Happy Birthday to my Ben
Saturday, 18 October, 2003
I can't remember if I've told you guys the story of the bucket but here goes.
It was a night we normally had church Bible study but there was a women's evening on a church (Lesley Ramsay was going to be speaking on “Women and change”) except I had a talk to prepare for the following day so I stayed home and stayed upstairs while the boys took over our lounge room and made pizzas under the grill.
Ben and Joe went out to buy pizza ingredients and, while at Woolworths, saw that they had yellow buckets on sale for 98c. Naturally they bought one each. Upon returning back to the house, Pakman and Simon dared Ben to carry the bucket around instead of a bag for a whole week. And if he did, they'd buy buckets and do it too.
Six weeks later, Ben is still doing it. Pakman and Simon, sporting spiffy transparent blue buckets with industrial strength red handles, carried theirs around for a week or two and then stopped.
This week Ben celebrated his 24th birthday. We went out for Thai and had a magic box (cob bread filled with seafood curry—crab meat, mussels, squid, prawns—yum!) and then, the following night, we invited people over for pizza and dessert. We played a mass game of Celebrity Head and I was surprised to discover that we actually owned enough hats to hat everyone in the room (15 people). Ben got Luke Skywalker and his first question was, “Am I incredibly good-looking?” There was mixed opinion about that one. I got Barbie and I can't believe they said she was “cute” (Barbie is not cute). Ben says his favourite questions from the evening were:
“Do I own a hotel?”
and
“Do I carry a whip?”
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Many happy returns to Ben. And that is one nice bucket.
Why does Ben still carry the Bucket?
That’s a funny picture of Ben (no offence)
I’ve never seen him so attached to an inanimate object before. If I were you, Karen, I would be very wary of that bucket. It’s the Jezebel that is taking away your man. Reclaim him now and destroy the bucket!!!
Oh yeah, say ‘Happy Birthday’ to Ben for me Karen. Even though I will be seeing you guys next weekend at the supporters’ dinner it could be better for the sake of posterity to say ‘happy birthday’ closer to the date.
I’ve been praying for you guys. I hope things will get better for you soon.
Philip: The answer to your question is obvious; Ben continues to carry the bucket because he likes it.
There some other multiple obvious answers which I could imagine:
a) The bucket furfils a clear functional purpose and is affordable
b) The bucket draws positive attention from other people (people carry expensive handbags for the same purpose)
c) The bucket has positive asthetic appeal to Ben
d) Ben is eccentric and likes to do acts that are eccentric (departing from a recognized, conventional, or established norm or pattern)
e) Ben wishes to set a fashion trend
f) Ben wants to star in a movie about his life, due to the unique behaviour of carrying a bucket the movie will be called “Bucket Man”
g) Ben carrys string in his bucket and when he finds another person with a bucket they tie the string between them and make a bucket telephone
h) Ben puts the bucket on his head and robs banks as a part time job
i) Ben just likes the bucket
You’re Philip; it’s probably only obvious to me!
Philip makes buckets sound so practical. Maybe I should get one.
Philip probably spent more time thinking about the bucket than Ben did when he purchased it.