MY LIFE STORY

MY LIFE STORY by Gordon Dioxide     This is a bicycle about my life. I'm sorry, did I say bicycle? I meant to say "story", but sometimes I get my words mixed up. Anyway, as I was saying, this is a story about my life. It's called "My Life Bicycle".   I am now 104 years old, but when I was born I was zero. I was just a baby in those days, and I couldn't walk, talk or fold maps. Now I can walk and talk, but I'm still learning how to fold maps.   I'm old now, but when I was young I wasn't old at all.   During my first year, I did a lot of crying and a lot of unpleasant things in my nappies. By the way, nappies are called diapers in America and something else in Norway, Belgium, Italy and Bolivia.   Exactly 12 months after birth, I had my first birthday. And 52 weeks after that, I had my second. My third came 365 days later, my fourth 8,760 hours later, my fifth 525,600 minutes later and my sixth 31.536 million seconds later.   By the way again, if you are 5 you have been alive for more than 157 million seconds. This handy cut-out-and-keep chart shows how long you have been alive:   5 years = 157,000,000 seconds 6 years = 189,000,000 seconds 7 years = 220,000,000 seconds 8 years = 252,000,000 seconds 9 years = 283,000,000 seconds 10 years = 315,000,000 seconds   If you are more than 10, you can either work it out for yourself or go and do something more interesting.   Anyway, back to the story of my life. After I was 6, I became 7. Then I became 8, then 9, then 10, then 11, then 12, then 13, then 14, then 15, then 16, then 17, then 18, then 19, then 20. I missed out 21 because I forgot my birthday, so, after two years at 20, I became 22.   I used to have an imaginary friend. He was imaginary because only I knew about him. Nobody else could see him, hear him, smell him or stamp on his foot. He used to go everywhere with me, but one morning I woke up to find that he had disappeared. I haven't seen him since.   After 22, I was 23, then 24, then 25, then 26, then 27, then 28, then 29, then 30.   Every birthday I had to go out and buy one extra candle for my cake, except on my 22nd birthday when I had to buy two.   I got married when I was 31. My wife was two years younger than me and still is. She always uses my candles on her birthday cake, as we share everything except her lipstick.   Did you know that lipstick is called "rossetto" in Italy, "lippenstift" in Holland, "batom" in Portugal and "lipstick" in Scotland? No? Well, you do now.   When I was 32 I got a job at a fire extinguisher factory, but it burnt down.   When I was 33 I got a job at a map factory, but soon got the sack.   Then I got the sack at a sack factory.   Then I got fired at a gun factory.   When I was 34 I joined the Navy because I like flying. This was a terrible experience because they put me on a plane that sailed on water. I hate everything to do with the sea: I hate waves, I hate salt water, I hate fish and I hate all three letters "s", "e" and "a".   When I was 35 I became a doctor, but had to give that up when I got a mystery illness.   At 36 I got a job at an alarm clock factory, but kept being late for work after oversleeping at home.   Then I got a job at a bed factory, but kept being late to go home after oversleeping at work.   On September 15th 1937, my wife and I decided to move to Alaska to start a new life. The following day we moved back as it was too cold.   We also tried moving to Nigeria, but that was too hot. Eventually, we found a nice place just down the road, where the temperature was perfect.   We were very happy, but my career was going nowhere. I needed to find a job that I was good at.   I tried bricklaying, dentistry and professional tennis but it was difficult trying to hold down three jobs at the same time.   I became an astronaut, but once you've seen one planet you've seen them all.   Working in a bank was more interesting. That went well until the day I put all the money in the safe and accidentally dropped the key down an old well shaft.   I applied to become a check-out girl at the local supermarket but they said I had filled in the wrong form.   My next job was a complete disaster and I don't want to talk about it.   It would soon be time to retire and I hadn't even started work yet!   I tried to get someone to sponsor me to see how many cakes I could eat in 4 days. I was sure that this would bring me fame and fortune, as well as a mention in the Book of World Records. Nobody sponsored me but I went ahead with the record attempt anyway. I ate 79 cakes on the first day, but then spent the next three days in hospital.   Soon after that, I decided to go to University. For three years I studied books and wrote essays. When I went to hand all my work in I found out that I was supposed to have sent in an application form before starting university.   