Pot Shards

I didn’t see it coming, although I should have. It has passed through my Facebook newsfeed enough times. How to get the police to dig a garden for you, or chop your firewood. This one’s with pot shards.

When Tim spots the pottery urns that Tyrone and Freddie have salvaged, he has an idea. They are props from a local production of Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata. Tim offers to buy one of the pots. Freddie breaks it so Tim gets it for 50 pence. Good deal for him, he wanted it broken anyway.

Sally has dreamed up a new project for Tim. He’d like a garden allotment, she has decided. She tells him he will enjoy it. Next year, she tells him, they both will enjoy picnics there with salads dug straight from the garden. He looks thrilled.

Bury it and they will dig it up

So he puts the pottery shards in the garden soil. I thought he was going to try to convince Sally that their allotment was the site of an ancient ruin, and therefore could not be dug up for vegetables. Sally might well for fall it, but it would be very cruel. She is, after all, a city councillor.

But Tim’s plan was simpler and less cruel, at least toward Sally. A call to the Weatherfield Amateur Archeologists Society. And presto! On Wednesday, a small army diligently dig up the entire garden plot.

The guy who was heading up the dig didn’t look too pleased when nothing of consequence was found. But perhaps he has learned a valuable lesson: check the “find” before wasting your time. Either the prop person at the theatre is extremely good at his or her job, or these archeology enthusiasts have not yet even reached amateur status.

I am glad the writers thought to throw the word “amateur” in, though. The scene might still have been funny, but it would have been way over the top unbelievable otherwise. Also very funny to see another version of the garden-digging or wood-chopping joke.