| A most humorous experience occurred while I was companions with Elder Scott Cunningham. We were opening up Hsin Ying together. He had this annoying habit of leading the way on his bicycle and then without warning, just as we'd almost passed it, veering down an intersecting lane -- leaving me heading off in one direction while he was speeding away, laughing, down the other. I always had to crank my behemoth bicycle around and race to catch up with him.
I decided that I was going to stay with him the next time this happened, and add a little surprise of my own. So -- we were cruising down a Hsin Ying street when suddenly Elder Cunningham swung off down an intersecting lane. This time I was ready. I swerved in right behind him and gave the back of his bicycle a shove with my foot.
Unfortunately I shoved a bit too hard and his bicycle began to topple. Down it went -- fortunately he rolled off without harm, in true Marine style. Unfortunately he rolled right over into a binjo ditch -- feet first. There he was, standing waist deep in the middle of it looking at me like, "Companion -- what in the world were you trying to do?"
Well, he started to climb out when he realized that he only had one shoe on. The other must be at the bottom of the ditch. He muttered, "I can't believe this," and started to reach down into the murky water. The further down he reached, the higher up on his body the water came. It was hilarious. He had to reach down so far that his head was actually resting sideways on top of the water with one ear and half his head in the water (struggling to keep his mouth and nose out of it) while he groped around in the muck for his shoe.
Finally he said, "Got it!!" and he stood upright holding his shoe. Well, he thought it was his shoe -- when he looked at it he realized it was a girl’s pink tennis shoe. Just then we looked over near where his bicycle lay and there on the ground, next to the bicycle, was his other shoe. We always had a habit of keeping our shoelaces untied so that it was easier to slip them off when we went into someone’s home. His shoe had fallen off as he rolled off the bicycle.
We both laughed so hard that the tears came. He crawled out of the ditch and we rode home for a shower and change of clothes. He was a very good sport about it -- and continued to play his little games of "ditch" as long as we were companions. |
