Sir Lostalot

Saying for the day-Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet - Every rumor is believed when directed against the unfortunate (Syrus)

It’s time for another elf tale. You know the one’s that begin “ Once upon a time”.
Once upon a time, long ago, in the time of legends great and small there lived a knight named Sir Lostalot. Now Sir Lostalot was part of King Arthur’s Court but you probably never heard of him. He was one of the lesser knights. He never made it up to the round table. He was a knight of the square table or to be more exact, which they never are in stories like this, a knight of the rectangular table.
He always hoped that he would show himself to be worthy of the round table but he had one serious problem. Sir Lostalot got lost a lot. He would start out on a small crusade to save some damsel in distress and never find the place. It wasn’t all together his fault. On the two gold coins King Arthur paid him every month he couldn’t afford a card with the Association of Trolls and Telepaths. With that card all you had to do was go into any bar. Show the card to the troll tending bar. He would summon the telepath and you would receive excellent information. But the Association was expensive. The base cost was one gold coin and that only got you five minutes a month. Then there were all those extra charges like dragon connections, troll payoffs, special taxes so the actual cost was more like a gold coin and a half. There were of course other services that cost less but as the troubadours sang across the land the Association had more bars with trolls than any other group.
Alas none of that matters because Sir Lostalot had no cards and when he was lost he was lost. In every other way he was a good Knight. On his crusades he often stopped to drive out a local minor dragon that was bothering a village. He even chopped wood for old ladies. He was the essence of what a knight should be. All across the kingdom people sang his praises. He just never got to the damsel he was supposed to save.
One day while trying to find his way back from a mission to drive out an ugly ogre , which he never found, he was joined on the road by a short knight in green armor. The knight explained that he was an elf and that because of his good deeds Sir Lostalot was being given two wishes. These, however were restricted wishes. Each wish could ask for only one thing. You could wish for a million coins or a castle but you couldn’t wish for a castle and a million coins. If your wish did not fit the rule you would hear a voice that said” Invalid wish-Please try again!”
Well Sir Lostalot could have wished to be a Knight of the Round Table. But he would still have gotten lost a lot and brought disgrace on the table itself. So after much thought he simply wished that he would never get lost again. There was a flash of light and a voice said “ As you have wished so it shall be”.
After this Sir Lostalot completed all his missions on time and as directed. His fame grew and King Arthur granted him a trial membership as a knight of the round table.
His first assignment was to go with six of the other knights and slay a huge dragon that was eating tax paying members of the town of North Lumlan . Now one might have expected North Lumlan to be in the Northern part of the kingdom. But it really was in the south but it was North of South Lumlan which had no dragon.
With his new travel sense Sir Lostalot lead the knights directly to the dragon. It was ten times bigger than any of the small dragons he had fought but there were seven of them. So our brave knight raised his shield and approached the dragon. The dragon looked down on the puny knight and with one breath melted his shield. Sir Lostalot was not worried since he had six brave knight behind him and he knew they would shield him with their shields. He turned to look and saw all six of them racing away as fast as they could run. It was now to late for him to run. It looked like he was dragon fodder. The dragon was building up his fire for the next blast and then Sir Lostalot knew his armor would melt with the next blast and he would be toasted dragon lunch. So he did what the dragon could not expect . Instead of running away he charged the dragon waving his sword. The dragon, surprised moved back slightly but Sir Lostalot ran around the dragon and climbed on his back. He intended to cut the dragon’s head off. But he was too far back and his sword clanked on the iron like skin of the dragon. That’s when the dragon began to jump and Sir Lostalot lost his sword. Now he needed both hands just to hang on. He pushed the toes of his boots under the folds of skin and held on as if his life depended on it, which of course it did. The dragon leaped and shook and tried everything it could think of to get rid of Lostalot to no avail. Then suddenly the dragon took to the air. Now it did swoops and dive and dives and swoops. It flew upside down. But Sir Lostalot hung on. Finally the dragon settled down and started flying in a direct line. Sir Lostalot knew it was going home. He was afraid there would be other dragons there and then his goose was cooked so to speak.
It was then he remembered the other wish. The problem now is what should he wish for? He could wish the dragon dead but then he would plunge to the ocean below and drown. He could wish himself back to King Arthur's Court but then the dragon would go on eating people. No self respecting knight could allow that. He didn’t have the luxury to spend time thinking of what to do.
What should he wish for?
To be continued next Thursday.

A- My Grandson Alexander



#### News from Pigeon Falls-The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal. Our dragon still hasn’t returned but the people coming in on the milk train swear they saw a six foot white rabbit with a pink sweater that smiled and waved at them out at Miller’s crossing. That might be construed as a sure sign that Winter is over.
The two stores brought the “I saw the White Rabbit” merchandise out from the storeroom. There are cups and sweaters and even a plastic fly swatter. They are hopping for lots of viewing this summer.
Mrs. Trumble said she is thinking of inviting Elmer H. Fudd ,the world renowned rabbit hunter , to come and catch that rabbit. She thinks it is time to put an end to all this nonsense. She knows that hiding behind that nice smile and cute wave is a demon just waiting to destroy them all.
Nancy says people are still disturbed by Petrovich’s latest driblet. They wonder why he doesn’t have the revised version on his website yet. Some think it’s because the new version is so horrible and the end of the town so sure that Petrovich just can’t bring himself to publish it. When they lack information people tend to draw the worst possible conclusions.
Speaking of people who jump to bad conclusions Abby Moralt was in to the clinic again today. She heard another set of symptoms on TV and is sure she has that disease. She can’t understand why the P.A. won’t give her the drug the TV announcer said she really needs. Old Doc Simpson always did. What she doesn’t know is that Old Doc Simpson kept a supply of sugar pills just for her. The P.A .will learn
*****

Today's Link- A Little Off Kilter- Some great advice and a quick tour. It will leave you hungry.
A very busy day. In the morning we got the eBay package ready to go. Then Betty and I took it to the Post Office. Then we went to Culver's for lunch. After that we went shopping for a birthday gift for Luke. We celebrate his birthday this weekend. Then I did some reflecting and reading. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA
Today's flowers. It is spring.