighbors see in your yard

> Oooh Twilight. It's a spiked collar. And it looks divine.
     May my tent have another Trailmistress?

     I don't even want to go there...your personal life, IS.


So here's is Datto's funny story which he shared with me. Hope y'all laugh
as hard as I did. (Here you may begin to see the pattern of being out on
the deck with no pants on, like when he was chasing his tent)  I wanted to
call this "Datto's Big Adventure" or "Datto Does Deck Dancing" but since he
didn't give it a title, I just left it.

Twilight
GA>ME '98

================================

The first house I built had a huge deck out back that faced into
several acres of woods. One afternoon I came home from work about
4:30pm, took a quick shower and donned only my robe before going
outside to read the newspaper.

As I was sitting on the deck seat for 20 minutes or so, reading the
newspaper, all of a sudden I felt a sharp sting to my chest. Not
knowing what the sting was I slapped at it through my robe. It turned
out to be a hornet that had flown up my sleeve.

Now before I tell you what I did at this point, let me tell you about
how the people inside my house saw the event. They didn't know I was
out on the deck so they had locked the sliding glass door from the
inside. Turning away from the sliding glass door they saw me all of a
sudden stand up with a startled look on my face, beat my chest with my
fist, throw the newspaper into the air and run headlong for one of the
sliding glass doors. They thought all of a sudden I'd lost my mind and gone
crazy.

Before the people inside my house could figure out how to unlock the
sliding glass door, I had convinced myself there were hundreds of
hornets swarming in on me. I was swinging at the imaginary hornets
with my arms, all the while being continuously stung by the sole
hornet still inside my robe.

I yanked on the sliding glass door to gain access back into the house.
Locked. I ran to one of the other sliding glass doors. Also locked. I
couldn't see into the house because the back of the house faced west and
the western sky reflection filled the glass on the outside. All the time
the people inside my house were standing there at the glass, watching me
run around like a crazy man.

With the hornet still stinging me underneath my robe, I decided to
strip off my robe and swing the robe in a wide circle above my head at the
imaginary hornets. So now I am standing on my deck in front of the sliding
glass doors, with people inside my house watching me strip completely naked
and start swinging the robe above my head. Still they have no clue to the
real cause of my actions. All they see is a crazed, naked man swinging a
robe in a circle above his head.

Okay, you're thinking here it can't get any worse, right? Well guess
again. I decided since the sliding glass doors were locked I'd drop the
robe and run around the front of the house to enter via the front door and
escape the imaginary hornets.

Unfortunately, the people next door were in the process of selling
their house when I appeared buck naked flailing my arms running up the side
of my house to escape the imaginary hornets. Of course, the
prospective buyers and the sellers happened to be standing right
outside the front door of the seller's house as I came around the back
corner of my house. The sellers and the prospective buyers stopped what
they were doing and just gaped at me in complete amazement when I appeared
in view.

As luck would have it, I didn't see them until I'd walked most of the
way up the sidewalk and in full view. At this point, you have a
choice; run away to the back of the house and be embarrassed or
continue ahead trying to walk normally, casually. I chose the latter.

As I walked by the group of people next door I was trying to think of
something to say. Not being able to come up with anything better, I
finally looked at them, smiled and said, "Hey, some party!".

Needless to say the prospective buyers didn't move in next door. The
sellers never spoke to me after that and moved out of the neighborhood a
few weeks later.

Me? I went into the front door of my house, escaped the "hoards" of
imaginary hornets and put on a long coat from the front closet to
cover myself. The people inside my house ended up treating several
stings on my chest and arms from that one and only hornet.


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