Raven's Challenge 87

It is Saturday and time to play with words supplied by Raven's Wordzzle
This Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: plumber, autograph, Florence Nightengale, a chill wind’s a blowing, watering hole, sleek, triplets, backwards, surface tension, parrot
And for the mini: Free estimates,French fries, carpet, Braille, silver-tongued bandit

The Mega Challenge as
The Ongoing Adventures of Agent 012

It has been a hard week for Agent 012. He has been to a small town in Michigan called Pigeon Falls where he was just hours behind the international terrorist Haz-mat. There some lady named Nancy wanted him to stay while she printed out his picture and had him autograph it. She had never seen a green man before.
Then he was in New Jersey where it was discovered that shortly before he arrived Haz-mat had purchased a number of small pipe sections just right for pipe bombs. In the shop a parrot kept saying “ a chill wind’s a blowing over the old watering hole.” The constant repetition made him nervous.
A matchbook left at the plumber's shop offering free estimates on carpets took him to the Florence Nightengale carpet shop. There the owner Augustus Braille told him that Haz-mat had purchased a small length of sleek carpet.
He gave him a real buy on it because the weave was backwards. It meant the surface tension on the rug would attract dirt instead of repel it. But Haz-mat didn’t seem to care.
After the carpet shop he took a break at the Silver Tongued Bandit Restaurant and had a hamburger and French Fries. He called home and found out his sister had delivered triplets. He certainly didn’t expect that.
But now he had to face the fact that there was terrorist with all the supplies he needed to make a number of pipe bombs. This was getting scary.
At that point he got a call saying that Haz-mat’s car had been sighted in front of the Almost True Hardware Store.
“Timers”, Agent 012 thought.” He still needs timers.”
This did not look like a good day for our somewhat green agent.

The ten word challenge-Cabin Delivery ?

Lilly watched the bug walk backwards on the water. She had read somewhere that it was surface tension that made the bug’s walking like that possible. Henry Plumber said “ Wrap yourself in a blanket dear a chill wind’s a blowing.” She didn’t want a blanket she wanted Florence Nightengale to come and hold her hand while she had the baby.
This was the last place in the world she wanted to be when the baby came. At least she wasn’t having triplets like her sister.
If only she hadn’t pushed Henry to take her to Mudville to get that autograph of Fransico Parrot. It sure didn’t seem important now. Then she let Henry talk her into stopping at the cabin by the watering hole to make sure it was ready for deer season. Who could have known the car would get stuck and strand them there? He had, of course, left his sleek new mobile phone at home which left no way to call for help.
Henry settled her in the one big soft chair and covered her with his warmest blanket. Then he made a roaring fire in the big old wood stove. When it was really burning well he threw in a couple of logs that looked pretty wet and closed the stove door. Then he went outside and she heard him climbing on the roof. About a half hour later he came back into the cabin smiling and about a half hour after that the rangers came.
“Yep!, I still know Morse code “, he said.

The mini challenge- Silver Tongue Indeed

Paul Plumber was often called the silver-tongued bandit because of his ability to get ridiculous amounts for the stuff he sold at his store “ Everything and the Kitchen Sink”. For example he sold a wooden plate of wooden French fries, each one hand painted, for $ 80. And he sold a worn welcome carpet that said “ WELCOME we give FREE ESTIMATES for $ 159. But perhaps the best example of his ability is his selling a pile of Braille books to a gentleman who couldn’t read Braille and wasn’t blind. He got $205.10 for the pile. He convinced the man, a Doctor that he should put them in his waiting room as a service to his blind patients.
Paul always greeted new customers with the of the story of his birth , only slightly embellished. It seems he was born in a cabin in the far North. His parents were trapped there by a blizzard. When the blizzard ended his father climbed up on the roof of the cabin and using his jacket to cover and uncover the stove pipe sent an SOS that was read by the Ranger Station. The Ranger came through the snow with a dog sled and arrived just in time to deliver the baby. His mother said that just as his head came into sight the sun broke through the clouds and a ray of light like a halo shown upon his head. She knew right then he was blessed by God so she called him Paul after the great apostle.
The story was only slightly embellished if you ignore the fact that his birth certificate says he was born in the Mudville hospital with Dr. Raymond Pullman in attendance.

Of course the dragons were busy today you can see them HERE.