An Eagle's Shit and a Bucket of Water

So it's been 3 weeks since I started working in the trailer with WL, and I'm slowly getting used to his habits, sayings, rants, observations, and humour. Or at least I thought so, when this morning he invited me for a cup of coffee (I hate coffee drinkers!). As we head out the door he seems all cheerful and says, "The Eagle shits tonight!" Short on words, I exercised my right to use facial expressions in reaction. WL is rather observant and realises I'm baffled by his reference. This is when he goes into a 15 minute dissertation about the Eagle's shit and his bucket of water.

The Eagle shits every Thursday according to traditional Naval beliefs (check out the letter E for eagle). Money from the government goes into the bank. Or as WL explains, "The eagle metaphorically shits water into my bucket."

He continues, "So I have this bucket of water, and our company fills it about half way, then my other job fills it a bit further. But this bucket, you see - it has holes. And the water escapes from these holes. Some holes are fairly small, but sometimes when I'm really drunk - I wake up the following morning with a hangover and I realise that I had just used too large a drill when I made a hole in my bucket while I was drunk."

At this point, I'm trying to control my laughter because we're in a public cafeteria, but WL has no mercy on me and continues.

"So this bucket has holes, and water escapes, but sometimes, like when the police catch you for speeding - it's not a hole. They grab the water from the top ...with a ladle."

I am beginning to figure it all out and exclaim, "Oh! You make the holes, but if someone else takes out of it they use a ladle?!"

WL is proud of me at this point, "You got it! Now, I also have a couple of other buckets. One doesn't have any holes in it, but not much goes in it to begin with - that's my 401 bucket. Then the other one is my savings bucket, and every so often I drain it into my big bucket because my big bucket is running on empty."

"Now on Christmas nice people come and fill up my bucket and it's nice. But sometimes on some sad occasions someone passes on a bucket to me. I don't like it when that happens."

"I know that in future I'll be able to repair some of those holes in my bucket, like in a couple of years when my son turns 18 and I no longer owe child support, but then I'll have to make a bigger hole for his college."

When WL was done with his dissertation I was determined to bring a tape recorder to work from now on. There's a fountain of blogging in that man. I just need to get him enough coffee to get him going.

Here's to healthy and regular Eagles!

N.B. The eagle may shit on Thursdays, but there's a bird here that shits on WL's car every day! And WL is not the least happy about it.

Toda la'el hayom yom shishi!