(prompt: ' hunger' - 14/2/2020)

It all began in the late afternoon of the night of the 'incident', when an erstwhile young Romeo thought to take the love of his life (for that weekend) for a spin along the suburban beaches of Adelaide, South Australia.

Unfortunately, the best made plans fell apart when his beloved little 'pregnant pastie', his Volkswagen, became irretrievably bogged.

Later, finally back at home again, feeling desperately sorry for himself (especially after his Dad gave him a tongue-lashing of monumental proportions), our hero (?), Kanute, received a call from the tow-truck 'wannabe' rescuers. His hunger for the delicious meal his dear old Mum set before him disappeared in a humongous gulp as he heard the latest episode in the sorry saga.

"Bad news, Mr. Larsen. The tide's too high for us to get anywhere near her any more. Have to wait some hours for low tide. Should get her then."

At midnight, another call -

"Worse news, Mr. Larsen. Hate to tell you... but she's gone. High tide's taken her out to sea. She'd have sunk, I guess. No way of knowing where she might be. Sorry mate."

Ohh NO! Now ALL was truly lost. Or was it?

Luckily, all the stress and strain of the day and night (and his youth) saw Kanute able to sleep again that night... somehow able to convince himself it was all a nightmare and he'd wake in the morning to find all was well. But no... and all became much less 'well' when his Dad had to drive him to work.

Next came the call to our office when he was in a meeting - and my involvement (as per part one of this story) began.

Totally intrigued, and smelling a great opportunity, a keen photographer friend (and Manager of our Building Department at his work) took our hero (?) to the site, and with the help of some friendly policemen heaped seaweed around the 'bug' to feature a great photo shoot.

By next day the story was in 'The Advertiser', Adelaide's morning newspaper - and the day after, a cartoon with a man floating out at sea with a fishing line hanging out the window of a VW, calling out to a passing cruise liner, "G'dday. Got any bait?"

Soon after, the 'seaweed' photo featured in a full-page newspaper advertisement by Volkswagen Australia, expounding the new-found virtues of a VeeDub - on the off-chance of being caught in an embarrassing situation.

There were a couple of likely lads who saw this as a potential money-maker or attention-getter - either would do. Sadly for them, they hadn't realised that salt water entering the engine through the exhaust pipe tends to wreck the engine... forever.

Thanks to them, the now 'Old McLarsen' of many of my tales - Kanute - still chuckles after all these years, saying, "It's the ONLY car I EVER made money on." (having been paid handsomely for the advert.) And then sometimes, to his peril, adds, "... and the dolly-bird wasn't too bad either, as I recall!"

And then he runs like hell.