Hammer Time !

As usual so much going on I don't know where to start!  Matt arrived a week ago, my souvenir business is going berserk, there's a large snake living in the tool room, we have another dog moving in, Tony gave us an old bottle collection which turns out to be worth a MINT, local worker Kenny Cashem died and due to typical Meeka madness his coffin was buried while his body was forgotten at the morgue & not discovered until they came to pick up dead Edgar, the former town school principal has been put in jail for embezzling funds, I had to throw a truckie out of the roadhouse, a tornado ripped apart my pallet fence, and there is a foot-deep pile of vintage model airplanes sitting on the kitchen bench, I don't know why.

Gary's son Matt is terrific and has been working like a navvy almost literally since he got off the plane - he's already taken on most of Jo's cleaning contracts and is starting at the roadhouse in a couple of days, plus he & Gary are starting "Hammer & Son Mechanical" (the alternative name we like is "Old and Slow"). He absolutely loves Meeka and is always doing something helpful around the bush camp.

The whole town is in an uproar over the Empty Coffin scandal. It's SO Meeka. The family (aboriginal) wanted to do the body preparation & funeral service, which is perfectly legal, but naturally it was the usual disorganised mindless indigenous crap and of course they did all the body prep, then put the body back in the morgue drawer instead of the coffin and all wandered off to the pub or whatever instead of finishing up the paperwork etc with the hospital staff.

So then they come back in the morning to collect the coffin, with several people noticing that the coffin was rather light to carry ("Jeez it's not very heavy considering Kenny was a full grown large man ! Oh well - better not say anything") and someone else noticing that the coffin lid hadn't been screwed down ("I wonder why those screws are sticking out? Oh well, best not to say anything"), and they have an enormous funeral service with people from all over W.A.  Several days later, someone discovers Kenny's body still in the morgue drawer ("Eww!") and it makes the national news.

The hilarious thing about it is that, in life, Kenny was notorious for being late - and finally he was literally late for his own funeral! He would have died laughing.