My sister will totally buy anything she’s told – by anyone. It’s not that she’s lacking in smarts, or even that she’s overly trusting. Her problem is that she has no sense of discernment, and no ear for people stretching the truth, no matter how blatantly. She’ll just take things at face value if she ‘thinks they sound right’, which leads to some ridiculous situations.
Case in point: she turned up at my house this morning with her car piled high with pineapples. Seriously, she had them stacked up to the ceiling. I haven’t had much practice in guessing numbers of pineapples by volume, but I was always pretty good at jelly bean guessing, and I’d estimate there were at least 150 pineapples there. I assumed that someone had roped her into making the world’s biggest bowl of punch as a world record attempt, but no, that wasn’t it.
According to my sister, the pineapples are now a permanent fixture in her car, at least until the electromagnetic field surrounding south eastern Melbourne clears. The pineapples, she says, are protecting the car’s auto electrical systems from interference, which would jeopardise her road safety. In fact, she claims, the cops are now doing random vehicle inspections within Ringwood to ensure that there’s a sufficient amount of fruit present to ward off electrical interference.
She went on to assure me that bananas would do the job if I couldn’t afford to buy a car load of pineapples. Humouring her, I told her that my car’s electronics were working fine, so I’d give this (frankly wasteful) application of fruit a miss. I also took the opportunity to point out that, as she still hadn’t gotten that brake pad replacement, Ringwood police should worry about that if they’re concerned about the safety of her vehicle.
She then launched into this whole tirade about how ‘they’ have ‘gotten to’ me already, implying that there’s some sort of conspiracy afoot and I’m part of the problem. Honestly… whatever. I’ve become so used to this sort of tripe from my sister that I just tune it out.