Another one of THOSE stories...

Lately I've been thinking (yes, it hurt).
Did you ever notice how you encounter something new, a fact, a story, a film, a piece of music you had previously been innocently unaware of, and how only a short time later, you meet again with said fact, story, film, whatsoever.
Happens to me all the time!!

When I was in Edinburgh, I was zapping through the infinite world of information that my five tv channels provided and I did so with Suny, a very charming girl from South Africa who has the loudest laugh you can imagine, especially in confined spaces, but that's a different story. Anyway, we came across a movie and she screamed ot loud "Aahhhhhhh, the Princess Bride! Haven't seen that in AGES, let us the hell watch it!!" I thought "Never heard of that movie, but what the heck!" Anyways, to shorten this, when I came back to Berlin, some of my friends started gibbering of the Dread Pirat Roberts and it took quite a while for me to figure out where I had heard this name, but finally I found out that it was from that same film I had seen with Suny for the first time in my life and which I had had no idea of for 26 years, but which seemed to be alal the rage everywhere. Well.



Another example ( much shorter one, not to worry) happened yesterday. I was listening to The Sound Of Bacharach, dancing in the shower to a song called "The man who shot Liberty Valance". That same day, when I was watching Das Vierte, there was a trailer for a classic Western with John Wayne and this other one, cannaerememberthename. The film was called Der Mann, der Liberty Valance Erschoss. (by the way: Das Vierte is celebrating the Weekend of the Moustache one of these days! Hooray for Burt Raynolds!)

These things happen all the bloody time and I think it's weird. Life!, what can I say! Why this repetetiveness?? It's always little thing which no-one in their right mind would care to ponder about. But I thought to myself: How the hell come??

The answer is quite simple. See, there's this AFD machine (Automatic Fate Distibuting Machine) and a guy operating it, because the world has gotten so complex and fine a piece of work that God can't do everything by himself anymore and why the heck should He if He has someone to employ people to come up with devices that simplify things for Him?

Anyway, the AFD is a big blue thing (blue being God's favourite colour) that looks a bit like a mix of a cardiological device and a very old gas cooker and it works in a way that can be compared to the way a shredder works, you know, the one you put the files in that can prove you've been steeling money from your company and put it on different accounts in Switzerland and Barbados.

This machine is distributing the fate for all the people on earth ( as you can tell by it's name). Everything that can happen to people is engraved and in this way recorded on big copper plates (copper being God's favourite material (and yopu don't have to be logical about every tiny thing when you're God and you don't have to think about laws of nature because you bloody ARE the bloody laws of nature.)). The copper plates are then inserted into the AFD which slices them into hundreds of ... well, slices and sends them off to earth to as many different people as there are slices.



So much for theory.

Truth is, that there's a very irresponsible guy working the machine. He has got an apprentice who is even less responsible and the apprentice forwards all the work to the intern, so that the intern ends up operating the AFD, because it's a shit job and that's what shit jobs are for: give them to the intern. It's a dull job and loud and horribly blue and it's so unbelievably boring. There's not much to do. Don't forget, we're talking about a machine more or less devised by God the Almighty (or at least by a guy employed by the guy that He employed) and pyhsical work has been abolished in heaven a long time ago. So the only thing the intern has to do is just stand there and watch it, because there has to be someone at least watching otherwise there would be no point in having people there and everybody would lose their job.

...

Actually, ... there's two things: standing there AND oil the machine every once in a while. This has got nothing to do with friction or use or abrasion, it's just something that God decided because in his understanding of technical matters, a machine is only a machine if you have to pour oil in it somewhere every now and then. That's what makes a mchine an ENGINE. (He had a talk with the engineers shortly after he had invented them, but to be completely honest, he wasn't really listening very well.)



Now the dilemma is that the AFDO (Automatic Fate Distributor Operator) told his apprentice about this oil issue once in a subordinate while leaving the office. The apprentice heard and made a mental note about it. Then he took the mental note and shoved it in his mind, somewhere between the items Aunt Mildred's Recipe For Apple Pie and Being Able To Count From One To Ten In Italian. Which meant that the only guy entitled to this information, the intern who was actually AAFDO (Acting Automatic Fate Distibutor Operator) never got it, which is why the engine never was oiled.

Now this has about the same effect as boiling Spaghetti in too little water and with too little oil (see!) AND forgetting to stir.
It clogs.
And this is just what the slices of fate (items, new aquaintances, films, pieces of music etc.) do whenever there's not enough oil. And that's why we sometines get two slices of the same thing in the course of very little time.
The same fact is responsible for the sying that you always meet people twice in life. It's all in the (lack of) oiling.



Maybe you think "but why doesn't the intern ever notice": come on, don't be silly, interns never last for more than a short intermission and they never get payed which means their level of motivation is somewhat not high enough to deal with such matters.

Why am I telling you this? First of all: When did I ever need a reason to tell you anything. And second of all: I just thought you should (and I say should and not migh want to) know.

And why did I put these random pictures in the post?
Just to keep it inters... colourful. As all stories should be. Colourful.

Now you may go.