Viagra and the bins

I was round at my friend Don’s for my weekly visit. We’d drunk our tea and chatted about the generalities of the week already. Then we settled down for our usual drinking routine, discussing various theories and events in our lives.

“I know you were involved with the manufacture of plastic kitchenware,” Don said, “but I don’t really know how you made the small fortune necessary to live in this area, from selling a few plastic bins?”

I grinned, “I’m rather like you in that I had a bit of help with my business! I remember your tale about Sheila the mermaid! I don’t suppose for one minute I’d have believed you but as we both know you produced said mermaid. My story is a bit different but even more unbelievable.”

Before I met you I was just a bloke living in a London suburb with an ordinary 9 to 5 job. However as I grew older I found that my wife and I needed the help of Viagra in our relationship. As you know she unfortunately died comparatively early, and at that point I gave up women altogether.

Don shifted in his seat and began to look embarrassed. “I don’t quite see where this is leading us, I only asked how you made your fortune?”

“Bear with me a bit, believe it or not my earlier use of Viagra is essential to the story.”

For a year I slowly descended into depression, before deciding to snap out of it and move around a bit. One of the things I had to do was clean up the house somewhat. After all you can’t have friends round to see you in a mucky environment. But I was unused to living as a single bloke and had a lot to learn about housework.

One of the things I had to do was clean up the kitchen. We’d only ever bought one waste disposal bin; I’d change the sacks every fortnight or so if it became really necessary but I have to admit it was getting pretty horrible. Anyway I cleaned round the house until at last I got as far as the bathroom. Tucked in a corner of the medical cabinet were the remains of my supply of Viagra, no more need for that, so I took it downstairs with the other rubbish and threw it in the bin.

The next day was bright and sunny so I went out into the garden and started working out there. Pruning the apple trees, mowing the grass, cutting back hedges, you know the sort of thing. Anyway by the time I’d finished I was too tired to go indoors and do any house work and went out to dinner to save on the cooking and washing up.

The next time I went into the kitchen there was a small 5Lr pedal bin standing next to the old 25 Litre job that had been there for years. ‘Strange,’ I thought, ‘I’m sure we never owned one of those!’

I gave the new bin no more thought and carried on with my work. This time I decided to do some decorating. I went all round the house accompanied by the smell of paint and it was a couple of weeks before I settled down long enough to relax and have a good look at my handiwork.

Small pedal bins were lined up alongside the one my wife had bought when we moved in all those years ago and the first one appeared to have grown to a 10 litre effort. So I made sure I closed the windows and locked the doors before going up to bed just in case someone was dumping them on me, but in the morning there was another 5lr bin lined up with the others. I didn’t know what to make of all this so I took all the small unwanted bins outside and put them in the shed.

The next morning I went down to the kitchen and there was a brand new 5Lr bin beside what I was now considering calling the parent bin. God only knew where the things were coming from; I certainly hadn’t been out to buy them! On a whim I went out to the shed to make sure the other bins I had thrown out were still OK. I was only just in time!

The wooden walls of the shed were beginning to bulge and as I opened the door there was a clatter as shiny new 25Lr bins fell out into the garden. The damn things appeared to be breeding like rabbits! Obviously I couldn’t throw them away and separating them from the bin in the kitchen hadn’t worked out. Dumping them in the countryside did occur to me but I was beginning to realise that wouldn’t be the answer.

I quickly looked up the theoretical breeding rate of a pair of rabbits. The answer was staggering! If my bins had suddenly started breeding as fast as rabbits there’d be 69 million in 5 years. Then a horrifying thought occurred to me, rabbits can start breeding as soon as they’ve had the last lot of young, my bins were breeding; if that’s the right word overnight. I began to feel ill; if I couldn’t stop my bins somehow the production rate would become increasingly more rapid and I’d be swamped by the blooming things. I don’t know where they came from but I could see from my calculations that there would have been a surplus of kitchen bins greater than the total human world population in very short order.”

Don was rolling about in his chair crying with laughter at this point in the story. “You do go on,” he said between gut wrenching sobs, the tears pouring down his face. “Wherever do you get your ideas from and even supposing I believe you whatever did you do next?”

I smiled back at him, “every word is true honestly, that’s how I made my fortune; selling the bins.” I started off using my shed for a week or two then selling them. Of course there were no production costs involved and I quickly undercut the existing retail market. I soon made a lot of money and bought an old farm which had been used for a battery chicken business. Moving my bins there I left them to get on with it by themselves and collected the results once a week. From then on production really took off and pretty soon I had cornered the world market in plastic rubbish bins.

That’s when I decided to stop production and came down here to live and the rest you know.”

Don was still laughing uncontrollably, and had arrived at the point where he’d given up trying to drink his beer. Every time he’d tried he started to choke. “You’re a right old sprucer aren’t you?” he said in betweens hiccups, “how on earth did you manage to sell them? If your story is correct they’d reproduce themselves with every customer and you’d be out of a job.”

“Oh I realised that before I began to sell them, there’s only one way to deal with a problem like that!”

“Go on then amaze me,” hiccupped Don.

“It was quite simple, they just had to be sterilised! Just a good soak in hot soapy water using the correct detergent and the job’s done. Admittedly this and shipping had become a cost by then, but it was a very small amount relative to the sale price and apart from yourself I’ve told nobody else how I got hold of the things.”

“I still think you’re pulling my leg,” replied Don.

“Well I know how to start them off again; if you like I’ll bring one over next week and let you find out for yourself.”

Don suddenly stopped his hysterics, and hesitated for a moment while he thought fully about it. Then he gave me a long careful look, probably while he thought about his fish mongering set up. “No I don’t think I’ll risk it thank you,” he said.

----O----

Author’s note; anybody who wants to prove the truth of this story for themselves can have a free bin. Personal callers only; allow one day for production before calling round to collect. For obvious reasons I can’t send you one of them through the post!