Never smile at a crocodile...

It started out as an ordinary mid-exam day. The only thing that betrayed a glimpse of anything out of the ordinary was the black pigeon. They may be common, but I had never seen one, s naturally, I was intrigued. It also didn't 'coo' like the other pigeons. Naturally, I cracked a joke about omens of death and the macabre and got an earful from mum. It was all very amusing. 

Later that day, an innocent game of cricket eerily began to resemble an episode of Happy Tree Friends, as a simple misfield turned into a bloodbath. I followed an age-old Gidney House tradition rather too intensely as I ran straight into a concrete pillar. "It hurt, but it scared the shit out of the dog." Of course, there was no dog, so the entire incident was beneficial to no one. There weren't even any observers, to whom the entire event would have looked terribly amusing. 

Some hours later, after the throbbing had subsided and all was well besides the gash on my head (and my knee and shoulder), I was sitting and happily mugging up the procedures for my ill-timed Chemistry Practical exam. Then there was the phone call. It turned out there was an apparently major fire in a first-floor flat, judging by the billowing smoke. Calm. I've read through fire safety instructions dozens of times. I also have a seafaring dad, who has been through fire-fighting training on the cadet ship. He also wasn't home. Of course not. He's never home when stuff like this happens. 

It was all very exciting when the fire-brigade arrived. Big, red fire engine and all. No dalmatian. 

Eventually, we found out that it wasn't a major fire- just a lot of carcinogenic soot because his inflammable false-ceiling. 

The fire engine looked pretty much like the ones you see on the telly:

 

 Lesson learned- never make fun of evil pigeons. 

In the aftermath of the disaster(s), we just saw a car being towed out of our building this morning. I hope the poor bloke knows his car isn't in his garage.