Steve and his Saw

THE TOTALLY POINTLESS TALES OF STEVE AND HIS SAW

Once upon a time there was a happy old man called Steve who lived in a little house with a lovely garden. He lived with his beautiful wife who he called "Little Missus" and his pet rabbit, "Custard".
When he was not tending to his garden or looking after his rabbit or eating Little Missus' delicious cooking, Steve would sing and dance and play his many strange  musical instruments.
One of his instruments was an old saw, which he played with a bow made from a coat hanger. It made a sound like a lady opera singer.
Steve would travel all over the country to perform his music in taverns and fayres.
And they all lived happily ever after
Until one day....

(1)   Attracted by the sound of Steve's music, a demon wriggled its way up from the lands below the Earth and popped out its head in the garden just as Steve was singing a song with his saw. Hearing the shrill tones of the saw it assumed that there must be a woman there as well, but he could see no one but Steve (for Little Missus had gone out shopping). "Old Man!" said the demon, "where is the lady who is singing so sweetly?" "Come closer and I will show you" said Steve. The demon knelt in front of Steve and his saw to take a better look, then turning the sharp side of the saw to the demon Steve quickly chopped off the demon's head.
The morale of this story is that even happy old men can sometimes have questionable morals. And what did he do with the demon's body? Don't worry about that because demons don't exist. You can't prove it in court. Steve filed all the teeth off his saw to destroy all evidence, which is why his saw became totally pointless. (Actually he put the decapitated demon in the compost heap).

(2)   Steve had a Japanese musical instrument which he called "Tadpole". Tadpole and Saw were Steve's favourite ways of making music. To get the different notes on the saw Steve had to bend it, but to make Tadpole play he just had to stroke it. One day he got mixed up and tried to play his saw by stroking it, which did no harm. However, he then tried to play Tadpole by bending it, and its back snapped. "Oh woe is me for Tadpole is broken and will not play!" Little Missus heard his laments and gave him this wise advice: "Buy another one".
So, he did and now he's a happy old man again. (The old broken Tadpole he threw on the compost heap).

(3)   Custard the rabbit ate lots of hay and green vegetables. He produced lots of poo which Steve collected and threw on the compost heap. What Steve threw on the compost took about two years to work its way from the top to the bottom, by which time it was all turmed into rich fertile soil which he used to grow vegetables. Little Missus would pick the food and cook lovely meals for Steve. One day whilst picking a cabbage she found a piece of the old broken Tadpole which had not turned to soil because it was made of plastic. She was so annoyed at Steve that he had not disposed of it properly that she picked Steve up and threw him on the compost heap.
Steve was still cheerful, however, because he had read all of the teachings of Epicurus and he knew how to be happy.

(4)   Steve used to play a guitar but he got a bit tired of carrying it about because it was such a big thing. So, he got a ukulele instead, then spent a few years trying to make it sound like a guitar. Someone asked him why he didn't just buy a small guitar because nowadays you can get them ukulele size. The reason why he had not done that was because he liked to do things in his own original way, but he didn't tell them that because he liked to keep his ideas close to his chest. He then dug out his old concertina and tried to play it like a guitar and he had more success with that.
The old guitar he threw on the compost heap, and he distinctly heard the demon say "ouch!"

(5)   Steve's home-made soil was legendary. All the neighbours wanted some of it to grow pretty flowers. The reason why it was so good was that it contained two magic ingredients, namely rabbit poo and bits of demon. Steve would gladly let them have a bag full for free, but he kept quiet about the demon. Soon, everyone in the village had demonic daisies adorning their houses. If you ever get an invite to a garden party in Steve's neighbourhood, it would be better to decline the offer.

(6)   Little Missus liked to sing and she had a lovely voice. One day she asked Steve whether he preferred her voice or the sound of his saw. Steve knew that a very diplomatic answer was called for, so he said:  "Why you, of course, my dear Little Missus". That was the first time he had ever been manually thrown onto a compost heap by a saw. Even the rabbit laughed.

(7)   In Steve's garden there were two statues which Steve had constructed from tin cans and Duck Tape. One was a man called "Heinz", the other a woman called "Helga". Heinz was so called because he was made mainly from baked beans tins. He called the woman Helga just because he liked the name. Whenever anyone visited and asked why he had these two tin people in his garden Steve would instantly make up a long and boring story of how they got to be there. They rarely asked him twice. If they did he would throw them on the compost heap.
Very few people visited Steve.

(8)   Steve's favourite colour was black. He only ever wore black clothes, he preferred black musical instruments and his Little Missus had beautiful raven hair. Custard the rabbit, however was golden brown with a white fluffy tail. Well, custard is normally that sort of colour isn't it? Even though the rabbit was not black Steve loved him because even though he was a goth Steve quite liked Steampunk and could tolerate a bit of brown.
The compost heap was mostly brown but the soil it produced was black. (Quite poetic really).

(9)   Steve liked to meditate twice per day. At the bottom of his garden was a special little meditation area which he had set up where he could sit on the ground and enter the deep recesses of his own mind. One day in the middle of his meditation he chanced to open his eyes and he saw a large grey rat sitting looking at him. It is true that rats carry disease, but they cannot help doing so any more than a human can help destroying the planet, so Steve just smiled at the rat and waved it away.
Steve was such an idiot sometimes.

(10)   Steve loved to eat Little Missus' cooking. She was an artist with a wok, and she was particularly adept at using very hot spices. He ate a big hearty meal four times per day, and because the food was of such good quality, Steve never put on any weight, but remained as the thin weedy little man that he had always been. However, the vegetables which went into the cooking were grown in the soil which was tainted with bits of demon, so Steve began to grow little horns coming out of the front of his bald head.
So that is why he always wore a hat (a black one, naturally).

(11)   In Steve's garden there was a large signpost at the centre of the lawn. It pointed to various places around the world and gave the distance in miles. However, some of the information was deliberately inaccurate. Steve had put it there to mislead any more demons which might pop their heads out of the ground. For example, if a demon decided to go to Whitby it would end up in the compost heap.

(12)  Steve had two sons who were just as handsome as their mother was beautiful. As soon as they were old enough, they both ran away to London. Can you blame them?