We weren't short of money as my wife had quite a good career. She had worked her way up from being a tea lady to become the Prime Minister. This meant there was a vacancy in the government for a new tea lady. So I went to the interview wearing a dress and lipstick, but didn't get the job as I have no idea how to make tea.   I also went for an interview at a door factory, but couldn't find the way in.   I joined a pop group and they asked me to be the singer as I can't play any instruments. They kicked me out when they realised that I can't sing either.   After two days as a helicopter pilot and six days swimming back to shore, I finally found my dream job. It involved counting the number of books in our local library. I completed the task in less than a week, but they refused to pay me as they said that nobody had asked me to do it. This made me quite angry, so I decided to use my library ticket to borrow all 740,000 books. Cycling home with all these books wasn't easy, and I had to make three trips.   I spent the next ten years reading all the books, and thus became the cleverest person in the whole wide world. This really was my big break. I worked out how to solve world hunger, discovered a cure for all known diseases and won some great prizes on TV quiz shows.   I wrote a book that included all the information that I'd read about. The book was bigger than a small city (but smaller than a big city). Sherwood Forest had to be cut down to provide enough paper for the book. Unfortunately there were no book shops large enough to stock the book, so it was a bit of a waste of time really.   As this is the story of my life, I suppose I should tell you my name. It's Jonathan Dolphin, not ideal for someone who doesn't like the s-e-a. My middle name is Grmbhhyfrw, a word with no vowels and completely impossible to pronounce.   My motto in life always used to be "You will find that everybody is good if you take time to get to know them". To test this theory, I invited the Devil to our wedding. I'm sorry to say that he yawned during the Best Man's speech, so now my motto is "You will find that everybody is good, except for the Devil who can be very rude at weddings."   My wife is still the Prime Minister, I am still the cleverest man in the whole wide world and we still have plenty of money left over from my success on "Who Wants to be a Zillionaire". But when I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in any way. Now I need a butler, a gardener, a cook and somebody to put the toothpaste on my brush.   There are three things that irritate me: empty staplers, umbrellas on a windy day and smug-looking cats that think they know everything. If these cats were really that clever, they wouldn't spend all their time chasing mice while being chased by dogs. They would get out of the way and let the dogs chase the mice.   Anyway, I'd better stop writing this story now as I've got another job interview in a minute.       Now you know all about my life, you will be able to go on "Mastermind" with the specialist subject of "The Life and Times of Jonathan Dolphin". Here are some questions to help you revise:   1. What happened to my imaginary friend? 2. Which birthday did I forget? 3. What happened to the fire extinguisher factory? 4. Why did I have to give up being a doctor? 5. Why was I unlucky not to beat the world cake-eating record? 6. Why didn't they give me a job as a tea lady? 7. What is unusual about my middle name? 8. And finally, an easy question: what is your name?                   A LOVELY SUNNY DAY by Gordon Dioxide     It was a lovely sunny day in Oak Tree Farm. An 8-year old boy called Tommy lay by the stream listening to the sounds of the countryside. The birds were singing, the cows were mooing, the lions were roaring, and the sheep were .....   Hang on, did I say lions? Yes I did, and they were heading straight for Tommy.   Tommy stood up and saw the three fierce lions coming across the field.   He heard a noise behind him, and, looking round, saw a grizzly bear stomping towards him. On his right were a large number of tigers staring at him, and on his left, in the stream, was a crocodile.   There was no escape. Tommy didn't know what to do. He thought for a moment and realised that the only way out was downwards, so he got a spade and started to dig. But he couldn't dig fast enough - the lions were rapidly approaching, the grizzly bear was just a few feet away, the tigers were starting to move, and the crocodile was snapping at his heels.   Suddenly, a spaceship flew down from the sky and picked him up.   "Phew, that was a close shave" thought Tommy.   Now he was flying through space at a hundred miles an hour. The spaceship was driven by two aliens, both called Dave. They were green with large red eyes and yellow horns. One of them was wearing a T-shirt with the words "I've been to Buckingham Palace and seen the queen" across the front. The other one wore an identical T-shirt.   Tommy was pleased to have been rescued from the animal attack, but was a bit unsure about where these two Daves were taking him.   