Bottoms Up!

The Granary was full of two years worth of accumulated junk. It's supposed to be our education room, a base for school groups. It also doubles up as a meetings room. And trebles up as a dumping ground for things that no one can think what else to do with. It looks bad enough, having mountains of boxes at one end of the room, but a small bird has taken up residence in there, and everything is covered in bird shit, too.

McColleague and I have undertaken the mammoth task of cleaning and tidying the Granary. Yesterday we found two enormous poo-spattered boxes containing a computer and monitor. Our Boss happened to be with us at the time.

"Oh yes," he said. "I got that ages ago for the education room, for the kids. It just needs setting up."

As McColleague and I laboured among the dust and cobwebs today I had a thought. "If I set that computer up now, it'll take up far less room than it is in those boxes, and we can chuck the packaging in the skip."

This seemed to be an idea without flaws, and I duly unpacked the monitor and computer, connected everything up, and switched it on.

Aw, I thought to myself, as it booted up. I haven't seen Windows 98 in ages! Still, it'll do to keep the kids occupied on rainy days, I mused, sorting through the assorted educational CDs that had been left in the box with the computer.

I looked back at the computer. At the desktop, specifically. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

"How's it going?" asked McColleague from the other end of the room.

"Well, I've got it going. Um....Do you know who the Boss got this from?"

"No, why?"

"Come and have a look."

McColleague and I were unable to continue with our cleaning for quite some time. We were bent double with the unexpected hilarity of it all.

"At least we didn't have a group of excited school children around us as we booted it up for the first time," I said, when I could speak again.

I simply can't wait for the Boss to pop back down.