Bonnie Misses out on a VIP Ride.

I used to work at a shipyard in a small seaside village repairing boat motors and attending various breakdowns for which I had a service van equipped with all my tools. I kept the van brightly sign written for all the tourists on the holidays. I was usually kept very busy and to supplement our income my wife operated four holiday cottages which she managed to keep occupied week to week over most of the year. On this particular hot summer Saturday afternoon I had collected all the gar bags of rubbish from the four cottages which had accumulated over the past week and I was on my way to our local tip. The bags were pretty rotten, full of fish heads, old bait etc. and the service van was pretty stinky inside to say the least. Along side me on the passenger seat was Bonnie, my old kelpie dog, and she stunk a bit as well. So with several gar bags sharing the front cabin and lots more in the back of the van I was headed for the tip. Because of the heat and the fact that some of the bags were about a week old by now (I usually went to the tip each Saturday) the stink was as bad as it gets, nearly to the "dry reach" stage ! Anyway I had called in to the workshop at the shipyard on the way to the tip to pick something up. I parked the van and was about to walk over to the workshop building when I heard a call from the high wire security fence. It was our local storekeeper standing at the fence and beside him stood our Victorian State Premier Sir Rupert Hamer.(Our head of State). Sir Rupert was known for summer holidaying at our small town but as our current premier, he kept a very low profile and really only we locals were aware of his visits. I walked across to the fence and said hello to the storekeeper and a "good afternoon Sir" to our Premier. The storekeeper went on to explain that Sir Rupert's car would not start and he had walked down to the town seeking assistance. He thought that he may have left the lights on and needed a jump start to get the car going. The storekeeper left the Premier with me and disappeared back to his shop. Well I knew that I was in a pretty interesting situation ! I had the Premier behind the fence waiting for a ride back to start his car, I had a foul smelling van full of stinking bags of rubbish which I would have to move from the front seat to even make room for the Premier, and to top it all off I had Bonnie my smelly dog who would straight away want to sit on his knee !!! I had visions of the Premier with Bonnie on his knee, feet straddled over the gar bags on the floor, I knew that I had a serious situation. My wife has always said that I was the worlds fastest inventor of "on the spot" lies. My mind raced and I suddenly thought of a plan. I said to the Premier, "I will have to go back to my workshop at home and get my jumper leads", little did the Premier know that they were in the back of my van. I explained that of course I normally carried them but had used them that morning but I had not put them back. My plan worked perfectly ! The premier, (our head of state) said, "The walk will do me good, I will walk back to the car and meet you there in, say, about 10 minutes ?" Of course I agreed and off walked the Premier on his way home. I kissed the ground and jumped in the van and drove off home. I ran inside and exclaimed to my wife, "Guess what, I am about to start the Premiers car". Our town was a pretty quiet and very un-interesting town in those days and this rated as a top notch activity by my everyday standards. I then ran out and got back into my stinking rubbish truck complete with smelly dog "Bonnie" and drove to the Premiers place. He had just arrived back there and looked a bit puffed after his walk. I said hello to his lovely wife April, we started the car and he was very happy. I was very happy too as I had avoided a very embarrassing situation. Bonnie had missed out on a ride on the Premiers knee that day, but somehow I didn't care at all.