Wednesday 18 April 2018

Service for the Installation of a New Photocopier

Archdruid: OK lads bring it in.

Barry Chuckle: To me.

Paul Chuckle: To you.

Barry Chuckle: To me.

Archdruid: We thank the God who has delivered unto us this shiny new photocopier. And yet, like unto the Good News which lay hidden for many a generation hid in God's foreknowledge, it is still under wraps. Therefore by the power vested in me I ask the Wrappers and Unwrappers to remove the packaging.

Wrappers and Unwrappers: Behold! For we have with us the sacred Wrapping and Unwrapping Tools, with which shall we reveal the glories of the new photocopier.

Archdruid: Do you bear in your hands scissors and pen-knives?

Wrappers and Unwrappers: Indeedy Doody!

Archdruid: Then take them from hence and deposit them in an dark place. For does it not say on the bubble wrap, "Do not use sharp objects with which to use this bubbly bubble wrap?"

Wrappers and Unwrappers: Then shall we take away these steely devices and return with the plastic shrink-wrap safety cutters.

Hymn: I Want to Be Like Jesus Christ

*** 3 hours later ***

Archdruid: Behold! For the photocopier is revealed in all its glory!

Millennials: That printer hasn't got a USB port!

People Who Remember the War: Where do you put the powder in that washing machine?

Archdruid: People of Husborne Crawley, and you who live in the Great House, this is neither a printer nor is it a washing machine. For it is a photocopier! Behold, will it not both view the image of an sheet of paper, and also print off a very facsimile of that sheet - even unto many?

Millennials: So like a scanner printer, but without a USB port?

Archdruid: Yeah, but it does A3 as well...

People Who Remember the War: Which side is the drier?

Archdruid: OK. Load up the toner, Hnaef, and let's get this baby running!

Hymn: The toner's black, the paper's white (or any other colour you choose) 

*** 3 hours later ***

Archdruid: And now before we make the first copy, the most important ritual of all on a photocopier.

All: Sprinkling with blessed water?

Archdruid: Nah. Exorcism.

Drayton Parslow May Rush In

Drayton: A Photocopier? This is going to need a lot of exorcising. Therefore I cast out the demon that makes the paper get stuck in damp weather, and the one that crunkles the paper up on the drum, and the one that makes the ink smudge, and the one that makes you accidentally photocopy the blank glass because you forgot to put the paper in, and the one that makes you photocopy portrait on landscape, and the one where it breaks ten minutes before an important service when you have not prepared the service sheet in time, and the.....

*** 3 hours later ***

Archdruid: Let us pray. May the copier light ever shine, and the toner always be crisp. The reproduction perfect, and not as dodgy as an analogy with a photocopier on Trinity Sunday which you never think you're going to get away with, do you Hnaef?

Hnaef: I'll delete it immediately.

Charlii: Does it separate separate copies of a document so they're ready to staple?

Young Keith: Oh yeah. This is an installation and collation*.

Archdruid: OK let's get going.  I've a lovely page of the Methodist Hymn Book to put through it, my favourite hymn, "And Can it Be", and.... hang on, what's that in the catch tray?

All: It's.... a photocopy of someone's bottom.

Burton: I'm sorry! I snuck in last night after the Train Spotters' Monthly Real Ale Night, and saw it, and just couldn't....

Archdruid: OK Drayton. You'd better do some more exorcising.  A gallon of mind bleach ain't gonna get that out.

*** 3 hours later ***

Archdruid: Go into the world, to make perfect copies of disciples.

All: And not of Burton's bottom.


* Anglican joke



Want to support this blog?
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.

From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

No comments :

Post a Comment

Drop a thoughtful pebble in the comments bowl