[Epona]

I used to work in a completely madcap office with, amongst others, 2 guys - Richard and Dave. Richard was the office comedian, and kept us in stitches constantly.

One day while Dave was out of the room, Richard removed all his pens and pencils, and put one of those joke rubber pencils on his desk. When Dave came back his phone rang, and he tried to take down the caller's details - of course the pencil just bent when he tried to write with it. Silly joke, but the rest of us were already giggling. Richard then got called out of the office. Dave's call finished, and he got up, turned round from his desk to stand at the plotter we had in the corner - and cut the rubber pencil into four pieces with a scalpel. He then placed it on Richard's desk, with the 4 pieces spaced out in a line. Richard returned, and the look of shock on his face was absolutely priceless. Myself and another collegue, Cheryl, were virtually pissing ourselves by this point - and it got worse when Richard got out a tube of superglue - and glued the bits of the pencil back together with a hurt look on his face. He didn't speak to Dave for a week after that.

It's now 8 years later, and whenever I meet up with Cheryl one of us always says 'do you remember the rubber pencil?' and the thought of Dave standing with his back to us furiously cutting the thing to pieces still makes us get the giggles.