RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30958, 14 January 1966, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

HAT-TRICK

The complaints departments in most households work about 20 hours a day, for even in the best-orga-nised home little things tend to go wrong fairly regularly. Minor misfortunes occur, but they are, fortunately, of little real consequence, and a firm expression of opinion is all that is needed to set things to rights. But there are some people who seem to be accident prone, and one family of which we know recently reached a new peak of achievement in this field. In two minutes, no more, chaos had occurred on several domestic fronts.

It began with the snapping of not one, but two window sashes within seconds of each other. The ruin of each window was complete, and the crash of falling timber and break-

ing glass did nothing to assist in the convalescence of the lady of the house, sick in bed at this dark moment She let out a dreadful shriek and made for the disaster area. But she was diverted en route by another calamity. Her young son was in his bath, and, in the manner of his kind, he had discovered that if one draws the knees up under the chin and puts the feet on the far end of the bath, it is possible to propel oneself back through the water at a very satisfactory speed. But in most sports, it is essential to keep the head down; this he failed to do. As he reached the other, or plug end, his head was up, and the back of it struck a brand-new wash basin sitting there waiting for installation. The basin broke, and it didn't do the boy’s head any good at all. It broke too, although it

was only much later that there was time to reckon up the stitches which had been inserted. Father and mother arrived at the bathroom simultaneously and the man, in an effort to make light of a sorry situation, said that these things always happened in threes. The words were hardly out of his mouth before his wife informed him that if he cared to look outside he would see how right he was. And he did, looking out on a large area of garden in which he had planted, with considerable expenditure in time and labour, some 4000 tomato plants. And among the plants, having themselves a ball by playing little racing games and chasing each other, were two horses. They were large ones, and they were not doing the tomato plants a bit of good.