The tale of poor obliging Sam

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Sam. Sam might actually be the most obliging fellow around, especially when it comes to agreeing to walk a certain girl most of the way home. Poor obliging Sam, with bag packed and computer turned off, never realised that a certain girl, who would “just be a minute”, operated on a different understanding of time then him. As it turned out, a minute in girl-standard time was significantly longer that the usual 60 second minute. To make matters worse, walking this girl most of the way home usually fell on a day when he brought his bike or had to carry about 90 lbs of books in his backpack. Unfortunately for poor obliging Sam, this girl tended not to walk at a brisk jaunt, but instead maintained the leisurely pace of a meandering stroll. To add insult to injury, sometimes she insisted on stopping periodically to rescue bees—oblivious to the burden of bikes and books.

One fine day, poor obliging Sam walked decided to walk this girl most of the way home, but chose a different route. Normally, this girl walked through Clare, in part to see the cows and in part to see the gardens. She was not sure how she felt about this new way (she was especially resistant to change that day, since her Rosy was going on vacation), but decided to give it a go.

Much to her delight, Sam’s new way included walking by lovely rivers with happy swimming fish. Poor obliging Sam, dressed in his smart work clothes and smart work shoes, probably didn’t anticipate that this girl would veer off the path to the side of the river in order to get a closer look at the fish. Poor obliging Sam also probably hoped that she would heed his warning about the dangers of getting too near the slippery edges of marshy banks, and probably really hoped that he wouldn’t have to follow her through the tall grass and prickles in all his smart work attire. But sadly, this was a girl who did what she wanted, and poor obliging Sam bravely traipsed through the chaos to look at fish with her.

Now, if it weren’t enough that he had to listen to her work through her syllabus and run the risk of having to save her from falling into the swampy river because she wanted to see fish, poor obliging Sam had the misfortune of leading her past cows! Of course, the cows were on the other side of a very busy street. Of course, she wanted to pet the cows. So, of course, they crossed the street, and poor obliging Sam in all his fine work clothes, had to dodge fresh and not so fresh cow patties to pet cows with her.

It is not clear that poor obliging Sam will walk this girl most of the way home anymore, but she does hope you, dear reader, found this mostly true tale amusing.