HowLove Was Invented

HOW LOVE WAS INVENTED
(Narrator is dressed in a leather apron, sitting on a lathe in a woodworking shop)
Narrator:	(obsequious and patronizing) Hello children. It's story time, and today's story is called "How Love Was Invented," though I immediately feel moribund.
God Someone:	That's a big word Bruce.	Home
Narrator:	Never used it before . . sounds like a dirty head bandage from a small island off Fremantle.	Songs
Goddess Something:	I think he means cummerbund!	Poems
Narrator:	Anyway, I sometimes imagine your prototype Love. (Climbs to top of ladder) This is no Ladies Hand Genn'lmenn, pree-sen-ting . . . oh no no no no no (descends from ladder). Self effacing, good clean hardwood, fitted together by the great god thumb in her very first woodwork class. Goddess thumb.	WORDS Contents
He gestures to the door and Goddess thumb enters. She is wearing black fishnet tights, high heels, micro mini black waitress dress with white doily front, and a little white cap on the front of her head. She speaks like the usual dumb TV hostess on game shows, and is cradling a white plastic bucket in her arms. She demonstrates her humility by not using a capital T in her name.
thumb:	Yes, Bruce. Here we have a slightly self-righteous but generally humble, totally acceptable, white anglo-saxon protestant, or WASP Love. A beautiful gift version of my original Olde Oaken Love.
Narrator:	Thankyou, Goddess thumb. (She looks proudly at it like a first grandchild) Well, obviously an invention like that did not go unnoticed. (pause - nothing happens) Well, obviously (looks at door) an invention like that did not go unnoticed. (4 seconds silence - he moves towards door and shouts) AN INVENTION LIKE THAT DID NOT GO UNNOTICED!
He yanks open the door, which falls off its hinges, to find God Someone and Goddess Something kissing passionately. They go straight into the room, and the script, as if nothing has happened.
Something:	Ooh! Did you invent that all by yourself?
Someone:	Aren't you clever!
thumb:	Look, you can put things in it.
Something & Someone:	Gasp! It turns upside down.
Narrator:	Everyone went off and invented something just to keep up with thumb.
Something & Someone:	(muttering) What can I invent? Soap on a rope? etc
Narrator:	What can I invent was the question on everyone's slate tablets, which had already been invented. It didn't take thumb long to realize she had something good on her hand, and before you could say "word processor", the pragmatic little buggers were dozing all over the landscapes of a hundred worlds. Just then, the Great God Someone got a GOOD IDEA.
Someone:	Pencils (he thundered).
Narrator: (aside)	Lightning . . .
Someone: (impressed)	oooooo . . . um . . . big sky . . . clouds . . . (gets more enthusiastic - if possible) wet earth . . .big flash . . .BANG!!
Narrator:	So in one swell foop he invented balls, forks, sheets, electricity, Benjamin Franklin and eventually digital watches, and he called it
Someone:	Light - ning
Narrator:	What a bloody
Someone:	BANG
Narrator:	show off. Just like a man!
The scene changes to an artist's studio, which will do for the Patents Office as well. After all, how many people know what the inside of a Patents Office looks like?
Narrator:	Meanwhile, Goddess Something was sitting on her dirty little lake in a tatty cardboard replica halfshell, with Italian artists all washing their paintbrushes in the water. And how did she know they were Italian?
Something:	Because I was in Italy shutuppa your stupida face. (Looks at camera/audience - whichever is larger) I have invented a crazy collection of social games, wherein people are attracted to each other for various reasons, for various lengths of time, to do various things with each other. Ahh! What will I call it?
Narrator:	So she turned on the telepathy and listened in as Goddess thumb and the prolific God Someone walked through the forest . . . of concrete pillars surrounding the above mentioned Italianate Lake.
thumb:	The shape of the thing is just like the name of the thing . . . LOVE.
Narrator:	And heaving a self satisfied sigh, which bought her lots of bad karma, she went off to do good works., But . . . the prolific God Someone had had another GOOD IDEA!