It was quite warm in the spaceship, so Tommy asked if the heating could be turned down. Unfortunately, neither Dave was quite sure how the heating system worked so one of them opened a window instead. This was a big mistake because space is a vacuum and quite capable of sucking things out of spaceships. This is exactly what happened to the two Daves - they were sucked out of the window, never to be seen again.   Tommy shut the window and sat down at the controls. He'd never driven a spaceship before and was going to have to learn fast, otherwise he'd be in big trouble.   He saw a red button with the letter R on it, and pressed it. The radio came on playing Wannabe by the Spice Girls. Pressing a button marked W started the windscreen wipers, but it wasn't raining so he turned them off.   Eventually he taught himself how to control the spaceship using the steering wheel and gear stick. He brought it down to Earth and landed in his back garden just in time for tea.   He told his mum about his little adventure, but she told him to stop telling lies and get on with his fish fingers.   Forty years later, Tommy was 48-years old and he went on holiday to Spain with his family. While relaxing on a beach he saw two objects falling from the sky. They landed on his towel, and, on closer inspection, Tommy realised that it was the two Daves! After all this time they had finally fallen out of space and back to Earth.   The two Daves were delighted to see Tommy, and Tommy said he would look after them. Now, although the two Daves looked the same, they were in fact completely different. One was clever, and one wasn't. Let's call them Clever Dave and Not-so-Clever Dave.   Tommy said he would drive them to a shop to get some decent clothes. Tommy got in the driving seat, Clever Dave got in the passenger seat, and Not-so-Clever Dave got on the roof rack. When the car started to move, Not-so-Clever Dave fell off the back of the car. He had to chase after them, but as he wasn't very good at running he decided to catch a bus. He climbed on board the number 46 bus and sat on the driver's lap. The bus followed the car all the way to the clothes shop.   In the shop Clever Dave put on a nice black suit and tie. Not-so-Clever Dave put a shirt on his legs, some socks over his ears, a hat on his feet and some shoes on his shoulders. He thought he looked smart, but he actually looked quite ridiculous.   Then they went to a posh restaurant to have a meal. Clever Dave picked up his knife and fork and ate his food. Not-so-Clever Dave picked up his food and ate his knife and fork! He even said it tasted delicious. For pudding, he had the tablecloth and a lady's purse.   Not-so-Clever Dave had a lot of trouble adapting to life on Earth. He couldn't understand why people had to pay for things in shops, so he kept getting arrested for helping himself.   One day, the two Daves were making a cake for Tommy's birthday. Clever Dave was mixing some flour and sugar, while Not-so-Clever Dave was mixing some eggs and dynamite. When Not-so-Clever Dave put the mixture in the oven, there was a huge explosion and both Daves were blasted back to space, never to be seen again.   Tommy was sad to lose his friends, but tried to get on with life as best he could.   Another forty years went past and Tommy was now very old. One day, he was doing some gardening when he saw an aeroplane flying past. There seemed to be something hanging from one of the wings, so he got his binoculars to have a better look. Suddenly, whatever it was came free from the plane and started to float down to the ground. It turned out to be two things, not one, and both of those things were Daves.   Tommy was delighted to see his old friends again, although it was a shame that Not-so-Clever Dave had landed on his flower bed. They went into the house and got something to eat, because both Daves were hungry after floating around space for 40 years.   Tommy mentioned that he wished he were young again, because being old can be a bit of a problem. Then an amazing thing happened. Clever Dave produced a pack of Magical Wishing Powder and sprinkled it over Tommy.   Suddenly, Tommy was 8 years old again! He was lying by a stream in Oak Tree Farm and it was a lovely sunny day. The birds were singing, the cows were mooing, the lions were roaring, and the sheep were .....   Yes, thanks to Clever Dave, Tommy was able to live his life all over again. This time though, he dug a bit faster and escaped from the animals through a tunnel. In his second life he never met the Daves, but he always had happy memories of them ...    Here are a few questions to see if you have been listening ...   What animals were attacking Tommy? What were the aliens wearing when he first met them? Where did Not-so-Clever Dave sit on the bus? What did Not-so-Clever Dave mix into the cake? Do you think aliens really exist?         If you enjoyed this story, please ask your friends to visit www.gordondioxide.com If you didn't enjoy it, try the previous one: it's much better.