Trench Warfare!
Many years ago (age 10 or so) my friend and I were watching some old war films on a glorious summers day in the holidays, might've been All Quiet on the Western Front or somesuch. We took from this the idea that fighting in trenches was a Fun Thing To Do (we may have missed the point of that particular film).

So we were talking about how we could perhaps make our own trenches to fight in if we could find some shovels and somewhere to dig. My friend's father overheard us and announced that he thought that the trench warfare sounded like a Fun Thing To Do also, and, very kindly, offered us the use of his shovels.

'Where to dig though?' we asked, to which the father replied that he would let us dig in the far end of his garden, as he didn't use that part of the garden for anything.

Needless to say we were ecstatic, and happily dug out trenches at matey's father's direction. Our masterpiece of the sapper's art was completed after a few days, and we were all combat fatigued up and ready to fight. Matey's father pointed out that it was getting dark, and so playing there might be dangerous, suggesting to start the following day.

On our arrival the next day we were greeted by the sight of matey's father cheerfully filling the newly tarpaulin'd 'trench' with water from his hosepipe. "Cheers boys, why don't you go and play football down the park?"

If we had paid more attention to the war films we may have questioned him as to why he wanted the trench dug in a more circular shape, as looking back, his justification that "that's how they dug them during the first world war when they wanted extra protection" wasn't really watertight.

We went down the park to play football.
(ianfidel, Sun 19 Feb 2006, 16:07, Reply)