DEALING WITH EXCESS PAPER WORK

Getting a call from HP at six am is not strange by our standards, he phoned me often at that time of the morning. Today was a Wednesday, so to hear his voice on the other end of the line was no major deal.

When I read the caller ID on my cell phone a number of thoughts raced through my mind. They ranged from, he couldn’t make our ritual morning coffee meeting, to, he had an idea that just couldn’t wait until later. Now mostly I am rather good at not thinking negative thoughts. Jeez, HP would do me a mischief if he knew I did have the odd negative idea or thought flash across my mind, like the time my car was about to be rear ended by a taxi. The two seconds before the collision the poor taxi drivers’ family history came under very close scrutiny as no adjectives relating to their afflicted crotches were left unsaid. For HP even those situations have a bright and positive angle, totally annoying I know, but mostly a good thing. I was almost sure nothing bad had happened to him; no seriously, you still have to get to know HP.

However, this morning his call did make me frown, his requests were straightforward and too the point, and more then a little formal. I didn’t even have time to question him and the phone went dead. I was to meet him at noon at his house, oh, and I was to bring a few items that just didn’t make any sense at all. Where was I going to get strong, bittersweet seventy percent Cocoa, Belgian chocolate before one this afternoon? I thought to myself if this was another of his hair-brained ideas… a little voice in my head screamed ‘you are being negative, just go with it, they maybe daft ideas but they were mostly worth it.’

I arrived at his place at about twelve forty five, clutching my very rare and expensive purchase. I knocked on the door, without effect, after waiting a few minutes I walked around to the back of the house. There, right at the bottom of the garden was my friend and coach, HP. As soon as he saw me he smiled and waved with a long pointy stick. Shaking my head, I just stood there looking at him draped over one of his canvas camping chairs. He vigorously beckoned to me, indicating he would like me to join him in the vacant chair alongside him.  As I got closer I noticed to the right of my chair was his blue Afrox gas cooker with an empty pot on it, and in front of him was a ring of neatly packed bricks with another of the long dangerous looking pointy sticks.

Placing the paper packet, with the very expensive chocolate in it, on the ground next to my chair I turned and sat down. Before the canvas had taken the shape of my rear end, HP had his nose deep in the packet. Still with his nose in the brown paper packet, he glanced at me from over the serrated packet edge. The look I saw there told me immediately that I had been stitched, they screamed, ‘…you mean you actually went to all that trouble, I would have been happy with a few bars form the local café...’

Unfolding himself from the camping chair he stood up and opened the packet of dry twigs, he hunched down next to the ring of bricks, his knees, and other extremities getting in the way of each other. With the deftness and flair of a master swordsman he pointed the sharpened stick in my direction as if it were a steel épée and he had received lifelong tuition under the grand master  Girard Thibault d'Anvers himself. He proceeded to tell me how important it was for a man to know how to make a fire. That beside standing on one leg and holding the required equipment in one hand and pissing off a cliff or possessing the prowess of reaching grand heights up a dry wall with aforementioned equipment; the art of fire making was primal and men had a deep seated urge to simply burn things for no good reason at all. Of course he was correct on both accounts again, I had witnessed many grown man sit at a camp fire, stare blankly into a fire, and burn little sticks just to see what shape the ash would form, I had also witnessed them peeing off a cliff. Now this was fine but I was not getting any new life lesson here, I knew all this very well, however I had learned from experience that it was wiser in these situations to keep quiet and watch.

In the center of the ring of bricks, the kindling sticks formed a neat little teepee around scrunched up pieces of paper. The bright orange flame devoured the paper and began to burn the kindling he quickly stacked the larger wood to keep the flames alive. Before long, we had a grand little fire going. Taking a burning stick from the flame, he lit the gas bottle and to my horror, he tossed the chocolates into the pot. Before I could stand up, they had begun to melt. With the most ridiculous grin on his face, he laid his hand on my arm and pushed me back in the chair. From a box next to his chair, he whipped out a huge, and I mean huge packet of marshmallows. They were the little pink and white ones, the ones that bring back memories of cold nights and hot coco.

HP skewered three marshmallows on the end of the long pointy stick and handed it to me, doing the same for his stick he settled back into his chair. He then opened the box next to him and began to throw the sheets of paper on the fire. As the flame climbed he roasted his marshmallows, dunked them in the chocolate, and in one fluid motion all three disappeared into this mouth. He huffed and puffed and chewed gingerly all the time keeping his mouth in a great big ‘O’ and skewered another three, all the time tossing sheets of paper on the fire. It was only after my third three marshmallows that I recognised what paper he was using for us to roast our chocolate marshmallows…

…it was a manuscript of a novel I had been stuck on for years, and had recently asked him to look over…

‘What you doing?’ I yelled struggling to get out my chair

A puzzled look owned his face,

‘Getting rid of your excess paper work. Why?’

What lesson did I learn that day, beside a way cool method of getting rid of unwanted paper work, and eating very expensive marshmallows. It is sometimes better to scrap something and start again then to let the past hold you back from moving into something new.