Someone:	Hey! I've just had this fantastic idea. Who wants to come?
Something:	I'll come. What's your idea?
Someone:	It's called a Patents Office.
Something: (puzzled)	What's a Patents Office?
Someone:	(patiently, at his most unctious) A Patents Office is a building where I keep a legalistic system to register trademarks, company logos and inventions and what they're called.
Something: (shrewdly)	Hmmm! How does it work?
Someone: (quickly)	Just sign here . . .
Narrator:	So Something stole thumbs word for the thing, and registered her funny collection of games as "Love". Then Goddess thumb (who is so humble that she never ever uses capitals for her name) heard about the Patents Office.
thumb:	(who absolutely insists on being so humble that she refuses to allow anyone else to use them for her name either) Is this the Patents Office? (she is still clutching her beloved invention)
Someone: (smugly)	Yep! Sure is.
thumb:	Well I have an invention. Can I register it here?
Someone:	Yep! Sure can. (patronising) Whad d'ya want to call it, little goddess?
thumb:	(exhuberant as ever, in spite of this M.C.P.) It's called (sigh) LOVE.
Someone:	Oh . .er . .sorry love, but Love's off!
thumb:	Well what can I call it then? (her grammar always slipped under stress). I've always called it Love.
Someone:	(consults computer - don't ask) er . . . Buckets hasn't been used yet.
thumb:(in disbelief)	Buckets?
Someone:	Buckets.
thumb:	It's got a bit of a hollow ring to it, don't you think?
Narrator:	But thumb, if I may be so familiar, had to settle for the only word left, which was buckets, and children, to this day Buckets are charitable, faithful, honest, open, easy to hold and understand, and have a certain individual beauty of design. What would we do without them? And children, to this day . . to this day, Love tends to pour you into itself and then TIP you out. The Great Cosmic Patents Office in the sky Must know a lot more about these things than I, but I do know that ever since that day we have lost the ability to fit a bucket together with our own thumbs, and have to but them from the supermarket, just down the aisle from knife substitutes, but that's a different song. Supermarkets make me feel moribund . . . !
BUCKETS
Dedicated to Bill Mollison, June 1980, who looked puzzled when I told him, but where would Permaculture be without buckets?
Chorus:	Buckets, buckets, buckets. I love buckets. Little yellow plastic ones. Tin ones short and tall. Some of them are rusty. Some of them are stupid, But all of them are loving, and I love 'em all.
Now if you buy a bucket, you should treat it with great care, Just like a fancy teacup or a bowl. In the bathroom, in the bedroom, any time or anywhere, It will give you better service if it doesn't have a hole. . . . . . Chorus:
If you need a friend to help you in the middle of the night, Because you've made a mess on the floor, Well a bucket's not a bigot. Be it wine or Vegemite, Your loving little bucket will help you for sure. . . . . . . . . . . Chorus:
Some folk say it's raining buckets, and they moan buckets of gloom, And the loser gets a bucketing I'm told. But for such nasty little rumours I haven't any room For at the end of every rainbow there's a bucket full of gold.
Final chorus:	Buckets, buckets, buckets. I love buckets, Little yellow plastic ones, tin ones short and tall. Some of them are rustic. Some of them are stupid, But all of them are friendable, thoroughly dependable, Not at all expendable, tin or plastic mendable, Some are straight, some bendable, And I love them all. If you haven't got a gumboot, And you haven't bought a bucket, Better sharpen up your shovel OR YOU MIGHT STARVE!
There's a good range of BUCKET SUBSTITUTES too. There's a pail for every purpose. With a little bit of luck it will fit into a bucket
The New Clear Age will create a compost bucket in EVERY home. That's another 40 million buckets sold worldwide. Next year folks, a proper compost bucket for the kitchen or office - a Soil Recycler. And the year after that . . . ah . . . the word of our lifetime, the word which has given direction to countless souls willing to make a buck, or a bucket, any way at all . . . "DISPOSABLE" Wow! Megabuckets!