It is Boxing Day
and i head down to the local park with my son and his new Chrimbo present, an Airhog. An Airhog is basically a small plane that you pump up with air pressure and then throw. It has the capacity to fly for quite a while, and for quite a distance if the wind is favorable.

So, we head to the middle of the football pitches, away from building, trees, bandstands, anything that might provide elevated lodgings for the shiny new gift. After a few reasonably abortive take offs, we decide to have 'one more' shot..So i pump the thing up till it canny take it anymore....disconnect the pump, and prepare for take off. My sons cherub like face, ruddy cheeked in the December cold, looking on gleefully. However his attention keeps drifting towards another group of folk who have an ACTUAL remote control plane, that is swooping and banking like a balsa wood fighter plane. It eventually banks onto the top of the school roof just opposite. I couldn't help but stifle a cheeky yuletide snigger....but i had more pressing thoughts on my mind.....

I throw, the wind catches it and it flies, and flies, and flies and flies, about 200 yards away and into the upper boughs of quite possibly the tallest tree in the park.

Fucksocks.

We race over, hoping it has somehow fallen down and will now be smiling at us from the grass.. Nope. It was higher than i could possibly fear. Almost out of reach of any hand propelled missile, and certainly out of climbing reach. My sons face is now cast down, the cherubness almost gone.

Fear not i think, if there is a will there is a way.

I go home, get a load of 'long things' and head back to the tree to tape them up and attempt a rescue. the long thing experiment is an abject failure, as none of them are rigid enough to stay straight. It was simply pathetic. I can feel the menace and mocking of the tree as it glares its non-leafy glare right back at me. It is now getting dark, and colder. So, we head back to the car and it is then i realise i have lost my wallet, it must have fallen out of my pocket during the failed rescue mission.

Jesus CHRIST.

There is only one way out of this, yes, I decide to drive onto the grass and use the headlights to search for the wallet. Getting on to the grass was no problem, finding the wallet proved even easier. Getting back off of the grass was a lot more difficult. No, not more difficult. Fucking impossible. My son is in the car and at this point begins to get a little scared of our now, immobile, predicament. The car is stuck fast in the festive mud and i can now actually hear the tree laughing, calling me a cunt and if it could have, it would have pished all over me.

I am standing outside the car when 2 guys, the only folk left in this now darkened park, walk towards us, clutching their remote control plane..Yes, the very people i silently called a bunch of cunts earlier. The check out my situation and after a few sniggers decide to help me out. No amount of pushing or revving is helping, so one of them jumps in his car and heads off to get a few planks of wood.

He returns, and we get to work, extricating the car from the mud which is now freezing around the wheels. All of us are head to toe in mud when the car eventually fondles the tarmac again. and i mean completely boggin. After a few handshakes and my constant thanks they head off into the night, to presumably get cleaned up..One of the chaps had his brand new Xmas trainers on, which were now a mass of claggered mud and filth. I could offer no monetary thanks, or even 'a bit fer a few joints'. I had nothing to give these guys in return other than my thanks and a promise to be as selfless at some point in the future and allow this chain of goodwill to continue. They stopped their festiveness, to get completely filthy and cold just to help me out, a stupid bastard with little or no sense.....it seriously restored my faith in humanity

My chest swelled with pride as i now regarded my fellow man with esteem and respect, this truly was an act of festive kindness. My pride soon evaporated when i got home and faced 'teh wife' however, who was now late to meet her pal, and had to get into a car that was covered in mud.

As for the Airhog, well, the tree had a few barbs still to stab us with. My father in law goes down a few days later, armed with a length of washing line and a brass pipe joint that was very heavy. He cowboys the brass lump high into the tree and it catches...He then shakes and pulls, hoping to dislodge the errant spitfire from its position. He tries to pull the brass back out, but the tree has it in its grasp, so he pulls harder. The washing line is getting tighter and taughter, and the tree lets go, sending the huge brass nugget directly towards him at a 1,000mph. Luckily he dived for cover and it missed him by inches.

I try a similar method a few days later, and am eventually successful. I never fly an Airhog again...ever

...a few years later i am in another park and see a group of folk pointing up into a tree, at an Airhog.....I laugh and keep walking... Although i cant help thinking i should have went over and told them to forget about it, its lost, and to save any heartache they should just go home now, before it starts all over again.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 9:50, 2 replies)

You laugh and keep walking?
Erm... this kind of ruins the entire point, doesn't it?
(Sloppy Giuseppe, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 11:16, closed)

erm no...
...as the 'airhog in tree' predicament is one that can only bring sorrow, and is best avoided. If i was to have gotten involved, it would have been to tell them to forget all about the airhog and to go home to their loved ones before it was too late.

The people in my story never helped me get the plane back...they helped get the car out of the mud....and if the people that saw had their car stuck in the mud i would have surely helped.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 11:53, closed)