Rock, Rock, Rock Your Boat

By Eddie G.

Let me tell you a story. A story about 3 dolts on a boat. A story about 3 dolts on a boat that was cast out to sea. A story about 3 dolts on a boat that was cast out to sea on dark stormy day. This is the story of Everybody, Somebody and Nobody. It's not anything important. Your existence probably wouldn't be affected if you didn't read this story, but chances are you'd probably spend the remainder of it wondering what the hell I could have written about, despite even knowing that it would probably waste 5 minutes of your life.

It's never easy when you're out at sea in a dinghy little boat with two other idiots who, for a lack of a metaphoric allusion, probably don't have both oars in the water. The last time I pictured a scene of similar nature, it was when I was five and was introduced to the nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub, Three Men in a Tub. Surprising, really, that Society gets so surprised when these children grow up to be so fucked up after listening to little ditties like these. And don't get me started on Ding Dong Bell, Pussy In The Well. We all know it's bound to get wet at some stage, but shouldn't they at least give us a chance to go through puberty first?

But anyway, back to Everybody, Somebody and Nobody. The first thing that one should realize about being on a boat is that it is liable to capsize at any point. This of course is worrying for our three friends because experts have managed to prove that the probality of a boat capsizing is usually inversely proportionate to that of the intelligence of its occupants.

To make matters worse, Everybody had a sickening habit of splitting everything into three equal parts. And I mean everything, from food to lodging, to even a piece of mint-flavoured dental floss. This would of course explain why their drab little excuse of a boat hardly got anywhere seeing as to how it only had two oars. Nobody knew that it was going to be a bad idea, and Somebody was urged to voice his suspicions, but he couldn't be bothered to.

Now of course, what one would quickly begin to realize when on a boat (especially one that had both its oars divided into three equal parts) all alone out at sea, chances are the basest of human needs like food, drink and sanity run out much quicker than what one would normally hope for. In the first ever occurance of an event similar in nature gave birth to the term of "rationing", a term which was coined about 5 minutes before "international waters" and "laws of Ochenga-Wanga not applicable here, Paleface!" were.

So imagine the sheer delight on Everybody's face when Somebody found a can of beans stashed away in a god-forsaken corner of the boat. Nobody stopped to question why it always has to be a can of beans. Always. You never see disgruntled castaways trying to open oh say, a bucket of Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken and a 1.5-litre bottle of Diet Coke. Noooo, it has to be a can of beans. Why? Because it's genre, and as we all learn in Authorship and Writing, Nobody fucks around with genre. Nobody.

After congratulating their good fortune for a good ten minutes, there was now the issue of actually opening the bloody can.

Everybody was aware of the laws of physics, so he said, "Why don't we bang the can on the side of our boat until it opens?"

So they tried, and gave up after ten minutes.

Somebody, who was a chemist, suggested, "Why don't we put salt water on the lid and let the sun corrode its molecular structure?"

So they tried, and gave up after five.

Nobody wanted to be an economist, so he announced, "Unlike you two, I have the solution to our problem."

"Let's hear it."

"Okay. Let us assume we have a can opener."

Nobody's dinner was rich in iron that night; and that wasn't a metaphor.