Joe was old.
Joe was the kind of old where he used a cane and drank prune juice.
His great granddaughter was his favorite and she sat on the corner of his bed. He was telling her the story that he told every single time she sat on his bed. It started out in the same way every time. "When I was in the war, I sustained an injury that caused me to forget a lot of things, so it's not because I'm old."
"I know G."
"Yeah well, when I was a pilot I flew a lot of missions."
"What kind of missions?" His great granddaughter asked this question every day, every day knowing the answer.
"Well, the mission that sticks out to me the most started out like every other mission. I took off from the base in Florida and started patrolling the coast. I was flying so low I could see all the fat tourists bathing on the shore. When suddenly, I looked down to see a shark!"
His granddaughter leaned forward, "How big was the shark?"
Joe stretched his arms as wide as they could go, "Ten times how big my wingspan is! Anyway, I noticed a family of tourists just five feet away from this monster, so I started frantically waving my arms and flying in circles above them. They didn't notice the shark! All those people did was wave back at me!"
"Wow. I can't believe they wouldn't get out of the water."
Joe grinned and nodded. This was the part of the story that he forgot. It was decided at one time that Joe should be stopped at that point of the story. He would get so worked up over those, "idiot tourists," that he wouldn't be settled for hours.
Joe leaned back in his recliner, smiled, and fell asleep. During his fifth nap all he could dream about was dropping bombs on sharks.
