finding the funny side

I've just remembered a little story from the past few days, that I wanted to record. Amongst the seriousness and stress of it all, there is always room for a little laughter and levity. We had a good number of locals arrive to help us out, that dropped what they were doing and came. One of those was a gentleman called Jeff, who brought his vehicle, himself, his jackaroo and any bit of equipment and gear he could fit and thought might be useful.

Jeff was at our place from start to finish (although did go home for a rest, as he lived not far down the road). On the second? or third? day, when I arrived to feed the masses, I noticed Jeff getting around in most interesting attire. He was wearing stubbies shorts over the top of his jeans, topped off with standard work shirt and floppy felt hat. Jeff is a most cheerful fellow and I greeted him and commented on him wearing his extra layers. Tis not often you see a man wearing his shorts over his jeans, especially in this part of the world, and in the middle of some serious work.

He laughed, and explained. He was running out of clean clothes, and dressed that morning in a pair of jeans that were a bit on the worn out side, particularly around the backside. Gave the jackaroo quite a shock when bending over to load something on the ute, so decided that he best change into more respectable pants. Puts on his shorts, and discovers when going back to the ute to finish loading, that they were a bit holey in the crotch area, and instead of his bum hanging out, some other bits were, and the jackaroo was most vocal in his opinion that was a sight even worse.

What to do, what to do?! no clean clothes, the dirty ones not fit to be worn again. So Jeff had a light bulb moment. Put back on the jeans, and with the shorts over the top, all modesty was kept and off he went on his merry way and the jackaroo - and any other fire fighters - were spared any little surprises.

He explained all of this whilst the neighbour and I were rolling around in fits of laughter (perhaps not enough sleep) and with the jackaroo standing behind Jeff nodding in vigorous agreement to this tale, sent us around the bend even further. Even now, picturing Jeff in my mind in his shorts and jeans has me giggling into my keyboard.

And we've decided that we might need to shout Jeff some new pants for his troubles! ;-)

Or maybe you just had to be there.