Month: April 2021

Ice cream

Dear Steven,

I had an ice cream today. I got one of those soft-serve things. You know the kind? Tall and beautiful. Looks like one of the turrets of a medieval French palace, if it had been made out of ice cream and not brick. So, I got one of those. And it was a cold day, so I knew I wouldn’t have any problem with it melting. It was -35℃ and blizzard conditions. The other people at the South Pole station wanted to know how I managed to get myself a soft-serve ice cream. I had to tell them that I’d ordered the machine on Amazon. Unfortunately, the south pole is one of the few places Amazon doesn’t deliver to, so I got the pilot that flies our supplies out every month to dump something else and bring it. I mean, what do you think people would rather have? An AED machine, or a soft-serve ice cream machine? Am I right or am I right? So, I made a glorious ice cream, sat on a chair and watched some penguins sliding around. But the ice cream was so cold it froze to my lips. I tried breathing on it, but the ice cream had frozen my mouth shut. I couldn’t call for help because the wind was too loud, and I couldn’t open my mouth anyway. I tried to get one of the penguins to sit on my face to melt the ice cream, but they didn’t want to. In the end, I had to go back in and sit next to the heater. The doctor thinks I might lose all of my fingers. He kept asking me why I hadn’t worn gloves. I told him that you can’t eat an ice cream with gloves on because it would make them all sticky. I don’t know how I’m going to use the soft-serve machine if I don’t have any fingers. Hmm. Or hold the ice cream cone! Maybe I could just flick the lever on with my head and then just let it pour into my mouth. I’ll let you know what I decide.

Your friend,

Kevin

Bags

Dear Steven.

I went to the shop today. I only wanted to buy a bag. I got to the cash desk and asked for the bag. And a very nice lady gave me a bag. It was beautiful. Had a ladybird on it. And then I asked for a bag to put the bag in. And she looked at me as though I was crazy. But, why is that crazy? If you buy anything else, you get s bag to put it in. So, why wouldn’t I get a bag for my bag? After about 30 seconds of staring at each other, she gave me a bag. And I put my bag in the bag. But then I realised the situation I had put myself in. Because now I had no bag to put my bag for my bag in. So I looked at her, and she looked at me, and I said, “can I have a bag to put my bag for my bag in?” She blinked slowly. And then she gave me a bag. Now I didn’t know what to do because I had a bag for my bag for my bag, but what did I put that in? So I said to her, “can I have a bag?” She looked at me. I looked at her. She reached under the counter for a bag. She started to slowly pull it out. The second it hit the counter, “can I have a bag?” Bang. “Can I have a bag?” Bang. “Can I have a bag?” Bang. “Can I have a bag?” Bang. “Can I have a bag?” Bang. “Can I have a bag?” Bang. It became a game. A challenge. A meeting of minds. Who would blink first? Well, she did. She ran out of bags. And I struggled home with my mountain of bags.

Your friend

Kevin

Time travel

Dear Steven,

Have you ever wanted to travel through time? I bet you have. I know I have. When would you go to? I have always wanted to go back to … ahem … that day. You know the one I’m talking about. If I could change that one day, maybe a lot of the other things that have happened in my life wouldn’t have happened. Who’s to say? Anyway, I can’t travel back in time. I don’t know how to. But, I have come up with a time machine that will let you travel into the future. Well, not any point in the future. It will only let you travel within your own lifetime. But, still, that’s pretty cool, right? I’m calling it the Disconbobulator. No, wait, my name’s not Bob. New name: the DisconKevinulator!! Oh yeah! It’s pretty simple to use. It looks very much like a standard stopwatch. (It’s not though!) You decide how far into the future you want to go, press start, and the DisconKevinulator takes you there. Say, for example, I want to go an hour into the future. I press start, and in exactly one hour, I have gone an hour into the future! I’m a genius! I am definitely getting the Nobel prize for this one. So far, I haven’t tested it on anything longer than a week, but it worked. I wanted to see what I was doing a week on Saturday. I pressed start, watched the little numbers whizz around, and there I was, one week on Saturday! This is an incredible invention. I will send you yours as soon as I can.

Your friend,

Kevin.